Nick Gisburne and YouTube: a new context for an old debate February 14, 2007
Posted by mwj as journalism, media, philosophy, politics, technology, web2.0, youtube. trackback.
This is a YouTube piece that excerpted from the article below. Unfortunately, I had to record it with a stone age camera, but I got the audio with my iBook speakers, so its fine. (Link)
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The debate over religion and free speech has erupted on YouTube. Nick Gisburne, an atheist on YouTube, recently published a video entitled “Islamic Teachings: Cruelty From The Qur’an.” This video was taken down by YouTube staff, at first citing its “inappropriate nature,” and both of Gisburne’s YouTube accounts were subsequently made unavailable to the public and permanently disabled. Until other users started to publish Nick’s work on their own account, it was impossible to find any of Nick’s videos, either his attacks on Christianity and Islam, or his videos speaking in defence of himself.
I have a huge interest in this debate, and believe it is an opportunity to examine the implications of “new media” for the old discussion over the tension between religious freedom and the freedom of speech. It also shows us a darker side of Web 2.0: in a world where “social networking” is the new mechanism for determining what content we do and do not see, there is the major danger of the whole enterprise devolving into “gang warfare,” as one YouTube member has so aptly put it.
Keeping the debate alive
I am also concerned that this debate will be lost, since YouTube, whether by its hidden algorithms or its staff of real humans, has continued to zap Nick Gisburne’s videos and accounts. This prevents any one link from being the real center of debate for this. In the absence of any centre, I hope that by giving my take on the issues at hand I can contribute to the flow of information and ensure that this very important debate continues.
The other danger is that this debate gets sidetracked into petty rivalries and tired arguments divided along sectarian lines (atheists vs christians, “free speech” vs muslims, the people vs censorship, etc.), and these issues submerge beneath ad hominem attacks and other agendas in play.
What follows is an attempt to provide a context for the debate and articulate what I see as a few of the main points.
Context: the rise of YouTube atheism
On December 7, 2006, The Rational Response Squad put out a challenge to all atheists: commit the unpardonable sin mentioned in Mark 3:29, deny the Holy Spirit, and upload it to YouTube. Currently, the video has been viewed around 240,000 times, and has received coverage from ABC, Fox, Newsweek, The New York Times, and some California news agencies.
The challenge, called the Blasphemy Challenge, generated over 800 responses of people uploading videos to YouTube denying the Holy Spirit. It also spawned an internet sub culture that even has its own wikipedia entry.
Suspended for quoting from the Qur’an
Nick Gisburne (nickgisburne), like other YouTube atheists, has posted a number of videos attacking Christianity. However, he broadened his attack to include Islam in a video (mirrored, also here and here) on February 8 entitled “Islamic Teachings: Cruelty From The Qur’an. The next day, YouTube permanently disabled Gisburne’s account, citing at the time its “inappropriate nature.”
At this point, both Slashdot and Digg picked up the story, and Gisburne made a second account to plead his case, nickgisburne2000. He also re-uploaded the video that got him banned. The video was quickly taken down by YouTube, and the account was also permanently disabled within two days. YouTube cited the same reasons as before.
Suspended for copyright infringement
The disabling of these two accounts produced a major outcry in the YouTube community, and led to many videos calling on YouTubers to re-post the video and YouTube to let Gisburne back in. One theory that emerged and seemed to hold weight with most in the community was that the ban was due to a hidden algorithm whereby YouTube zaps any video that has been flagged a certain number of times. Three zaps, and you’re out. Along with this was another theory that Muslims on the YouTube, instead of responding to the video, clicked the “flag as inappropriate” button en masse, thereby ensuring that the video would be taken down. Many YouTube called this flagging an act of censorship and unfair (both on the part of YouTube and on the part of Muslims), and a refusal to think and dialogue. Others chose a more extreme response and declared “.”
