There has been rising criticism of YouTube censoring content on its site and today is another example. People posted the video of a mob taunting a man nearly beaten to death at a Fourth of July event. The video has triggered a debate over hate crime investigations as well as the simple lack of humanity found in today’s society. In other words, there is a substantive debate surrounding the videotape. However, YouTube says that it has been taken down for disgusting content. It rekindles the objection that YouTube has become a private censor — rather than a forum that warns of such content but allows people to make their own choices. [UPDATE: The video appears to be going up and coming down on YouTube but appears to be currently available here with a warning. I have not problem as I stated below with the addition of such a warning and wall]
There is no question that there is a lot of disturbing videotapes out there. Another example is ISIS. The Islamic extremists clearly use their horrendous acts to recruit. However, these videotapes also show the vast majority of people — including the vast majority of Muslims — the depth of depravity of this group and the reality of religious extremism in the world. Shielding people from such images (rather than allowing them to decide) is a controversial role.
Critics have said that the most important images on YouTube are often disturbing but that they are the very images that trigger meaningful public debate. Otherwise, YouTube seems catered to videos of cats playing piano. The removal of this videotape is problematic in my view. Yes, there is blood and a terribly injured man. However, most people linking to this video (as on this blog) are engaged in a discussion about our values and more concretely the evidence needed to start a hate crime investigation. Why not but up a wall and allow people to decide for themselves? What do you think should be the standard?
Ken:
Since I cannot watch videos due to my satellite internet, I will merely repeat what others have said, namely, that the taunting has been edited out of versions of the video circulating so that only the helpful comments were posted. It is also troubling that no one actually did help this man, apparently.
As has been said before, this crime needs to be investigated to find out what happened, instead of tried by the media.
dutchjim:
Thank you for posting your communication with the major, as well as his response. I see that he takes responsibility for the incident because it kept youth past curfew.
May I ask why you are certain the attack was not racially motivated before it has been investigated? My thought is that we can neither claim that it was, nor was not, until we have all the facts. We cannot tell the motivation until we catch the perpetrators, and I had not thought that had occurred yet.
There has been a lot of discussion about the problem of racially motivated crimes against whites, in general, but we have not yet proven that happened in this case.
I do not like to see the rush to judgement that a white on black crime IS racially motivated any more than I like to see the rush to declare that a black on white crime IS NOT. We just don’t know yet.
I would like to see our society get beyond race in this generation. Justice, college entrance, and job placement should be blind.
@Chief Consort
ROTFLMAO!!!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
YouTube was right in removing the video.
It’s racism to show all these black-on-white violence videos.
Where are all the videos from Cincinatti with white dudes cheering after knocking out a black man?
Selection bias is what I see.
The evil white man should not have hit his face into their fists so many times.
He should pay those misunderstood youths reparations.
O.k., understand now. Thanks,
Jim
Huh?
dutchjim – from Mayor Cranley, “Please be assured, I take full responsibility for the chaos that unfolded on Saturday” As I said the mayor takes responsibility for the beating of the young man.
I emailed Mayor Cranley, Mayor, City of Cincinnati about the violence in Fountain Square.
It says a lot about this mayor. He is credible and honest.
This is what I told him:
Dear Mayor Cranley;
My name is Jim Holland. I live in San Diego. I have relatives in Cincinnati. I want to tell you how very shameful it is for a group of Cincinnati citizens to laugh and ignore a man who has been injured. These citizens were shouting with glee while the victim lay on the sidewalk unconscious.
I am deeply disturbed by this.
You, as a leader have to do something about these unconscionable people.
It is not a racial problem as so many people are making it out to be. It is a problem of young adults and minors who don’t have parents anymore. They have no one to teach them to become a responsible adult and a good citizen.
Thank you,
Jim Holland
This is his reply:
Dear Mr. Holland:
The violence that occurred after a concert Saturday at Fountain Square is unacceptable and greatly concerns me.
In the past, Fountain Square has hosted hundreds of nighttime events with no problems at all. Unfortunately, Saturday night’s incident happened at an event designed to attract a large number of unchaperoned youth and kept many of them past the City’s curfew. Both the City and 3CDC, the agency that manages Fountain Square, have decided to take a “time out” and postpone similar concerts in the future until we review the situation to see why it occurred and how we can plan them differently to avoid problems.
Please be assured, I take full responsibility for the chaos that unfolded on Saturday, and I am working diligently with our City Manager, Police Chief, and the entire Police Department to ensure the safety of all visitors and residents downtown, especially during the upcoming All-Star Game festivities.
It’s important to remember violent crime in our Central Business District has decreased by roughly 50 percent in the past year. I encourage you to continue to visit the many businesses and attractions located downtown, while we work diligently to reduce crime even further.
Should you have any further questions, please feel free to contact my office at (513) 352-3250.
Sincerely,
John Cranley
Mayor, City of Cincinnati
Wow, that is a mayor who really care about people and Cincinnati.
dutchjim – so, the mayor beat up the kid? Boy, that man can spread the b.s. Must have a farming background.
Foreboding info on UK housing. Thatcher got that countries mind right back in the 80’s. But, they seem to have slipped. At least they don’t elect socialist leaders like Greece. I see Putin is courting Greece. Perfect!
Italy, Spain, and Portugal are one deck.
Karen, There are some cultures that do not succumb to the titillation of life on the dole, Germans being one. Certainly, even in a hard working, ethical culture there will always be a certain percentage who want to live off the hard work of others. That’s the dark side of human nature that eludes no society. We had been a hard working culture. I have seen that erode in my lifetime and really do downhill the last decade or two. Greeks, God love them, are like my people. They love to eat, drink, sing, dance and screw. And, we see what happens when socialism is introduced to that mindset.
More problems with council housing, which has reached a crisis:
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/nov/11/-sp-no-exit-britains-housing-trap
The national waiting list is at 1.7 million households, up 65% since 1997. People languish for years in hostels. Rampant fraud in the Right to Buy program (a policy of Thatcher’s) ended up removing affordable housing from the market, rather than increasing it, sadly.
The difficulty in going off of public assistance is similar in the UK compared with here:
“She looks despairing at the prospect that she can never return to work, but it’s difficult. Her husband is paid £1,300 a month – £15,600 a year. The hostel rent, paid by housing benefit, is £1,167 a month, energy bills included. If she worked, they would lose housing benefit and she would have to pay for childcare and travel to work, making them even worse off.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2905827/The-tenants-benefits-buying-council-house-one-five-applicants-receive-handouts.html
Fraudulent purchases up 400% since Westminster’s Right to Buy program enacted. Companies pay people who qualify to buy the homes via the program, and then those companies sell those properties to private individuals at a huge profit.
“It begs the question of how council tenants who qualify for housing benefit could suddenly afford to buy properties outright in one of the most expensive parts of the country.
Anyone who has more than £16,000 in savings is not eligible for housing benefit.
A report also found that 31 per cent of former council homes are now owned by private landlords and can be let for more than £800 a week in the capital’s second-most expensive borough.
Councillors have warned of a ‘property bonanza’ – and said many tenants claim the money was a gift from overseas, making it near impossible to trace. Last summer, it emerged that a property company had leafleted 60,000 council house tenants offering six-figure rewards for working with them to buy and then sell their homes.”
http://news.sky.com/story/1513430/crackdown-on-rich-council-house-tenants
The UK cracked down on people with higher incomes taking advantage of subsidies in the “pay to stay” scheme. This was to save some taxpayer money, which was being stretched too thin, as well as address the council housing crisis. Of course, there is a backlash in the media of “squeezing” more out of council tenants, even though some of those “tenants” were cabinet members or union heads making quite a bit of money.
