I am very concerned that the Obama Campaign is using the YouTube comment approval mechanism to censor criticism of the way the campaign is being run. I submitted the following comment to the campaign’s YouTube movie of Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama:
In his endorsement of Barack Obama at American University, Senator Edward Kennedy announced that “with Barack Obama we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion”, but this is not my experience with Obama’s campaign staff. Long before Kennedy endorsed Obama, Obama staffers prevented me from participating in an Obama rally at Georgia Tech because I carried a small home-made sign that read “Peace Is Good” on one side and “War No More” on the other side.
After I clicked the Submit button, the button blinked for 10 seconds with the message “Pending Approval” and then disappeared. YouTube keeps no public record of rejected comments for those of us who posted them. So there is no way I can verify whether they received my comment or not. But I have reason to believe that they did receive my comment because several other comments showed up on the site after my comment.
I waited five minutes and refreshed the page. My comments were not there. So I repeated my submission and received the same results. Since the YouTube movie and its comments are managed by the Obama campaign, it appears that the Obama campaign has censored my polite, but critical comment.
What can we make of this apparent political censorship? It falls into a pattern of political censorship by Barack Obama’s campaign. In this case, some staffer decided that my critical testimony of the Obama campaign’s political censorship was too persuasive to publish. And they hid behind the YouTube commenting mechanism, which gives them complete control of which comments get published and leaves the writers of the comments without any explanation for the campaign’s censorship.
It is important for us as citizen journalists to expose the corporate media’s technical mechanisms for political censorship. Small design decisions like not letting the writer of a comment know whether the movie publisher reviewed the comment can have a huge effect on whether political communication is democratic or dictatorial. YouTube should archive our rejected comments so we can prove that they were rejected or neglected. But instead, YouTube has designed a system that allows the Obama campaign to censor our political experiences with their campaign.
In one last desperate attempt, I wrote a smaller comment, requesting that the Obama campaign NOT censor my last two comments. I wrote,
Please don’t censor my critical comments of Obama’s campaign staff. It is not democratic.
Again, my comment was whisked away to the Obama campaign’s censors as if it had never been posted at all.
Here is the YouTube video where I was censored by Obama’ campaign staff:
20 responses so far ↓
1 shelbinator // Jan 30, 2008 at 5:46 am
Obama is not alone in this. You think it’s hard trying to get through to him, you should try Clinton. Her YouTube comments have been tightly controlled in the past, and as recently as in Macon a week or two ago they prevented a Young Dem from entering with a personal sign (the Make Global Warming a Priority kind); Benson documented it on Blog for Democracy. Did you try abandoning your sign to get into the Obama rally?
I would imagine all the top-tier candidates are stingy with the open dialog, though I have not personally verified Edwards or any of the Republicans — wait, I think I had a comment censored on Romney or Giuliani’s YT channel.
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2 Will Riley // Jan 30, 2008 at 7:14 am
Good question. I didn’t abandon the sign to get into the rally. Instead, I stood outside the rally with my sign, telling everyone I met that Obama’s staff would not let me in with this sign.
3 The Presidential Candidates // Apr 26, 2008 at 2:56 pm
I understand what your are saying Mr. Riley but you must be appreciative of the tightrope the Obama campaign must walk. Their opponents are going to do everything they can to put Obama into a little box as “left wing fringe liberal” and.. while you and I may very well actually be left wing fringe liberals (I certainly am and proudly so, I havent read the rest of your blog to know about you) — Obama cannot be seen that way… It will hurt his chances of winning in November greatly. In comparing Obama vs. Clinton (or only viable choices) it’s clear that Obama is far less the fascist that Clinton is - I think the choice is clear.
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4 Will Riley // Apr 27, 2008 at 8:01 am
Thank you Presidential Candidates for your anonymous comment. You seem to suggest that Obama’s presidential success is paramount, that his presidential success is more important than our first amendment rights, that the Obama campaign is the lesser of two evils, and that we would be irrational to jeopardize his candidacy by voicing strong criticism of it.
I think it is irrational to support a duplicitous campaign that calls for change and civic participation, while maintaining a tradition of political censorship and centralized political power. It is not enough to argue that Obama is better than his rivals, which I agree with. For change to occur, we must have politicians who share significant political power with all of the people they represent.