However, on February 12, YouTube changed their story. Instead of being banned for “inappropriate content,” Nick Gisburne was now banned for copyright infringement. The “Cruelty from the Qur’an” video did contain copyrighted music from The Matrix, and Gisburne expressed concern in an earlier video about the possibility of copyright infringement (some users ) . However, as he indicated at that time, YouTube had sent Gisburne an e-mail that clearly stated the “inappropriate content” as the cause for removal of both the video and his account.
Important issues to think about
This brings us pretty much to the present. People are still talking about this on YouTube, but the issue is very complex and there are a lot of different viewpoints. This is good, but I am afraid that YouTube’s mixed messages, combined with the incendiary nature of any discussion on free speech and religion, will cause this issue to be obfuscated yet further. In an attempt to provide clarity as well as to keep the discussion alive, I want to highlight what I see as the main issues at stake here, and offer some thoughts on each.
- Religious freedom and freedom of speech
What really sparked my interest in this whole situation was the fact that it was a video attacking Islam which got Gisburne banned. As he pointed out, he did almost the exact same thing with another video, except that it was directed towards Christianity and used Christian scripture. This video, as far as I can tell, did not contribute at all to his account being permanently disabled.
YouTube has changed their story on the banning, but originally they cited “inappropriate content.” In their letter to Gisburne they claimed they made a mistake and really meant copyright infringement, which in their minds was probably the least difficult path to tread. I do not expect that they are very interested in the philosophical implications of Gisburne’s case, but let’s assume for a moment that YouTube’s first letter was not a mistake but what actually happened, and “after being flagged by members of the YouTube community and reviewed by YouTube staff, the video [was] removed due to its inappropriate nature.”
If YouTube continues to act in the way they have, we are dangerously close to a situation that user thisisjohngalt aptly described as “gang warfare.” It simply takes a certain number of users to to flag a video, and that video will subsequently be taken down, or at least put up for review to a YouTube employee, who will probably act in the company’s best interest by trying to keep to most number of people happy, and remove the video.
This leaves us in a situation not unlike real life: you can say whatever you want, but if you piss enough people off there might be serious consequences. On YouTube this might mean getting your video taken for no reason (YouTube reserves the right to do so) other than enough people wanted to take you out.
People have their right to religion and right to free speech enshrined by law. While these laws apply on YouTube, YouTube is not responsible for protecting them, and can silence and destroy any account they deem to be too bothersome. The only way this could change is if YouTube committed to these principles: such a change is possible, but would require enormous political and intellectual effort.
What does all this mean? Well, user thisisjohngalt has made a plea to keep lines of communication open, and stressed that an unwillingness to listen to another’s opinion is the same as refusing to think. Other approaches are possible: perhaps a YouTube wide social contract could be made. Perhaps YouTube could even be brought into the equation, as an entity that is owned by a corporation whose motto is “don’t be evil.” But what happens when “don’t be evil” collides with itself? This may well be such a case, if an algorithm designed to keep anyone from getting too offended kicked in without serious thought, thereby offending even more people. The old debate that happens when freedoms clash has moved to YouTube, and perhaps new answers are available in this new context.
- The darker side of Web 2.0
- Private censorship and the public good
The third aspect of this is the perception of censorship, which user thisisjohngalt has revealed to be a very dubious perception. As he says, “it is only when government uses its coercive powers to inhibit speech that censorship occurs. YouTube is not a government.” John Galt goes on to point out that there are many platforms available out there, and that YouTube does “reserve the right to remove Content and User Submissions without prior notice.”
However, there does seem to be something unjust going on here which offends our instincts towards free speech: Gisburne was banned for taking quotes from the Qur’an. Yes, they were out of context, and yes, he used the Skeptics Annotated Quran, which may not have suited some Muslims. But his message was fairly simple, hardly a hate crime, and he got banned for it, quite possibly never to come back.
