Don’t Film Me Bro: Getting Arrested for Filming People in Public Places

July 2, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Censorship, Computers, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Free Speech, Freedom, Government, Government, Corruption, Inernet, Liberals, Liberty, Media, New Media, Police, Privacy, Regulation, Society/Culture, Technology, The Law, Warner Todd Huston, YouTube | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

The law has not caught up with cell phone cameras, Flip Cameras, compact video cameras, and the electronic age. Two stories being reported last weekend prove out how the ubiquity of video capture devices are often a gray area in the law.

In one case a woman in Rochester, New York, pulled out her video camera to record the actions of a local policeman as he arrested a neighbor. As it happens, this woman was standing on her own front lawn, no where near the policeman who was going about his duties, yet this cop got incensed and arrested her anyway. He claimed she was guilty of obstruction of justice.

How this woman’s actions was interfering with the police officer is impossible to figure, but she was detained nonetheless.
Read more

YouTube Launches New Congressional Townhall Channel

May 20, 2011 | Filed Under Blogging, Computers, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, GOP, Government, House of Representatives, Inernet, Liberals, Republicans, Senate, Technology, Video, Warner Todd Huston, YouTube | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

This week Youtube launched a new channel it is calling the “Youtube Townhall,” a new channel where members of congress are seen in short videos discussing the issues of the day.

Republican Senators Alexander, McCain, Moran, Lugar, Sessions, Isakson, and Hutchison have already uploaded videos to the channel and more are on the way. Republican Representatives Steve Chabot and Phil Gingrey have also added videos.

Interestingly, the identification of the members of Congress do not include party affiliation on the site.

Youtube’s description of its new site is as follows:
Read more

Video: I Am A Tired American

July 7, 2010 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Budget, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Government, Government, Corruption, Liberals, Media, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston, Western Civilization, YouTube | Comments Off

Well, we just celebrated Independence Day, a day we rejoiced at the things we love about America. But, let’s face it, there are things going on in America today NOT to love.

Here is a video to point out those things we are all “tired of.”

Video: Let’s Face It, No One Cares About You OR Me, or Britney or Lohan…

June 21, 2010 | Filed Under Video, Warner Todd Huston, Western Civilization, YouTube | 2 Comments

My newest video is a bit of an experiment. It’s a bit more social commentary than politics. I got the lighting right, though, so at least the color is much better than the previous one!

Enjoy…

Vlog: News Analysis of ‘We Con The World’ Video Controversy

June 14, 2010 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Censorship, Computers, Foreign Countries, Inernet, Islam, Israel, Jews, Judaism, Media, Media Bias, Palestinians, Religion, Warner Todd Huston, Western Civilization, YouTube | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

This is my first vlog (that’s video blog for the uninitiated) using my new HD camera. I see I have to fix my lighting problem in the room I was using to record it in, but anyways… it was my first stab at it, so give me a break will ya?

This episode I look into the controversial decision of YouTube to pull the Latma parody video of “We Are The World,” which they titled “We Con The World.” The video makes fun of the Palestinian supporters in the aftermath of the IDF raid of several “aid” ships off the coast of Gaza.

In any case, I will be sure to get better at this video deal-i-o, so don’t let this first attempt dissuade you from trying my next one, won’t you?

Terrorists Rejoice: YouTube Pulls Pro-Israeli Video

June 13, 2010 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Anti-Semitism, Censorship, Islam, Islamofascism, Israel, Jews, Judaism, Media, Media Bias, Palestinians, Religion, Terrorism, UN, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston, Western Civilization, YouTube | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

In the week following the Israeli boarding of boats piloted by Turkish “peace activists” off the coast of Gaza Caroline Glick and the good folks at the Hebrew language Israeli news site Latma created a parody video skewering the violent actions perpetrated by those “peace activists” against members of the Israeli authorities attempting to enforce the Gaza blockade. The video went up on YouTube and garnered three million views within a matter of days.

Created as a parody of the 1980s activist song “We are the World,” the Latma song was named “We Con the World” and humorously depicted an array of Palestinian supporters singing about how they’d fooled the world into thinking that it was the Israelis that were the bad guys in the Gaza blockade incident.