UK’s Council housing crisis:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/9223339/The-cost-of-Newham-Councils-social-housing-problem.html
The frustrations of getting repairs in the poorly built council housing:
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/03/council-housing-failures-mentally-ill
“But the part that had me literally crying with frustration was dealing with the council repairs team. The basic scenario is this: you call, you hold, you get through to the switchboard and your call is transferred to a queue. You hold again. You get put through and then immediately cut off so you have to call again. When at last you reach the repairs team, they seem friendly and helpful. They book you an appointment. You wait in half a day but nobody shows up. You call them again, get cut off again, call again, get through and are told the reason no one came is that the appointment was never booked. The friendly, helpful voice on the phone promises to remedy this now and books you another appointment. You wait in, nobody comes, you call and are told that the reason no one came is that the appointment was never booked. This is not an exaggeration. This is what happened.”
There are a lot of similarities in poor workmanship, high crime, and great difficulty getting repairs in UK’s council housing and our own housing projects.
There is a crisis in finding both the funding and the actual housing for those on council housing benefits in the UK. There have been deep cuts because it was becoming unsustainable, and 69% of landlords say they will be forced out of the rental market entirely within 3 years.
Yes, there are lessons to be learned from Europe.
Nick – plus there are all the scandals in Council Housing in UK.
Isaac:
I disagree with much of your post, but “it doesn’t mean a pinch of cool sh*t” is an awesome phrase. Is old, and therefor, cooled night soil worth less than when it was fresh and warm? This is bringing back memories of the South, which excels in colorful phrases.
Learning from other countries’ experiments also includes studying the outcomes of policy, as well as analyzing similarities and differences in our own parameters and variables. For example, many nanny state European countries have Draconian immigration policies that I do not think we would be willing to enact. Since one of my own ancestors immigrated here as a poor printer, I would not want to restrict immigration to those who have to hit the ground running economically, but rather include those looking for opportunities to improve their lot in life. One thing I have to say about Persians is that many seem to drive Mercedes within a decade of coming here. There seems to be intense peer pressure to achieve the American dream ASAP. Plus, they network like heck via their version of “ wasta .”
Truthfully, our current generation of bored teenagers waste the opportunities that many legal immigrants grab onto with both hands like the lifeline that it is. I read about the Polar Bear Game, flash mob robberies, riots, and other instances of self- and community destruction, and I want to cry at the waste of it all. People their age live around the world in poverty, starvation, disease, war, and drought where they could die at any time, and these bored kids are trying to ruin their chances and blight their communities as fast as they can. Imagine what it’s like being a teenager in areas occupied by ISIS or Boko Haram. These kids are young, healthy, and strong, and they have a free education, and they just ruin it all. People legally immigrate here with zero capital from all over the world, including the African continent, and they succeed from the same financial starting point. And there are so many terminally ill kids who would give anything for their youth and vigor, but they just waste their precious gifts.
Nick:
What amazes me is the magnitude of debt incurred by the Greeks, which I believe number less than the population of Los Angeles. They were a great people in ancient times, inventors, philosophers, physicians, and academic thinkers in general. It is such a shame that their attempts at a republic after their monarchy focused on socialism, with the typical disastrous consequences.
Riesling:
You brought up a good point about the victim’s dignity. If a victim requests a video be removed, then I would honor that.
On the other hand, I did not hear this reasoning given for any of the videos that swept the nation of the pool party or any other cop incidents.
Squuek, NO pressure, girl. Dumdell is quite prolific when he is a manic phase.
@NickS
OK. But it might take me a while. Stupid Mick “Spin” Dumdell got out of involuntary commitment at the nuthouse today, and Penelope has me transcribing part of the hearing for the blog post about it. I was hoping they would keep the stupid idiot locked up, but she says that I mustn’t feel that way because Mick is her most prolific Author at the blog.
Whatevah! He is still a frigging nut!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeek, You should check out dutchjims blog and pen a poem.