What are we to make of this? It seems that any video which receives too much criticism (in the form of flagging) will be reviewed and most probably banned. One answer would be to tune the algorithm, as I mentioned above. Another might be to appeal to the fairly recent concept of “corporate social responsibility.” This concept says that companies are “corporate citizens,” and that as citizens (who never die and have lots of money) they are beholden not just to their shareholders but to the communities in which they operate, including their employees, the environment, and their customers.
Perhaps it could be possible to articulate a need for the consideration of the public good in the case of YouTube, and begin working towards a constitution in which YouTube commits, legally, to certain behaviour, as we already do in the Code of Conduct. Such a step could only be taken if it was seen by YouTube to be in their favour, but the argument could be made both by appealing to corporate social responsibility, as well as to pointing out that issues like this could have an established mechanism to deal with them, which would include a review process that could easily be done by volunteer members of the community. However, if they feel threatened, YouTube will do whatever they can to protect themselves, including changing their minds and claimimg that their ban was for copyright infringement.
- Common human decency?
In the absence of any legal code or constitution, without any finer instruments than flagging to determine the “appropriateness” of a video, we need to appeal to something to dictate our behaviour. And even though it has been said before, and even though it is an almost impossible term to define and even more impossible to enforce, I think that the basic concept of human decency may not be so bad after all.
Human decency says think before you post, or at least consider what others might do to you if you don’t. Basic self-interest, or self-survival in the case of YouTube, seems to be enough to make this claim tenable. Without anyone ensuring that more extreme opinions get heard even if people don’t like them, it is relatively easy for a relatively small group of individuals to get any video kicked off. And for now, part of our community is muslim, part of it is christian, part of it atheist. The biggest part is probably none of these three. Does this mean stay silent if you feel you need to speak up loudly and angrily? No, not at all. Just recognize that if you do, you may end up without YouTube. Gisburne’s banning is unfair and YouTube needs to apologize for the way it handled it. I think they could do a lot towards goodwill if this apology included giving back his account. But regardless of what happens, let’s not lose this opportunity to dialogue about some really important issues.
The new context is Web 2.0: the information-is-(almost)-free, open-source, let-the-people-decide, collective-good age of Wikipedia, Del.icio.us, Flickr and the jewel in the crown of “social networking” evangelists everywhere, YouTube. We, the people, are the people of not just the year but this new era where it seems that the corporate yolk has broken and the everyman can have everyone view his videos, blogs and podcasts with a single click.
But there is a darker side to Web 2.0. Larry Sanger has expressed this in his frustration over Wikipedia being such a tempting target to vandalize. And YouTubers are feeling it right now: how do we deal with a community so huge that it contains opinions that are opposed to one another? And not just any opposition, but the kind that demands the other side be silenced, and will take any action to ensure this. We thank the corporations that provide us with the environment to say what we wish, and I am glad that part of that is opportunity to flag material as inappropriate. Not because I have any intention of ever exercising that opportunity, but because by giving it to me, YouTube is reaffirming a commitment to listen to the community. Perhaps this is too blunt a mechanism for determining what should and shouldn’t be heard, and the algorithm needs refinement. These are things to talk about.
Comments»
What strikes me as naive about the fervour over the youtube gisburne row is the commitment people expect from the form - youtube. Questions ought to be posed to youtube clarifying the reasons for any censorship, but when it comes down to it, the web still resembles the state of nature in that anyone anywhere could appeal this conversation to a higher law by uploading the video on to a hosted account or to a file sharing network. I think you give the subject a good context, it opens the potentiality for dialogue on the subject beyond a debate over the content of the video.
Why do you think there is such a commitment to youtube in this debate? Why not just move on and use the fuel of agitation to construct a youtube that is based on a social contract and is built on a file sharing platform, such as bittorent? It seems like people are more interested in expressing their frustration through the form of youtube than in one beyond it.
Sounds to me like this is a good time for another company to attempt to take over. Present an alternative when people want it and people will take it.
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