The video was very clever and hit just the right notes of humor being not too mean spirited yet easily hitting home with its message. The humor of the video was wholly in keeping with western humor and not over-the-top or unduly offensive at all. Naturally, YouTube pulled it anyway.

On her website, Glick reports that the video’s creators were told by YouTube that the use of the original song, “We are the World,” was a copyright violation. But Glick disputes this claim.
Read more

The Electronic Conscience

May 21, 2010 | Filed Under Business, Computers, Google, Inernet, John Armor, Net Neutrality, Technology, YouTube | Comments Off

-By John Armor

What is the impact of the current forms of gathering and transmitting information from person to person? Can people be affected by communications they don’t use, or even know how to use?

There were five of us around a table in church this morning. All of us used the internet at least somewhat. Most of us did not use Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. Our uses of the photo and video capacities of this generation of cell phones, fell someplace in the middle. But with some thought, the answer was clear. Whether or not we use these means of communication, they do affect us,

I grew up in a small town, Salisbury, Maryland. The town was small enough, and everybody knew everybody else’s children enough, that when you did something wrong, folks would tell on you. Odds are your mother would know about it before you even got home to tell your side of the story.

Ill. Rep. Hare Buying Stock in Wool Industry

April 2, 2010 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Chicago, Congress, Constitution, Cook County, Democrats/Leftists, House of Representatives, Illinois, State Government, Warner Todd Huston, YouTube | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

A few days ago Rep. Phil Hare told some of his constituents that he didn’t care about the U.S. Constitution and that he was going to help push through Congress Obama’s un-Constitutional take over of our healthcare anyway. Unfortunately for Hare he was being video taped as he said it.

Today it has been revealed that Rep. Hare has invested heavily in the U.S. wool industry. To that end he’s made a nice little video for us where he addresses this whole Constitution thingie…

You are wondering about the “wool,” right? Well, obviously he’s invested heavily in wool because he’s trying to pull an awful lot of it over the people’s eyes with THIS little extravaganza of back peddling!

In his video Hare laments the “gotcha” form of politics that resulted in his first YouTube special. All I can say is they can’t have “gotcha” unless there was something to “got,” there Rep. Hare!

But ya gotta give the Hare credit. This was a quick like a bunny video posted to try and stem the tide of his plummeting reputation. And just before the Easter Bunny makes his rounds, Hare lays this egg on us!

Finally, I am thankful to Hare for his military service. But I am compelled to note that General Benedict Arnold served us well for several years, too.
Read more

GBC: Google Broadcasting Co. — World Unicaster

March 24, 2010 | Filed Under Budget, Business, Capitalism, Computers, Economy/Finances, Google, Inernet, Net Neutrality, Scott Cleland, Taxes, Technology, YouTube | Comments Off

-By Scott Cleland

First there was one-to-many broadcasting, then many-to-many Internet narrowcasting… now it appears we are moving next to a one-to-many GoogleNet unicasting future where every company and individual may simply become a subordinate channel on the Googleopoly advertising network, and where content largely would be found only via Google’s mono-search guide.

To better understand this troubling ongoing transformation, connect the dots below:

Google TV:

NYT: “Google and partners take aim at the TV;” “The move is an effort by Google and Intel to extend their dominance of computing into television, an arena where they have little sway.”
WSJ

YouTube Caught Red-handed Cooking Stats for Obama

September 28, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Business, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Freedom, Government, Corruption, Inernet, Journalism, Media Bias, President, Selwyn Duke, Socialism, Society/Culture, Technology, YouTube | Comments Off

-By Selwyn Duke

News aggregator DrudgeReport.com is currently linking to a YouTube video of a government schoolteacher instructing young students to praise Obama in song. While this is shocking, there is an even bigger story here. Consider this: the video’s “views” counter listed only 363 views as of 1:04 p.m. EST on Sept. 24.

