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Lesbian website After Ellen accuses YouTube of allowing large numbers of lesbian scenes, such as women kissing on ‘The L Word,’ to be ‘flagged’ as inappropriate content.
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HOME > VIEWPOINT > ACTION! ALERT
By: ERIC ERVIN
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A lesbian website is accusing popular YouTube of anti-gay discrimination, claiming the online video site tolerates regular viewer “flagging” of lesbian content as “inappropriate.”
“Despite being a great resource for LGBT viewers, YouTube also offers these users constant reminders that lesbians and gays are not an entirely accepted part of American society, thanks to a feature known as ‘flagging,’” contributing writer Ellen Seidler charged in a Jan. 8 article on AfterEllen.com, a website offering “news, reviews and commentary on lesbian and bisexual women in entertainment and the media.”
“What this translates to in the anonymous world of the internet is that anybody who sees a video he or she doesn’t like can ‘flag it’ for inappropriate content,” she wrote.
Seidler could not be reached for comment by press time.
A search on YouTube reveals that visitors have requested videos showing a lesbian couple preparing to kiss, discussing raising children together as well as an episode of the Showtime series “The L Word” be removed from the website. But Seidler notes in her story that a near-kiss between a heterosexual couple on “The O.C.” is not flagged and neither is a sexy heterosexual kiss from the movie “The Notebook.”
In response to questions from Southern Voice about AfterEllen’s charges, YouTube issued a written statement almost identical to a statement the company issued to the lesbian website for its Jan. 8 story.
“Our policy prohibits inappropriate content on YouTube, and it is our community that polices the site for inappropriate material,” said YouTube spokesperson Jenny Nielsen in the prepared statement.
“The fact is we don’t control the content on our site. Our community decides what content rises up, and also flags content that is inappropriate.”
ACCORDING TO YouTube’s terms of use policy, company officials later review flagged videos. If they violate policy, they’re permanently removed from the website.
The policy states, in part, that videos deemed “unlawful, obscene, defamatory, libelous, threatening, pornographic, harassing, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or encourages conduct that would be considered a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, violate any law, or is otherwise inappropriate” are prohibited from being posted.
Seidler said some videos are unfairly flagged solely because they depict lesbians.
“The repeated flagging of LGBT content regardless of its level of sexual explicitness, and YouTube’s tolerance of this flagging, suggests a clear bias,” she wrote.
Nielsen denied the accusation.
“Thousands of videos are flagged each day, and though we don’t break down specific metrics regarding what content is flagged, the assumption that LGBT content is routinely subject to flagging by users, while similar content depicting straight characters/individuals does not get flagged, seems anecdotal and is not supported by what we observe on the site,” Nielsen said.
JUST ENTERING the words “lesbians,” “lesbian kiss,” and “lesbian films” into YouTube’s database of videos, to which 65,000 are uploaded daily, brings up a disclaimer warning visitors: “This video may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube’s user community.”
However, users have not flagged at least one video with lesbian content. It shows a collage of scenes from different lesbian-themed movies and television shows with two women passionately kissing and embracing one another.
Nielsen said YouTube’s current policy is effective and doesn’t need amending.
“Community policing is very effective in open communities such as ours similar to the model created by eBay, Amazon.com and Craig’s List,” she said.
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