Hi Andy, Sorry, your message with "could you repost, came in garbled" to my first attempt to send this message got waylaid by the spam filter. I'm sending it from Thunderbird and not through gmail as in the former attempt, so it should come through OK. I leave it to your better judgment wheather to send it on to the list or not after almost a week from the original post by Kelvin. And wheather to cut or not this first paragraph.
Best Claude Hi Kelvin Thanks for the information about the YouTube non profit channel and congratulations to all of you at YouthNoise for the work you do and for your videos. Yet there are things jarring in the YouTube non profit channel in general. First, from the press communique you quoted: > Organizations with 501c3 tax filing status that register for the > YouTube Non-Profit Program receive a free non-profit specific YouTube > channel where they can upload footage of their work, public service > announcements, calls to action and more. YouTube's global platform > enables non-profits to deliver their message, showcase their impact > and needs, and encourage supporters to take action. So only US-registered charities can apply. This is confirmed in <http://youtube.com/nonprofits>: "If you're a nonprofit organization in the U.S. with 501(c)(3) tax status, apply today for the YouTube Nonprofit Program." and in <http://youtube.com/ngo_apply>: "Please note that your organization must have current 501(c)(3) status in order to be considered for this program. ". Maybe it is because of: > • The ability to embed a Google Checkout donation button on their > channel and video watch pages that allows people to make a > contribution directly from YouTube. in the packet for accepted non profits? Yet how many "organizations with [US] 501c3 tax filing status" cannot afford a web page with a donation button anyway? How many really need this "Checkout donation button" right on on their YouTube page, because of which, for instance, the Association for Progressive Communications <http://www.apc.org>, TakingITGlobal <http://www.takingitglobal.org/>, Bytes For All <http://www.bytesforall.org>, the Digital Divide Network itself www.digitaldivide.net and Telecentre.org are excluded? This month, the Pakistan ICT Policy Monitor Network, part of Bytes For All, participated in an action that lead Pakistan's Ministry of IT to finally accept to consult civil society and IT trade stakeholders about its Electronic Crime Bill. Several other associations, groups or their members were involved: for instance Help-Pakistan <http://www.help-pakistan.com>, The Second Floor <http://www.t2f.biz/>, the Pakistan Software Houses Associations [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.pasha.org.pk>. None of which would qualify for "showcasing" in the YouTube non profit channel. The Pakistan ICT Policy Monitor Network had already been hosting the analysis of the Electronic Crime Bill sent to the Ministry of IT by barrister Zahid Jamal in January, when it had already been discussed in its mailing list. But the ministry hadn't answered. So on Sept. 7, with the Bill about to be presented in parliament, they organised a discussion on the Bill, which was presented by Zahid Jamal, at the café-library of The Second Floor in Karachi, and videorecorded it. Bloggers reported about it, mailing-lists discussed it. On Sept. 14, Zahid Jamal and Jehan Ara (former chairperson of [EMAIL PROTECTED]) were interviewed about it by Dawn TV in a nationwide broadcast, and all the videos were put online, in part at YouTube, in part at Google Video: see the post <http://www.teeth.com.pk/blog/2007/09/18/understanding-the-e-crime-bill/> where they are embedded, which was taken up in the Metroblogging Karachi and Metroblogging Islamabad collective blogs, and on "Don't Block the Blog", and the discussion went on in the mailing-lists. On Sept. 19, the legal office of the Pakistan Ministry of IT issued the invitation for a discussion of the Bill's flaws on the mailing-list of the Pakistan ICT Policy Monitor Network. The videos of the presentation and discussion at The Second Floor café-library would certainly be an asset for YouTube's non profit channel: because of the exemplary economy and efficiency of the civil society action they were instrumental to, and because of their educational value in general: while the discussion was about the Pakistani Electronic Crime Bill, the legal concepts that were clarified and debated concern all citizens, everywhere. And as Jahid Zamil's analysis and other documents can be downloaded from <http://www.pasha.org.pk/> and the slides of his presentation at The Second Floor café are at <http://www.slideshare.net/drawab/important-issues-in-pakistans-cyber-crime-bill>, the material about these issues is very complete. And yet the videos were actually viewed by few people (98 for the first part of Zahid Jamil's presentation, less than that for the other videos), because only 5% of the population have broadband access in Pakistan, and if you are on dial-up and can access equivalent content in text form, you do. To the end of this action, what mattered was that the videos be online. But for civil society elsewhere, it would be important to make them better known. But this action cannot be showcased on YouTube's non profit channel, because of the "501c3 tax filing status" clause. And then one cannot help wondering about the criteria used for selecting some projects whose videos *are* showcased in the non profit channell. AutismSpeaks(tm) may fit the "501c3 tax filing status" clause, but after 10 videos of walkers, paddlers, golfers, softballers saying how good they felt about their being do-gooders for the noble cause of autism awareness, and not a peep from a single autistic person, I skipped to one entitled "Autism Everyday" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDMMwG7RrFQ>: it showed exhausted mothers and autistic kids having tantrums. One mother says, *with her autistic daughter in the same room*, that she had contemplated killing her and herself rather than putting her in a special ed class. This video already provoked several shocked responses from other parents of autistic children since May: "Response To Autism Everyday" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozsfx5lUQdU>, " Autism Everyday is a "Doctored Film"" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46LYd4Xe63Y> are listed in the "related videos" of "Autism Everyday". But what help can it be to her daughter? In the case of an average mother, the nervousness of having a TV crew in the room might have made her forget that her daughter was in the room too. It would have been the producer's responsibility to ensure that this might not happen, by interviewing the mother alone, anyway. But this is no average mother. This is Alison Tepper Singer, Executive Vice President in charge of Communications and Awareness of AutismSpeaks(tm), who "spent 14 years at CNBC and NBC in a variety of positions, including vice president of programming in NBC's cable and business development division, producer of CNBC's MoneyWheel and MarketWrap programs, and, most recently, special projects producer at CNBC", according to her profile in <http://www.autismspeaks.org/leadership.php#alison>. So this cannot be explained by sheer camera panic. It was deliberate. See Jemaleddin Cole's <http://tanglebones.com/articles/2006/05/21/autism-speaks-doesnt-speak-for-me/> post, published after an excerpt of the video aired on ABC. And Amanda Baggs, whose "In My Language" video has done far more to make non autistic people reflect about autism (and cognitive disabilities in general) than all the AutismSpeaks(tm) videos lumped together, also responded to that part of the video in "Reply to Autism Speaks and GRASP Articles of Understanding" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhnsEJRJgeA> on October 28, 2006. I have flagged the "Autism Everyday" video on YouTube as "Other Terms Of Use violation", because YouTube doesn't have an "obscenity" option for flagging, but their Terms Of Use say: "H. You will otherwise comply with ... all applicable local, national, and international laws and regulations". And publishing on the internet a video where a recognizable mother says in front of her recognizable daughter that she contemplated killing her, a video that will remain indefinitely online, is child abuse, which seems against the US "Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act as Amended by the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003" <http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cb/laws_policies/cblaws/capta03/index.htm> which says "the term "child abuse and neglect" means, at a minimum, any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm..." (section 111 "Definitions"). So what was the rationale for selecting it for the YouTube non profit channel? Is showcasing "Autism Everyday" in it an illustration of the "Don't Do Evil" slogan of Google, which owns YouTube? Best Claude On 9/27/07, K Wong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I got some news this morning that YouthNoise was chosen as one of a > handful of non-profit 'launch partners' for a new YouTube nonprofit > channel. If any on this list have been thinking of making PSAs (DD > related or otherwise), I'd encourage you to consider YouTube as a > distribution medium for your campaigns. It has worked very well for > us. > > PS. Press release attached... > > Kelvin {at} > YouthNoise.org > > --- > > See YouthNoise featured on YouTube (http://youtube.com/nonprofits; > http://youtube.com/youthnoise ). YouthNoise is one of 13 nonprofit > organizations chosen as launch partners for YouTube's new nonprofit > program. The program, which begins today, September 27th, allows > 501(c)(3) organizations to have a special channel designated as a > nonprofit and the functionality to receive donations directly through > the YouTube site. In addition, the YouthNoise video about youth > homelessness is featured on YouTube's homepage today. Current views > are nearing 30,000!(...) -- Claude Almansi v. Cantonale 22 CH-6532 Castione cell. +41 (0)76 401 85 69 gruppo di lavoro Noi Media www.noimedia.org Swiss Internet User Group www.siug.ch _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
