DigiActive.org

Tool: Can Activists Trust YouTube?

In late November, Egyptian activist Wael Abbas‘ YouTube account was suspended due to videos of torture which he had posted. Though his account was re-activated a few days later, all his videos had been removed. YouTube’s side of the story is that Abbas had violated their terms of use by posting videos of “graphic or gratuitous violence” (many of Abbas’ video depict police torture, including sodomy. ) However, other videos, of police brutality, demonstrations, strikes, sit-ins and election irregularities were also deleted when his account was restored.

This case clearly put YouTube in an awkward situation. Clearly the videos of torture were violent and possibly offensive, but they undoubtedly had political value as they exposed the crimes of the Egyptian government. Wael is not a young hooligan posting inappropriate material, but an award-winning journalist trying to stoke political reform in his country. I hope that YouTube (owned by Google) will consider the implications of its actions more carefully in the future.

In the mean time, activists should be aware that the principal concern of many of the most useful digital activism technologies (YouTube, Blogger, Google, Skype) is not justice but profit. You cannot necessarily trust them to defend your content and your rights if they come under government pressure to remove your content or reveal your identity. For this reason, it is important to back up your content in a second location in case it is deleted and use these services anonymously if you think that the revelation of your identity by the services you use could be dangerous to your safety.