[DDN] Fwd: re New YouTube channel for non-profits

[K Wong]

You brought up quite a few points in your note; I'll address a few of them here.

First, I'll state my biases. I have been interested in DD issues for
some time particularly with respect to Aboriginal Canadians; I am both
Aboriginal and Canadian. I have also worked in web accessibility
specifically with young learners with cognitive disabilities. My
comments are also entirely my own and not those of YouthNoise.

There is no question that the YouTube program is US-focused. None. I
can only hope that Google/YouTube is trying this out on some low
hanging fruit - the US market - before rolling out to the rest of
humanity. It makes a lot of sense from an engineering perspective to
do it this way. Google did this with their iGoogle roll-out.

Now that being said - anybody - including non-US NPOs, can post videos
to YouTube. You just can't get onto the NPO channel and as such, you
will get 'long-tail' viewing rates.

YN has been posting videos to YouTube for some time. We have some
very, very talented videographers at YN. Our youth homelessness
initiative went from a few hundred views to about 89,000 views because
of our position as a channel launch partner. Now, there is likely a
lot of founder effect involved in that number, but if other US-based
NPOs can benefit from this and get the word out then I believe that
they should use it, in spite of the limitations.

There are some obvious DD aspects to streaming video not unique to
YouTube. I have been told by other activists that Louisiana has some
pretty poor broadband access in rural areas. For us, YouTube and video
is only one of the ways that we try to get our message out. We are
also experimenting with delivery over cell phones. If you need to get
a message out and you have the technical capacity to use YouTube (and
your target audience is on YouTube) then it makes sense to use it.

I watched the Autism videos you pointed out and I think that there are
some political maneuvering going on in that debate; Alison is
definitely having her words taken out of context. The remixers cut off
the tail end of her statement from something like "I'd rather kill
both of us than attend a school like that" into "I'd rather kill us
both". This is the type of BS you see in political campaigns; it is an
act of desperation. The stories in the Autism Speaks video ring true
to me and they are consistent with my interactions with caregivers of
people affected by these types of disorders. I think that she was just
being blunt and honest which is always bound to rub some people the
wrong way.

I have asked some others how the posting process works specifically if
there is any vetting before something is posted to the channel. I have
no idea; I'll write back when I hear more.

PS. I also met Daren from http://www.quantumshift.tv last month at Web
of Change. They have a similar NPO video project going on...check it
out...

K

On 10/4/07, Claude Almansi <claude.almansi at bluewin.ch> wrote:
> ...
> 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. ".
>
> 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?
> ...
> 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