Sunday, November 20, 2011

Irony alert: Citing “privacy concerns,” YouTube threatens removal of my “Occupy Denver” video shot at BlogCon11

Logic: You block my camera = violating my rights. I block your camera = protecting my rights

THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!

A brief re-cap, because this kind of move from Google, YouTube, et al., perfectly encapsulates how media is able to manipulate messaging in this country — be it through left-friendly media providers like Google, or by way of the legacy media, whose lovingly romanticized depictions of the various “occupy” fiascos has quite intentionally covered-up the intellectually vapid complaints of the protesters themselves.

There’s a reason left-wing journalists were hoping to work with the leadership strata of the occupy movement to help them shape their official message: it was an attempt to help co-opt a hippie frat party, to make calculated political hay out of anti-capitalist, anti-Semitic, anarchist malcontents living on ramshackle tent farms.

And now, YouTube has given me 48 hours to address vague privacy concerns — in a video taken when Occupy Denver protesters crashed a private event and were filmed (by me and others) doing so.

That I happened to catch several students whose school and teacher have argued were there merely to “observe” actually joining in with the protesters is not a “privacy issue.” It’s a “yes, you should be embarrassed, because your official statements to the local Denver media don’t jibe with the actual real-time evidence” issue — one that, as good little leftists, the school, or the students, or the students’ representatives, etc., are hoping to airbrush out of existence.

Or at least, to make it harder for people to find.

And here we’ve been told that this class was but an idealistic group of young truthseekers, led by a principled and courageous teacher whose goal it was to introduce this eager young minds to the workings of a democratic republic.

Funny how the search for Truth is so conveniently dismissed as banal tripe when the Truth just so happens to paint the self-described truth seekers as the little wannabe-tyrants that they so willingly and publicly presented themselves to be.

*****

Here’s the text of the YouTube email. I’ve redacted the very first bit of identifying information, because the video was hosted on a friend’s account:
This is to notify you that we have received a privacy complaint from an individual regarding your content:
————————————————————- Video URLs:



The information reported as violating privacy is at 0_48-2_04
————————————————————-

We would like to give you an opportunity to review the content in question and remove any personal information that may be used to uniquely identify or contact the complainant. You have 48 hours to take action on the complaint. If you remove the alleged violation from the site within the 48 hours, the complaint filed will then be closed. If the potential privacy violation remains on the site after 48 hours, the complaint will be reviewed by the YouTube Team and may be removed pursuant to our Privacy Guidelines (http://www.youtube.com/t/privacy_guidelines). For content to be considered for removal, an individual must be uniquely identifiable by image, voice, full name, Social Security number, bank account number or contact information (e.g., home address, email address). Examples that would not violate our privacy guidelines include gamer tags, avatar names, and address information in which the individual is not named. We also take public interest, newsworthiness, and consent into account when determining if content should be removed for a privacy violation. If the alleged violation is located within the video itself, you may have to remove the video completely. If someone’s full name or other personal information is listed within the title, description, or tags of your video, you can edit this by going to My Videos and clicking the Edit button on the reported video. Making a video private is not an appropriate method of editing, as the status can be changed from private to public at any time. Because they can be turned off at any time, annotations are also not considered an acceptable solution. We’re ommitted to protecting our users and hope you understand the importance of respecting others’ privacy. When uploading videos in the future, please remember not to post someone else’s image or personal information without their consent. For more information, please
review our Privacy Guidelines http://www.youtube.com/t/privacy_guidelines.

Regards,

The YouTube Team

The Denver media considered the video newsworthy enough to include it in their story on the local teacher who brought her class to Occupy Denver, and then to that group’s attempts to storm our private conference.

That they were filmed doing so, and in an “interview” with me claimed that they were “the 99%” and that they “were being taught in school” that people like me are “fucking up their future” — even as the teacher and the school claim that the students were there to “observe” and were neutral in the matter — certainly speaks to this video’s value as a remedy to statements provided by the school and the teacher to the local Denver news media.

****
update: I’ve posted a copy of the video here, as well.

Also, a better rendition is parked here (with thanks to badanov)

No comments: