YouTube, the IDF and the truth

YouTube is at it again, or something.

We’ve blogged before and even taken to the airwaves to discuss the political abuse of YouTube’s terms of use, the copyright laws and the trademark laws.  YouTube seems to have a great deal of tolerance for pretextual use of supposedly content neutral rule systems that just happen to slow down video messages that emanate from the right.

Now the story i’s alleged “terms of use” violations and unilateral takedowns of videos being posted by the Israel Defense Forces, as reported by Confederate Yankee (via Instapundit).  These takedowns are ultimately reviewed, but the fact that you can easily get a video out of a circulation or erect speedbumps when a story is hot and the spin cycle is on high suggests a system that is less than ideal.

While the reports of these abuses tend to trend in one direction, the Left has its problems with it, too, as do others with well-identified enemies — as well as Nazis and other tin-hatted types we won’t link to here.

We wrote a long time ago that YouTube isn’t a utility, much less the government, and it has a lot of tightropes to walk.  So of course it can’t make everyone happy all the time.  Do its present policies and procedures make the most sense from its point of view?  Maybe.  Do they maximize the use of YouTube as a dominant channel in a particular medium?  That’s a separate question, and while neither YouTube’s management nor its stockholders need to answer to us for it, we’re certainly entitled to knock it around.

Originally posted 2011-12-12 10:12:47. Republished by Blog Post Promoter