Why Do Some Countries Block YouTube

The YouTube banning trend is getting popular. Every week we hear of some country that has decided to protect its oversensitive citizens from the horrors of video sharing by blocking YouTube. Since I have talked YouTube in two of my blogs, I get a feeling that I have to talk something about YouTube and censorship (if politics is too wide). And, I just want to express some personal experiences and thoughts. However, I guess none of my opinions can be correct just because in real life, I can never find a correct answer for a certain political issue.

Sometimes, I am really happy that I can enjoy watching YouTube again after I came to Canada. YouTube came into my life when I was in middle school in China. At that time, YouTube hadn’t been banned yet and I just enjoyed watching NBA videos on it every day. However, I watched it not because there were no other sites provide NBA videos. It just feels cool for a teenager to watch NBA in a foreign website. It really doesn’t mean much to me. So when YouTube was banned, without much sadness, I moved to another Chinese site which actually provides better NBA videos. But why does government ban YouTube? Two Comments I found on the Internet are quite typical answers.

“To control information, usually. It can be hard for a government to run a successful propaganda campaign if people can go to the web and find the truth on their own.”--- IMHO Brain

“Finally, China and India currently have no active ban on YouTube, but both states have on occasions threatened to block the video sharing website; India because of a video clip mocking Gandhi, and China because of their general policy of banning, well, all kinds of stuff.” --- Stan Schroeder

It is believed by the public that countries which banned YouTube in the world are the countries have less democracy. However, it is not fair to conclude that citizens could find the truth on a banned website. Take me as an example, as a Chinese citizen, I was much clear than anybody else on the reason why they ban YouTube. As a matter of fact, in China, most of the people who know how to use Internet know the reason why the government bans it. And you know what; they have many ways to see what happened there in that banned site. Porn videos are not permitted, but every boy has some in their laptops. (Not every boy LoL) And believe me; it is much easier to visit YouTube than download a porn video. The fact is people are more curious about things they are not allowed to see. It actually reminds me what American government did for Wikileaks. In this information society, whenever there is a government, there is secret. We are all fed with information in a manner that they choose. In my point of view, any comment laughing at other countries’ information policy is like a Chinese saying: the pot calls the kettle black. Nevertheless, I wish some day in the future, Chinese government could be the first one which is brave enough to face any expression of opinion in front of their people.  

Why Youtube?

Nowadays, everybody uses YouTube, ordinary people enjoy making and sharing funny videos online, students like us analyze videos on YouTube to finish our presentation and blogs. However, can you tell the reason why do thousands people there like YouTube? YouTube contains so many racist, sexist, violence, homophobic and absence messages. Teenagers may get affected negatively; social influence may become a major concern, but YouTube Still has tons of fans. Why? As recently as 2008 John C. Paolillo observed that ‘there is no clear picture of how people use YouTube and why.’ The surrounding culture of confessional practices can be said to predispose individuals to make video diaries about their lives. In my opinion, most of the people go to YouTube for self-representation. I mean, we are socialized to embrace self-expression via video. Advertisements for consumer electronics tell use this is normal, television shows us how to do it, our peers lead the way, and social norms reassure us that it is acceptable. In other words, YouTube just provides a platform for people to express and show themselves. Also, for me, pleasure and vanity are great motivators to be a YouTuber. There are also more material matters of utility and convenience that explain our Youtube compulsions. People use YouTube for distributing video holiday greetings, wishing friends happy birthday, celebrating anniversaries, births, and deaths. To some, YouTube remains a mystery. As Lange observes, “people who do not regularly participate on YouTube may not understand why people watch seemingly poor quality or odd videos.  The answer to the question “why do you’ Tube” I s as broad as the answer to the question “why do human communicate?”

Just like a community, it is made up of those who fit and those who do not fit well with norms and tacit rules. Internet communities have long been plagued by those who do not play well with others. The people who posts rude and often racist, sexist, homophobic, or obscene messages are just like those people. It won’t be a big issue if YouTube set some regulations properly. However, as some countries concern in as political view, they may just forbid YouTube in their countries. It is quite controversial to discuss this topic further.

