Youtube blackout- Is there a silver lining?
It is not the first time Youtube was banned in a country because of the unacceptable videos. Most recently because of a mistake by the the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA), the traffic to Youtube was interrupted for couple of hours on Sunday (Feb 24, 2008). Instead of blocking the whole site, PTA could have asked Google to take the objectionable material off the site.
There is a bigger issue than just the interruption of the service. Many of the videos in video sharing sites are objectionable and its not a news that many of them have copyright issues. Most sites use sophisticated services (Audible Magic, Google’s Video Id etc) to filter the content. But as we see there is lot of work to be done.
At a high level, if the content is not in the content filtering database, the system assumes that the content uploaded is free from copyright. Such content filtering services can be successful only when both content owners and video sharing companies work together. Video sharing companies give an option to flag objectionable videos. PTA could have used this feature before pulling the plugs of Youtube.
In coming days we could possibly see an enhanced role of a watch-dog service, which video sharing companies may require to keep the video sharing websites clean.
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