Imagine one day you open up the door to the studio were all the paintings you have ever worked on are stored and they’re gone. There’s nothing but empty walls and a note from the landlord saying “I’ve closed you out.”
I don’t have to imagine.
YouTube did it to me. One minute my collection of 334 videos, the product of years of activism and art, were available for any and all to see, to agree with or disagree with or to ignore.
But then, without any warning, without even the courtesy of an email, swoosh-they’re gone.
Here’s what happened. Blogger Queen’s Crap had posted a video of mine about David Yassky’s antics (that’s another story) and the hits just took off. So I went to check the stats on my iPhone and-poof-nothing except a little corporate non-speak saying-without any explanation-that I had violated their terms and my account was suspended. Actually every blank space where I had a video had the same non-speak. I felt ill, shocked and like I had been violated.
Then the questions started to come: Which terms had I violated? How had I violated them? Only YouTube knew and it wasn’t telling. Google, YouTube’s parent, has a motto: don’t be evil. That doesn’t sound too hard. (Though from what I read Goggle doesn’t have any scruples about helping the Chinese with censorship regarding filtering out articles with words like "Democracy" and "Tiananmen Square" (I made an error Yahoo helped track down Internet activists) and if that is not evil, it’s evil’s first cousin.) http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TEC_GOOGLE_CHINA?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
http://www.quikmaneuvers.com/files/Oct_07_Cultural_War_-_Internet_Cos_Help_Chinese_Repress.pdf
How about a new motto: just be fair. Why can’t YouTube have given me a little notice, an explanation and a chance to respond? That’s all.
Sure, they don’t have to treat me like that; I checked with Norman Siegel, famed civil rights attorney and friend, and he said because YouTube is private they don’t owe me free speech. Norman Siegel also pointed out to me that YouTube gives people a soapbox via the Internet to speak up. He contacted YouTube, actually Google's legal department immediately and fired off a letter.
Speaking of free speech, did I mention most of my videos are about the insanely corrupt politics that are sinking New York, my home city, under a tsunami of debt. as well as a tsunami of community crushing development ala the Bloomberg administration? My very first YouTube went after King Mike Bloomberg, who doesn't break the law, the little emperor of NYC just changes them.
Did my getting shut down have anything to do with my message? Who knows? Only YouTube knows and they aren’t saying.
Clayton Patterson pointed out that YouTube removed my work from every website and blog that had posted my work as well , with no notice. People were very upset. I asked people to write letters to YouTube on my behalf express their outrage which they did and I am grateful.
Clayton also compared what happened to me to people with Amazon and Kindle resulting in lawsuits because again with no notice books were removed.
There is a happy ending-sort of. After Norman helped me contact both YouTube’s and Google’s legal departments, someone must have looked into what happened and started thinking about what this kind of arbitrary behavior might mean to YouTube’s reputation.
So I get a letter of apology from some YouTube gentleman with a complete non-explanation of why they suspended my account; a “technical error.”
I think YouTube’s error was they tried to silence an experienced activist who happens to have Norman Siegel and plenty of others in her corner. And so they blinked-this time.
YouTube and Google: it’s time to live up to a higher standard; if you’re going to give me a soapbox great, but don’t kick it out from under me without warning and without a reason.
And when you do act badly how about a real explanation instead of this “technical error” crap? I don’t think some geek in a server farm stumbled and hit the delete key on my site. What really happened?
Thanks to everyone who wrote YouTube on my behalf and to Norman Siegel who responded quickly and contacted Google's legal dept. on my behalf. Also thank you Louis Flores, Raul Barcelona -- The Promise of New York, Clayton Patterson, Queens Crap, Bloomberg Watch Tom fighting Columbia University abuse of eminent domain , Alan, Al, RAFAEL MARTINEZ-ALEQUIN,Yetta, Jason, Mary, http://truenewsfromchangenyc.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-yorkers-lost-their-anger-sole-and.html, http://devilwearsmarshalls.blogspot.com/...thank you everyone who spoke up for me and helped with to get my hard work returned to me.
Note: My work was banned for 28 hours before the mayoral election that was too close to call.
