YouTube Infiltrated by White House
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by Hannah Ross September 21, 2006 - 3:22pm, 4 Comments
The White House’s latest anti-drug stint has brought it to YouTube, the popular video sharing website, to get exposure for messages geared toward the nation’s youth.
A September 18th White House press release suggested the implementation of a series of public service announcements focused against the use of marijuana. In regard to the series of twelve videos, the White House noted that the initiative would cost taxpayers nothing because of the free services offered by YouTube.
Search terms attached to the published videos were, war on drugs,
peer-pressure,
marijuana,
weed,
ONDCP
and 420,
words which consequently also call up videos promoting the use of drugs. Rafael Lemaitre, spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, believes that YouTube will be a successful venue for the continuing war on drugs:
If just one teen sees this and decides illegal drug use is not the path for them, it will be a success.
However, only two days after the campaign’s launch YouTubers began to lash out against the anti-drug videos. YouTube users and video-makers began to publish videos which mimicked the style and tone of the government-produced ads, mocking them for their heavy-handed messages. An example of such a video can be seen here.
At this point it’s difficult to say whether the anti-drug initiative will be successful, but judging by the brash of parodies that the new videos sparked it’s likely the White House will turn elsewhere for future anti-drug awareness campaigns.
I dont think its fair to critique the White House for using new technologies to get their messages out. If we can use youtube, so should everyone else be allowed to.
Get off your high horse.
James
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newboy
Youtube is one of the most popular video sharing sites on the net. A year ago, co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen were in between jobs, a pair of twentysomething geeks running up big credit card debts as they tooled around a garage trying to develop an easy way for people to share homemade videos on the Web.
Hurley says, “I do not want to work hard. I want to live a soft life. I want to sleep for three hours every afternoon and nine hours at night. I do not want to stay awake the whole day so that I can get a few 350 grand at the end of each month. I do not want my talents to be exploited by a ruthless employer. I am a lazy man. That is why I choose to live off the net. I am too lethargic to try and survive in the real world. That is why I did not bother to hold down a job though my credit card debt soared.
“On the net things are handed to me by Google. The idea of youtube came to me from a dinner party with a half-dozen friends in the greatest city in the world San Francisco. It was January, 2005, and we couldnt figure out a good solution. Sending the clips around by e-mail was a bust: The e-mails kept getting rejected because they were so big. Posting the videos online was a headache, too. So we created a site and put in basic software.
“What I and Steve came up with is a Web site, now called YouTube, that has become an Internet phenomenon. Show the honey and the bees will flock to it. We worked for about six hours each week for two months designing youtube. We had the idea to create a community around the video.
“Once that was done we knew that tons of millions of dollars would just flow into our laps after the Google buyour. We will not have to work hard. In the old economy you have to work really hard for a lousy promotion which might give you a few more grand if your employer is very generous. You have to get up 3early in the morning and run for a few grand. On the net you can become rich without working hard.
“On the net once you have the idea you just sit at home and then magic will happen. That is exactly what happened at Paypal, Skype, MySpace, Facebook. The basic, simple to design software that I and Chen designed allows people to post almost anything they like on YouTube in minutes. People can jack off on porn. Now we are sitting at home retired early after the Google buyout. Content has been handed to us on a silver platter. We do not have to slog hard to create content like a poorly paid online journalist who makes a lousy 450k each year. We do not have to experience daily financial pressure
because our site does not get enough readers. We are not under pressure to meet deadlines. We get up at ten in the morning and consider that to be hard work. We do not have to work for ten llllong years. That is the privilege of those in the old economy. they take the tube to go to work for a bum 350,000 dollar paycheck at the end of the month.
“We have it easy. The reason why we never held a job for more than a year was because we felt that a rope was attached to out necks. We would have had to stay chained in an office with four walls. It is such a pain to get up in the morning and run for the sake of a few 350 milli grand at the end of the month. The content that we offer is free. That is easy for us to that as we do not have to work to create it. Copyrighted work is there for our users to copy and paste as that is work which we have the right to copy. Other content
comes from common folk wanting to share stuff.
“Revenues will come from advertising. The net is a click and eyeballs business. Google understands this. The clicks come from youtube’s millions of eyeballs that we have not worked for. It is unearned traffic. We do not have to sweat and bleed for it. That is the privilege of poorly paid online journalists. I do not have to worry about losing my job as my content does not get get enough page views. I do not have to take the initiative about my own life. I do not have to discipline myself. I do not have to worry about having a career. The millions of youtube.com visitors will ensure that this will never happen. I can simply focus on trying to build relationships with my tall, tough women friends in San Francisco. We hang out together. We work out together. We sleep in the afternoon together.”
sivasankaran
I fail to understand why the hell the government goes into the best video shareing site with this crap about not doing drugs and whatnot. I go there to watch videos that are funny. This only ruins the fun. The White House should stay to the kids in schools. LEAVE YOUTUBE!
Scott