Thursday, June 07, 2007

You Tube sleeze

Here's an email message I got today.


Have you seen the new change to YouTube? It seems that now, when you click on a video clip to watch it, there's a new thing that happens when you hover your cursor over the screen. Small thumbnails of "related" videos pop up. Of course, only some are related; others are just an attempt to porn up your world.

Let me give you an example. I keep a blog for my son's Catholic high school. Since we're small, I manage to keep everyone informed of deadlines, meetings, practices, etc. plus anything that young Catholics might be interested in...clips of the Fransican Friars of the Renewal, those funny clips that those oh-so-creative seminarians put together, and sometimes non-religious stuff...from the National Spelling Bee, some astronomy stuff, etc. So I had that neat clip of the Sisters of Life posted. And sure enough, there are lots of little "related" videos that pop up now...and one of them "just happens" to be "bisexual sisters". Needless to say, I hadda go through my entire blog, pulling all YouTube videos off.

Here's where I thought you might have an answer: Do you have ideas about alternative video sights that wouldn't promote porn/sleazy pop culture? I saw that there's GodTube and GospelTube, but not only are there explicitly anti-Catholic clips there, it's mostly religious stuff, no academic/artistic/etc. videos.

I'm sorry for bothering you, but I know you're someone who cares about what passes for culture "out there"...and maybe you knew of an alternative site or even know someone who wants to start a clean version of YouTube.


Sigh.

I post this for you parents out there whose kids are surfing You Tube, so that you know that they are being relentlessly, aggressively assaulted with violating and even pornographic material. Even if they are just looking for "nice" You Tube things.

Does anybody know if there is a way people can block these pop ups? Does anybody know how we can assail the Overlords at You Tube to stop propositioning surfers with smut? A focussed campaign here would be a good idea if somebody feel God is calling them to take it on.

1 comment:

EegahInc said...

There's a sizable number of complaints on YouTube's official blog entry for this stupid idea at http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=zC8Z21iTYyk I added mine. It's the only place I can find to let them know how bad this is; if someone knows another place to send complaints I would appreciate it.