by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: November 28, 2009

With the exception of a help forum, YouTube does not have forums. YouTube does encourages and allow comments and feedback for individual videos that can get out of hand from time to time, and there is active response to anything that a community member flags or reports. The more offensive videos and comments may get up and stay up for a time, but are dealt with mercilessly, whenever the community steps up and flags them.

Of course, the more popular or newsworthy offensive content will be repeatedly posted until the members are kicked out or the issue dies down, but an individual would have to look for such content in order to find it. Such content does not automatically show up on the home page, even if it is the most viewed or popular.

YouTube has official guidelines for what constitutes offensive expression or speech and clearly states what is prohibited, including hate speech that targets religion, race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, age, gender, veteran status or sexual orientation and gender identity, and will ban members who repeatedly cause problems, who cause specific types of problems, or who use bots to facilitate mass postings of offensive comments.

Permanent bans are afforded to those who stalk, harass, intimidate, invade privacy, post peoples personal information or incite violence. Violations of the detailed terms of agreement at YouTube are causes for a permanent ban, too.

And spam is dealt with, also, when it is repeated again and again, or is posted in large amounts.

That being said, a lot of freedom of expression and speech is done on YouTube. Controversial, ideological, racial, and a variety of other material that could be considered to be offensive by some is just a part of the world of expression and exposition that YouTube allows. The real world, especially the workplace and the school, is not free of offensive speech, and neither is YouTube.

The community members are the key to reporting bad content or commentary that violates the terms of agreement or the specific offensive speech guidelines. That community includes parents who are responsible for their children's computer access and activity. While forums are "anything goes", where foul language and other offensive comments can show up at any time, it is up to the parents to insure that their children access material that is not likely to generate such comments, and to set controls that prevent access to adult material.

This can be done by setting up sub accounts with the approved videos (and comments) in them, then blocking access to the full YouTube experience.

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