I think the Obama campaign and his supporters must be more “appreciative” of our first amendment rights and the ways his campaign is violating them in the name of a new kind of politics. We need Obama to “change” his politics of censorship. A good first step would be for his campaign to personally apologize to those he has censored, including myself and others. When I called and emailed the Obama campaign, no staffer has ever called or emailed me back. This adds insult to injury.
For the record, unlike you, I don’t consider myself a “left wing fringe liberal”. Also, I do not consider myself a moderate or conservative; I consider myself non-partisan and independent. If I had to pick a label, I’d pick “progressive” because I believe that America can and must engage in fundamental reforms as soon as possible.
5 Sensored Female // Jun 13, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I made a few comments about the media, just a couple of days ago on Tim Russert grilling Obama. The point of my message had to do with media distortion. I wasn’t taking sides for either candidate. I was criticizing the media machine for telling us what to think and feel all the time. My comments about the media were deleted, but a silly question I had pertaining to the commentary was left on. How does it work? If enough people flag it as spam is it deleted? I’ve always been critical of media censorship… I didn’t even think about youtube comment censorship. The dynamics of this world and how it is sensored really creeps me out.
6 Youtube downloader // Jun 17, 2008 at 12:51 am
It’s a stupid system.
7 Will Riley // Jun 20, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Thank you Sensored Female for sharing your experience with political censorship. Please post the URL of the website where you left your comment, and please post your original comment before it was truncated and reframed. This is a very important point. To what extent do websites allow users to control their comments? Can they return to their comments and delete them? Can they edit them? Can the website managers edit them without the poster’s permission?
Also, Youtube downloader, please elaborate on your reasons for thinking that it’s a stupid system. What system is stupid and why?
8 Im spanish // Jul 9, 2008 at 3:50 pm
All Obama youtube videos are using political censorship,they are deleting all negative people opinions.
9 Jewpublican // Jul 28, 2008 at 2:37 am
Wow! This article was posted in January. Here it is July, and the Obamabots are STILL censoring comments on every new YouTube video posted up.
What’s really creepy is that not only does the Obama campaign censor the comments—I have yet to see any of mine posted—but so many of the comments that do make it up are downright sycophantic. It’s the “Amen Corner” to the nth power. I see stuff like “How I love Obama!”, “He’s so wonderful”, and similar syrupy, fawning comments that proclaim him the greatest thing since sliced bread and the electric light bulb, rather than actually explaining why the commenter thinks Obama should be POTUS. A minority of these approved comments actually offer any substance into Obama’s policies, values or ideas. (Of course, that’s assuming he has any.) I wouldn’t be surprised if many of these sycophantic comments were posted by the Obama campaign itself under a variety of pseudonyms.
On the flip side, the videos posted by McCain’s campaign do not require approval of comments, nor does there appear to be any censorship. The comments come up fast and furious, and are numerous and diverse. The positive comments tend not be fawning—though there are exceptions—and stick to the issues.
There are also countless negative comments under these McCain vids. While some try to make valid arguments or point out legitimate flaws of the candidate, many others are downright vitriolic. There also seems to be a spirited, though not always civil, debate between those who are pro-McCain and those who are pro-Obama.
I could maybe understand Obama’s campaign censoring comments that are profane, unnecessarily insulting, or beyond the realm of good taste—though I personally believe in total free speech, no matter how disgusting it may be—but even civil, purely issue oriented comments seem to be censored as well.
The bottom line is that McCain’s campaign is willing to allow all to comments no matter what the opinion reflected in those comments of him may be, and Obama does not. Just what is Obama afraid of?
It seems to me that the Wonderful Wizard of Ob is afraid of anybody pulling back the curtain, lest his hoax be revealed.
10 Will Riley // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Thank you Jewpublican for your comment. It would be great if you could post some examples of comments that you tried to post, but were censored by the Obama campaign. It would also be good if you posted some examples of reasonable, but critical comments found on John McCain’s site. Finally, I will try to find a plugin that allows you to attach screenshots to your comments as additional evidence.
11 J.R. Jackson (a.k.a. MLM's $8-Million Man) // Aug 19, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Of course they are using these tactics. There is no other way for him to win.
J.R.