But at the same time it had 2,279 comments.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Obviously, those figures should in the least be reversed. After all, since the number of comments on high-traffic YouTube videos generally represents only one-half of one percent to three percent of the total views, we can estimate that the Obama worship video had in excess of 200,000 hits at the time. But what accounts for this? Is it a technical glitch? I doubt it.

But why would YouTube cook the statistical books?
Read more

YouTube’s ‘How To’ on Citizen Journalism Filled With Lefty Media Types, No Conservatives

July 1, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Free Speech, Google, Inernet, Journalism, Liberals, Media Bias, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston, YouTube | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Apparently, YouTube doesn’t think that a conservative journalist has anything to say to help all you budding citizen journalists out there. A glance at the denizens of the Old Media offered up as journalism experts on the Internet video giant will show a long list of well known lefties with not a single center or center right professional in the mix.

On April 30, YouTube set up a channel dedicated to a sort of how-to instruction manual or an online media 101 class that folks interested in becoming citizen journalists can watch to help them learn some of the tricks of the Media trade. Ostensibly, this will help the average, every day blogger present his work in a more professional way. This is a great idea, by the way. Many blogs could use some tips on better writing and presentation, interview skills, and video presentation if not an occasional editor — and I should know on that last one!

But it seems that no one that represents the center-right in the world of journalism seems to qualify as an expert as far as Google’s YouTube is concerned. Going to the main page will reveal a whole bunch of lefty jurnos offering you their help. Not only do we get the advice from the heavily left-slanted Chris Cillizza, NPR or Katie Couric, but YouTube even offers “advice” from AlJazeera’s Riz Kahn, for Pete’s sake!

Imagine, AlJeazeera on journalistic professionalism!

YouTube banned videos: Censorship gone too far?

January 25, 2009 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Anti-Americanism, Censorship, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Liberals, Media Bias, News, Patriotism, Society/Culture, Technology, Warner Todd Huston, YouTube | 1 Comment

-By Luann Dawkins of the Birmingham Community Examiner

After numerous reports of videos being banned from YouTube, a Google Global Company, the need for answers became paramount.

Researching the videos that currently reside on YouTube took quite some time, they are seemingly endless. At first glance viewers would assume the prevalent theme is one of unity, especially on a site where anyone can join and add their own view. It becomes apparent very quickly, this is not the case, if that view is of a conservative nature. Granted, some remain with a definite bend to the right, but for a conservative looking through the glass that is You Tube, the majority of this glass house only contains left turning halls.

In the article Media mules pull Obama, a video was included by an admittedly conservative videographer named Zo. This video was obtained and used with permission from New Media Alliance Television (NMA TV). Several weeks ago, NMA TV sent out newsletters stating they had added a channel on their site for video’s banned from You Tube. Gary Schneider, President of New Media Alliance, Inc., and Heritage New Media Partners, Inc. says the problem is even larger than NMA TV, others not affiliated with his website have claimed YouTube is censoring items that adhere to the company’s guidelines for content, and have still been pulled. Google and YouTube, when questioned, give only automated responses, if any at all, citing copyright infringement, offensive content, abusive language etc, etc.

Congress Comes to YouTube (again)…But it Almost Didn’t Happen

January 13, 2009 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, GOP, Government, Corruption, Inernet, News, Technology, Warner Todd Huston, YouTube | Comments Off

John Boehner, GOP Minority leader, reports on a new venture…

Today marks the launch of a new collaborative effort between The U.S. Congress and YouTube.com. The House Hub and Senate Hub have been developed to make it easier for visitors to find their elected officials and their YouTube channels. YouTube and other popular technologies continue to empower American citizens with real-time information about the policy debates and actions being undertaken by Congress.

As we see more and more members from both sides of the aisle embrace web video and social media, it’s easy to forget that only a few months ago Democrats on the House Administration Committee were proposing rules that would have brought this free flow of information to a screeching halt. The proposed rules, including an “approved list” of websites that could be used by members of Congress, would have amounted to new government censorship of the Internet by a panel of federal officials that is neither neutral or independent.

Tags: Publius+Forum, Warner+Todd+Huston, Government, Congress, GOP, Republicans