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

[Claude Almansi]

Hi Kelvin and All

Thanks for the further information about the Non Profit Program of YouTube. Re:

On 10/6/07, K Wong <wongo888 at gmail.com> wrote:
>(...)
>
> 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.

Let's hope so - I didn't know about iGoogle. So the US focus is not
due to the donation possibility and the fact that it is possible to
check the tax status of a US-registered charity?

Re:
>
> 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 fully agree on that: in the case of the Pakistani eCrime Bill I
mentioned, actually, what counted was that the videos of the
presentation of its defects was on You Tube and could be linked to in
blogs. In Pakistan, it seems that on 5% of the people have broadband
access. So people read about the presentation, viewed  the slides on
slideshare, but actually few viewed the videos, because of the
bandwidth issue. But it was important that the videos were public - as
the Legal officer of the Ministery of IT understood too, when he
finally chose to listen to the objections to the Bill. And that was
what counteed.
>
> 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.

On that I don't  fully agree: "Reply to Autism Everyday"
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ozsfx5lUQdU> cites  the whole scene,
including the part where she says she didn't because of her other
normal child - in front of the autistic child. It was the ABC
interview, sympathetic to Autism Speaks, that didn't show, but only
discussed, the scene where Alison says she contemplated killing
herself and her child. "Autism Everyday is a Doctored film"
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46LYd4Xe63Y> quotes the whole scene,
but with sound off. It IS a pamphlet answer to a film that is  itself
a pamphlet answer to films presenting achievements of autistic people.

I know about caregivers' exhaustion and despair: I was one, to my
husband after he had a stroke, and I was member of a self-help group
for  relatives and friends of brain-injured people. Not the same as
autism, but the problems caregivers have to face are similar in many
ways in both cases. Plus in the case of brain injury, the  jarring
with the memory of who the person was before - the person's and the
relatives' memory of it. So we had our meetings to exchange freely
about our experiences, feelings, and work-arounds. And our
association, fragile.ch , made awareness campaigns on the whole issue,
but from both point of views.

I discovered fragile.ch through a TV broadcast, one night I felt
rather desperate because the rehab clinic director - nicknamed
Rottweiler by both patients and staff - had decided to chuck my
husband out before we could move to the wheelchair accessible flat.
Our family doctor had said "Don't go to the clinic until the flat is
ready, they can't just put Guido in the street". Yeah well, I wouldn't
have put it past Dr. Rottweiler.  Above all, Guido would not have
understood why I wasn't coming anymore.  So there was this broadcast,
telling the association offered legal support too. I rang them the
next day. Giovanna Valli, the chair person,  immediately understood,
knew about the clinic and its director, and gave me precise
indications, even though we weren't yet members.  Fragile organises
activities and courses for the people with brain injury too, tailored
to their wishes and capacities - and this also gives some free time to
their relatives.

But fragile.ch does not use what is said in the caregivers' self-help
group in information campaigns. Had they done something on the line of
Autism Everyday in the above-mentioned broadcast, I might have killed
myself that night.  Autism Everyday gives no indication about how to
get concrete help, it only spotlights the hardship of being a
caregiver.

What is particulary shocking in the film is that the mothers speak
about this hardship in front of their autistic children, as if they
were nonpersons. Hearing your mother say to others in your presence
that she contemplated killing herself and you rather than putting you
in a special school is devastating  enough.  Deliberately keeping this
passage in a video that was broadcast nationwide made it worse.
Putting the video on YouTube means that Jodie herself  risks being
reminded of it again and again. That people she meets later on might
associate her with it.

So the problem with Autism Everyday is not just a matter of "rubbing
the people the wrong way" by being "blunt and honest".  It is that it
deliberately offends human dignity. It is that it only conveys a
message of despair, and none whatsoever about concrete help
possibilities. And the problem with AutismSpeaks in general is that it
never gives voice to autistic people: they have even disabled comments
on their YouTube videos to prevent them from directly answering.

 "Christschool", the author of  "Autism Everyday is a "Doctored
Film"", recognizes that speaking about autism is a political gesture.
He is the autistic father of an autistic child: see his  "I reject the
term's "high functioning" and "low functioning""
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82hWuQalYkw> video. And see also his
other videos offering far more concrete and useful information about
autism, with far lesser means than the whole batch of the
professionally made AutismSpeaks videos - where there is a political
agenda too.

Both things qualify him to answer "Autism Everyday", politically, but
without having his answer called BS, I think.  And it explains, maybe,
why the "long tail viewing rates" for his "Autism Everyday is a
"Doctored Film"" are actually almost 3 times those of "Autism
Everyday",  for all the latter's being showcased in the Non Profit
channel and having been presented and discussed on national
television.


Best

Claude