J.R. Jackson (a.k.a. MLM’s $8-Million Man)s last blog post..Comment LUV
12 scott becker // Sep 11, 2008 at 7:53 am
What a difference a day makes. Yesterday I viewed approximately three commentaries chiding the Obama campaign for the “Lipstick on a Pig” comment. Interestingly, Rep. Carnahan was shown in one of these composites that had been put together from CNN and Fox footage, making a similar remark just before the Obama gaff. Today, there are approximately 50 Obama friendly commentaries and the previous pieces have mysteriously disappeared. Does anyone get the impression that the powers to be that run youtube are intolerant of unfriendly Obama references? In terms of my own experience, I put up a piece over a month ago that was calling the three major candidates into question (see website). This piece was moved around to the periphery of the web on several occasions and considering the volatility of the topic, as opposed to the generic characteristics of the meta data, received a suspiciously small amount of hits. The bottom line seems to be that the unilaterally focused linkages of our omniscience of modern media work to squelch any opinions that run counter to their program. This covert form of censorship still retaining the illusion of inclusiveness and fairness.
13 chris // Sep 12, 2008 at 4:09 pm
I can hardly beleive what youtube is pulling.
I feel like I’m living in 1940 Communist Party of the Soviet Union. My comments were clean, thought provoking, and intelligent. But because they were leaning toward the opposite political party, they were dismissed. Deleted. A shameful and depressing begining of censorship which will lead to socialism. I’d rather die than live in that kind of world.
14 Matt // Sep 22, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Both candidates and many individuals who support them censor the comments on their youtube channels. It sucks, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking that it’s only the guys we don’t agree with that are doing it.
Youtube has nothing to do with it, other than that they have approving comments as a feature on their website.
15 Will Riley // Sep 22, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Thank you Matt for your comment. I think you are correct to point out that political censorship is available to people from all parties on YouTube. However, I think that YouTube has everything to do with it because they designed and control the comment approval system. It is possible to create a commenting system that allows the owners of a YouTube channel to foreground/background comments without fully censoring them. The public could then review comments that were backgrounded and request that they be foregrounded. YouTube could also provide users with a public receipt of all censored comments, both as an email and as a webpage. In this way, if a blogger had a comment censored, they could embed a link to a YouTube page which proves that their comment was censored. My main point here is that YouTube’s design decisions have enormous implcations for how the service is used politically. It cannot claim that design decisions are politically neutral. It is important for YouTube to redesign its comment system so that it protects minority views and prevents political censorship. To the extent that it encourages an echo chamber effect on its channels of communication, it discourages democratic debate and distorts public opinion.
16 YouChoob // Oct 13, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Obama is not alone: I was surprised that out of the 500000+ views on Palin’s acceptance speech, only 28 comments were posted. Lo and behold, all 28 were in support of Palin’s ways and McCain.
17 Trish // Nov 1, 2008 at 7:12 pm
All of a sudden tonight a bunch of anti Obama videos are “we’re sorry this video is no longer available”. I spent a bunch of hours organizing the best ones to send them to friends and now they can’t access them. This is BS
18 Dana // Nov 6, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I tried to leave a comment twice on a video where Obama is responding to Bush’s state of the union address. Both my comments went the “pending approval’ route. I can’t imagine that Obama’s campaign is doing this directly as this wasn’t a video that the campaign posted. I think somehow - the Obama people have gotten YouTube to censor things for them. I left another comment unrelated to politics just after that and it worked just fine.
I didn’t even think my comment was that bad. I wished him well…and said that Pres Bush was being very gracious (after all he said about him) and that I hoped people were as gracious to him now that he has the job. etc… (Not part of the posting…. I truly do wish this, although he should apologize to Bush)
19 "let's make change" // Apr 27, 2009 at 9:36 am
wrote the below to this titled youtube vid. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you write. They’ll review it first anyway, just in case you say something objectionable to them, cuz you have before & you’ve lost their trust in your stupidity, deference, banality. Of course I don’t know how their business runs behind the curtain, but this was my best guess. & This was my most recent pending rejection:
BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | William K. Black | PBS
Hmm, I seem not 2 know enuf 2 comment, as I dunno Frank, Dodd, Fanny Mae etc–at least not a clear sense, but I can C pyramid schemes & controlled demolitions, “make work projects” that keep our noses 2 their grindstones, runnin treadmills that keep the elites aloft over us all, their shills included. We people, the meek amongst us, must band togther, come 2 terms on coordinated action plans to rebuild the economy from the bottom up vs dicktating from the top down, implement sustainable alternat
20 QQmoar // Jun 6, 2009 at 4:02 pm
tl;dr
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