Morality Down the Tube

After reading a comment by Jack on my post ‘Responsibilities down the Tube’ I realised that a lot of the points he was making were very true.

He said: “A more worrying trend is that YouTube gives people ‘what they want’. Unfortunately, it seems that the world we inhabit ‘want’ rape, bullying, death, pornography, racism, gun glorification, propaganda, conspiracy theories, Jackass re-enactments etc. etc.”

When asked “How often have you viewed sexual images in the past month?” on an online survey, only 3% answered “Not once, and I have never before” whereas 27% answered “A few times a week” and 10% answered “Several times a day.” This illustrates the ‘need’ for porn.

YouTube’s statistics show that 6% of the 100 most watched videos on YouTube are porn related. These videos have 15 – 39 million hits each.

However, it’s possible to say that everyone is entitled to watch whatever they want and so if they want to watch porn why should they be prosecuted for doing so? Nevertheless can this be classified as morally wrong?

One could say that none of this is YouTube’s fault – it merely allows people to upload whatever content they wish and therefore highlights a global decline in morality.

Additionally, countless videos uploaded onto YouTube contain racist slander. It’s true to say that everyone has the right to voice their opinion however some of the comments are really out of line and should be removed from the site.

Is morality declining? Is YouTube not to blame, but the sheer moral downfall in society?

If so, we have to proactively tackle the problems in society that are leading to people uploading filth on to YouTube and uncover the root causes.

What do you think? All comments welcome…

YouTube’s Singing Sensation Marie Digby

Marie Digby, 24, is a singer – songwriter living in Los Angeles, who has been blessed with a beautiful voice and amazing talent. It all started when Marie uploaded her video “Umbrella” – an acoustic version of Rihanna’s song – onto YouTube on May 27th 2007. In less than a year “Umbrella” has gathered over 5,521,073 hits and 26,773 favourites. After gathering so much attention via comments on YouTube Marie upload more covers such as James Morrison’s song “You Give Me Something” and Linkin Parks “What I’ve Done”.

Although Marie had already signed with Disney’s Hollywood Records in 2005, she decided to upload videos of herself on to YouTube to gain more publicity – it definitely worked! She has written many of her own songs such as “Stupid For You” (a personal favourite) and “Unfold” which you can find on her YouTube channel and MySpace website. Her song “Spell” featured in the season finale of “Smallville” and her version of “Umbrella” featured in MTV’s “The Hills.”

Her album is coming out on April 8th. To pre order it visit this website.

This is a clear example of how YouTube can be used in a constructive way.

Lack of Control

YouTube have a lack of control.

People can upload whatever they want with little level of control in place. As you can see in the articles below YouTube have allowed such horrendous videos to be posted online. Sometimes, the videos are removed after a sufficient amount of complaints are served, however, simply removing them does not solve the problem. They should never have been allowed online in the first place. Once YouTube realise that they have to control the videos posted before they are actually online YouTube would be a happier place.

The video which disturbs me the most is ‘’YouTube Rape’ Mum Condemns Perverts Who Watched Online Footage’. The fact that over 600 people viewed this footage sickens me further. This is the kind of footage which encourages other criminals to carry out such crime. It’s sad that this is what YouTube has come to…gang rape footage, threats against schools, footage of officers behaving badly etc.

Aside from some of the footage being inappropriate, the comments on the videos can be even worse. Beyonce’s video for the song Listen attracted over 9 million viewers and over 6,000 comments. Among those comments – which were mainly from her fans – were crude racist remarks. There is nothing wrong with the video, or the song, in fact it’s a lovely song with beautiful lyrics, however, people still made offensive racist remarks which sparked off an argument within the comment page. YouTube did mark some racist comments as spam however the majority is still there when it should be removed. Unfortunately there are many other similar comments on other videos. This is a clear example of how YouTube lack control over the content being posted on their site.

I’m not saying that YouTube is an awful website, in fact I think highly of it in certain aspects. I think it’s great how music videos, funny scenes from movies, interviews with famous people, documentaries and other such footage are posted on YouTube.

However, they have to up their control over the videos and comments posted on the website.

What do you think? All comments welcome…

Responsibilities down the Tube

One of the many things which frighten me about YouTube is the knowledge that anyone and everyone can view the videos posted on the website. Unfortunately, hundreds of people have lost their jobs, been rejected or kicked out of schools and universities as a result of the videos they have posted on YouTube, namely, the police officer in the blog ‘YouTube Video Leads to Officer Suspension’. As a social network YouTube has responsibilities. These responsibilities include censoring videos which they believe to be inappropriate and/or insulting. However, in most cases YouTube have failed to censor or remove such videos leading to unfortunate conclusions.

Additionally, there are numerous amounts of violent content on YouTube which can be viewed and copied by people of all ages. For example, there are videos of ‘happy slaps’ and rape attacks which can encourage people to replicate what they are watching. There were videos of teenagers ‘bus surfing’ – clinging on to the back of a bus – which thankfully were removed as a result of complaints. However, the termination of such unsuitable videos are generally unlikely; in this case the complainers were lucky.

Other footage such as Saddam Hussein’s execution – which has never been televised – is available on YouTube. This baffles me as not only is this footage extremely disturbing (who wants to watch someone being executed?) but why would it be posted on YouTube and not on TV? There must be a reason why it wasn’t published on TV. Also, it’s not advisable to have such content so easily available to everyone.

YouTube need to start taking on their responsibilities because if they don’t sooner or later the website will be out of control.