I was reading the news this evening and came across this article talking about Wael Abbas’s Youtube account being suspended. If you’ve watched his videos I doubt there will be any question that they violated YouTube’s community guidelines with content that:

• Shows bad stuff like animal abuse, drug abuse, or bomb making
• Is graphic or depicts gratuitous violence
• Is meant to shock people

Should YouTube have disabled his account? Did they do morally right by protecting site viewers from his videos or did they simply advocate torture?

Social responsibility

I for one believe we, not as bloggers, or netizens, but simply as people have a responsibility to society. We’re supposed to work at making the world a better place. At least that’s my opinion. Needless to say it really makes no sense whatsoever when a company such as YouTube which has the infastructure to show these things for all the world to see refuses to do so because it might offend someone. Might be seen by a child. How easy it is to turn a blind eye to things when it doesn’t affect us. That reminds me of a poem. First they came: By Pastor Martin Niemöller

What can we do?

There are a few things we can do. For one we can petition against YouTube (though I doubt that would help due to the technicality of the policy violations), or we could offer Mr. Abbas guest posting chances on our various blogs a few times a month so his videos will keep being seen. Yes they could be seen if he just hosts them on his own blog, but this would make for a wider audience than he could get with just his blog.

Does anyone feel motivated to do anything to help him get his message out? I’m thinking some guest posts on various blogs around the world wouldn’t hurt… I’ll make the offer, Mr. Wael Abbas are you interested?

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Tags: egypt, youtube