But one thing we should notice is that “New media practices typically change faster that institutionalized modes of representation. It remains to be seen how well military and electoral campaigns will adapt to mass participation in video making. From the global to the local, YouTube and amateur video are now deeply embedded media practices and touch upon all areas of life.”(Watching YouTube, Michael Strangelove)

Watching YouTube

Today, as I begin to talk about YouTube, I decided to write some positive sides of YouTube first. First of all, I would like to say that I myself like to watch videos on YouTube. I enjoy watching laughing babies, home-made cartoons, funny and lovely pets, the stupidity of young make jackasses, politicians, art projects and some documentaries. After all, I found that watching YouTube is an investigation into the world of ordinary people and their extraordinary online videos. Moreover, in my point of view, YouTube is a social space. It is not merely an archive of moving images. It is much more than a fast-growing collection of millions of home-made videos. It is an intense emotional experience. This virtual community reflects the cultural politics of the present times and thus is rife with both cooperation and conflict. Within YouTube community we can observe racist, sexist, homophobic, and verbally violent debates over elections, religion, and armed conflicts. However, sometimes, I feel YouTube is more like a repository of shared experiences. Here is my example; Disneyland Home Movies is a home movie of a family’s experience of Disneyland, shot sometime maybe in 1960s or 1970s. This clip was viewed on YouTube over 72,358 times and garnered 155 comments, all of which were positive in nature. The comments make it very clear that this home movie functions as a repository of shared experience. In this regard, one of the audiences of this video writes “Thanks for sharing this video! It brings back great memories from when I was little and went to Disneyland!” This is exactly what I feel sometimes when I watch others’ videos. Moreover, this video also functions as a source of historical knowledge for its viewers. And it also provides individuals with a way of confirming the accuracy of the memories of others, as is seen in Bethany4588’s reflection on how it matches her parents’ recollections: ‘my parents always talk about how Disneyland used to be, and thanks to you I can see it!” Our YouTube videos often capture the particular character of ourselves and our local culture while also reminding us of the universal nature of our everyday lives. The online audience often identifies with the presentation of universal while recoiling form local cultures that are not part of the mainstream. Thus, YouTube acts as a repository for idiosyncratic behavior, local culture, shared experience and collective memories. At the same time, YouTube presents a peculiar set of problems for the constructions of identity. It strips our memories of the context that gives them meaning and opens up our lives to misinterpretation.

More negative effects will be discussed in next blog... And here is the link to the video which I mentioned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_DoPAQ3gJE Check it out if you are interested!

Blog Assignment 2

Digital Wisdom

Based on our discussion and readings, I would say it is difficult to tell my relationship to "Digital Wisdom"  because I am always confused by the question of who plays the dominant role between me and the interface. I will try to explain this relationship by giving some of my personal experiences. Unlike many of my friends, I don’t like to follow new technologies or any new things. However, it already became a crucial truth that one has to learn these new digital technologies in order to survive in this era, especially for teenager.

  Microsoft PowerPoint was introduced to me when I was in middle school, although I didn’t realize how useful it means to me in the future, I was so excited every time my teacher gave us a project, the reason was that I could spend more time on the Internet by telling my parents that I was doing my project. In the meantime, my parents always complained at that time. They said they didn’t have so many distractions when they were in school. Nevertheless, I have already known how to use PowerPoint. The fancy tool at that time has already become a very basic skill that everyone could use nowadays. Do we choose the tool? Or does the tool choose us? I can’t imagine what if I still don’t know how to use PowerPoint, but when my computer breakdown, I can do nothing. Moreover, when more and more people prefer to use a Mac, iWork became another choice for people. In this situation, are we facing more distractions?

When somebody talks about the distractions brought by digital technologies, a social networking tool which is similar to Facebook called Renren always came to my mind. To explain the reason why people like Facebook, somebody’s answer is very interesting:  “It is amazing because it feels like you’re doing something and you’re not doing anything”. For me, it seems more serious, I always lack the self-control to favor schoolwork over the computer. Checking my Renren account frequently while studying has become my habit. Moreover, like what the article describes: “He clicks over to YouTube, meaning that tomorrow he will enter his senior year of high school hoping to see an improvement in his grades, but without having completed his only summer homework”, I always write down the same wishes without taking any actions. Usually after I write down my wishes, I will check every few seconds to see if there’s any commons on it. I found trying to sustain or concentrate my attention on one thing is becoming more and more difficult. As students, it seems we will easily lose our control over the interface.

Finally, while everybody enjoying their iPhone4, I find something more interesting. A couple of weeks ago, I lost my iPhone4, I thought it was easy to track my iPhone back. As long as I signed the iPhone with Rogers, I called them to ask whether they can locate my iPhone, the operator’s answer made me like a stupid fool. He said: Are you kidding me?! That only exists in the movie!” Then, I reported both to the Apple store and the police, what they told me was that they actually can track it but don’t have the right to do that. It made me so sad. I was thinking the definition of wisdom: It is “the ability to find practical, creative, contextually appropriate, and emotionally satisfying solutions to comlicated human problems” However, It seems sometimes certain human problems cannot be solved by certain technology. Since then, when my friends talk about the fancy software on iPhone4 like iMeet and iPool, I don’t feel excited anymore.

Nevertheless, I still believe H. Sapiens is right. “Just as we have begun to confront the ethical, moral, and scientific challenges presented by genetic medicine, we will have to confront the issue of digital wisdom sooner or later, and we will be better off doing it sooner.”