James Randi suspended from Youtube
tags:
Stumble ThisThe James Randi Educational Foundation's account has been suspended from Youtube! What did they ever do?
Edit to add from YT:
To complain to youtube follow this link;
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/static.py?page=troubleshooter.cs&problem=account&selected=asked_to_login&ctx=account_asked_to_login_55755
Scroll to the very bottom and click on "new issue"
Select "suspended account" from the options and express your opinion.
Via pharyngula.
Phil Plait, president of JREF, won't say anything before the issue is resolved.
Edit to add from YT:
To complain to youtube follow this link;
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/static.py?page=troubleshooter.cs&problem=account&selected=asked_to_login&ctx=account_asked_to_login_55755
Scroll to the very bottom and click on "new issue"
Select "suspended account" from the options and express your opinion.
Via pharyngula.
Phil Plait, president of JREF, won't say anything before the issue is resolved.
Frankly it's your fault, all of you, for demanding moderation (read: censorship) of all your online communities.
what are we gonna do if the whole internet will be down for a day, blow up the planet?
(lets just pray they got permission to use that pink floyd song...)
"The user jamesrandifoundation has been suspended.
I suspect that you caved in from complaints from homeopathy proponents or the like. James Randi's criticism of this in his videos is always well founded and within all rights. I urgently call for you to reinstate this account and restrain from caving in to unfounded complaints in the future."
But I am very concerned about their method of completely blocking downvoted comments. To the point where you can't choose to view them if hidden and see for yourself why it got downranked. I really wonder what they think constitutes a free and open exchange of ideas, as their site is ought for. I'll be mentioning this in my complaint...
The point is that there is such an obvious lack of grounds to suspend this account that it's almost certainly because of an unfounded complaint. This is not an isolated case either. Youtube policy is beginning to look like the DMCA, in that they are automatically responding to complaints without checking its validity. Such a policy is all to easily abused.
>> ^burdturgler:
Speaking of the DMCA, YouTube can suck my balls. They seriously need to scrap their instant content identification bullshit. I can't upload a home video of a cat eating a can of tuna without getting insta-hammered by NBC Universal.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/03/30/youtube-suspension-of-the-jref-account/
Method A:
1. Create 30 youtube accounts via 30 different proxy servers.
2. Flag a user's videos from each of those accountgraterhe timing is done right it will be indistinguishable from distinct users)
3. Sit back and watch that user get b&.
(This whole process could be automated with a script that just asks you for the captcha solutions)
Method B:
1. Post on a forum full of like-minded people who also dislike that user, and get them to all report him.
2. Sit back and watch that user get b&.
Youtube really needs to fix their automatic censorship junk.
They won't fix the broken system unless it becomes a HUGE problem, which means they're not gonna fix it until mayhem occurs as a result of someone posting such a script publicly.
They could start fortifying their defenses by allowing each IP address a maximum of 3 flaggings per year, and ignoring all subsequent flaggings coming from that IP address. They could ignore flaggings from all known open proxies and tor nodes. They could ignore flaggings from anyone who didn't actually watch the video in question. They could require that the greater of 50 or 50% of viewers flag a video before it will be taken down. They could permanently ignore flaggings from IP addresses of flaggers who submit fallacious flaggings (as determined by being the 1 flagger among a million viewers).
A somewhat better defense against fallacious one-guy-in-a-garage-with-a-script censorship would be a human volunteer network akin to wikipedia, but my preferred solution is to abandon censorship altogether (information wants to be free). If you don't like something, don't watch it! Copyright? Bah!
Oops, I upvoted your comment before I saw your bashing of copyright. In an undeniably capitalistic world, copyright laws are one of the best ways to assure that people have the incentive to make new and interesting information.
If Pat Condell can get his channel back, surely the Randi will. Surely!
^jwray
Oops, I upvoted your comment before I saw your bashing of copyright. In an undeniably capitalistic world, copyright laws are one of the best ways to assure that people have the incentive to make new and interesting information.
Perhaps copyright should only be used against people who try to SELL copyrighted works without authorization and without substantial value-added derivation.
Good authors were compensated for their work long before copyright existed, and continue to be compensated after it became utterly unenforceable.
I think its much more likely this is simply a bunch of religious wackos flagging videos and bitching to YT, and of course YT doesnt have time to go through all the videos and shit like that, so they just close the account, its probably even an automated process. ie: "if account X has Y number of flags, close account."
I think that's exactly what it is and I've had a mirror of the video up as well, one of the first. They suspended Thunderfoot a while back and they've hit others as well for what seems to be the same reason. Just get enough wack jobs to decide they want someone shut up and YouTube goes and does that for them.
I've got no problem with calling that censorship. Yeah it's private property and we have no "right" to free speech, but if they want to keep their reputation and our business they might want to consider it a bit anyway. At least justify the suspensions according to their own posted rules, knock off this unexplained crap. Even the people being suspended sometimes aren't sure why.
Ofcourse, I do agree that the concepts of downranking and flagging have ever really produced fair content, anywhere. The easiest solution would probably be to scrap any kind of flagging altogether, or have some kind of independent party look at flagged video's (which sounds too expensive).
It's a business, with profit motives and posted rules. When they don't play by their own posted rules we're *supposed* to raise hell and expect them to justify things according to their own rules. Customer feedback does work.
Edit for more info. In the Thunderfoot case the above applied, in this case not so much it seems. YouTube was within their rights but better communication on what's going on seems needed to separate cases like this from ones like the Thunderfoot issue. Video from Randi just released on the subject.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zngwTpkogeE