One interesting finding is that in 7 out of 10 sites (with the exception of Tudou, Vimeo and Yahoo Video) the user does not need to be logged in to flag a video. In Vimeo the flagging option isn’t even visible when the user isn’t logged in. And with 56.com the option will show itself after a video has played in the player screen.

Platform Text Text Description You need to login

56.com Denounce/Inform* (none) no
blip.tv Report Inappropriate (none) no
dailymotion.com this video may offend this video may offend no
last.fm Flag for review (none) yes
livevideo.com Report Content Report Inappropriate Content yes
youtube.com Flag Report video as inappropriate yes

video.google.com Report Problem Report Problem no
spike.com
(formerly iFilm) Flag this Content as (none) no
Inappropriate
tudou.com Denounce / Inform the (none) yes
Video*
veoh.com (none) Flag Video no
vimeo.com Flag this video (none) yes**
video.yahoo.com Flag Video (none) yes
youku.com Denounce* (unclear) no
–
*) freely translated from Chinese
**) flagging option only visible when logged in.

The necessity of being logged-in to be able to flag videos can be both defended as well as criticized. Defending it would be to say that a user needs to be part of the community to form it and have their say in what is and isn’t acceptable. This is comparable to the US voting system where citizens need to register in order to vote.

With Yahoo Video the ID (username) is included in the form that is filled in, when flagging a video. And the user cannot change this. With Tudou the flagger isn’t able to submit his/her complaint before filling in his/her address and telephone number. When the flagger sees his/her username or address and telephone number on the form, this takes away the false sense of anonimity that he/she might have taken for granted while flagging the video. Taking in consideration the possibility of filling in false information in the Tudou flagging procedure. Seeing the data appearing on screen is a way to confront the user that the action to flag someone is connected to his/her account.

Even though with Vimeo a user has to be logged in, it’s nowhere visible in the flagging procedure whether the complaint is linked to your account. Which could be called a false sense of anonymity. This is enforced by the fact that users are not reminded of this action later on. This goes for YouTube as well. The company doesn’t notify the flagger about actions that they’ve undertook with the flagged video. There are seem to be no consequences connected to flagging a video for the flagger.

I have compared the flagging procedure of the following video sharing sites: 56.com, Blip.tv, Dailymotion, Google Video, Spike (formerly iFilm), Tudou, Veoh, Vimeo, Yahoo Video and Youku, with the flagging system on YouTube. This in order to see what implications the small differences in software has.

6.1. Categories

The number of categories given ranges from 2 (Youku) up to 11 (Veoh). Spike and Vimeo are the only two that don’t limit the flagging options to categories and leave it up to the flagger to fill in the reason. Vimeo does make some suggestions: “Is this sexually explicit? Did the user not make it? Is it illegal or offensive for some other reason? Please explain below, and the Vimeo staff will consider deleting it.” This strategy of handling flagging takes away the possibility for both Spike and Vimeo to prioritize the incoming complaints and forces them to give them all equal attention and therefore time. Regardless whether they are complaints regarding hate speech or just spam. Leaving them almost no other option than handling them all in a chronological order. On the other hand perhaps there’ll be lot less flagging going on if people actually have to type in an explanation of why it’s being flagged and prove it violates a policy.

Veoh subcategorises the flagging options into ‘Video Playback Problems’ and ‘Video Content Issues’. The sites that include options similar to ‘Video Playback Problems’ are 56.com and Youku. By doing so, they take away the negativity surrounding flagging. Because a user will flag something because he/she doesn’t agree with the content, regardless whether the rest of the community feels the same way. By including these technical support options, the flagger is helping everyone without consequences for any specific user. Changing the act of flagging from an egocentric action (’I don’t want to watch this, please remove this user’s video.’) to a benevolent one (’No one like this, could you please change this.’). For no one likes a video that doesn’t play right, or when the sound isn’t working.

Another aspect of that division between ‘Video Playback Problems’ and ‘Video Content Issues’ is the difference between problems and issues. For every problem, there is a solution. While issues demand discussion and most of the time don’t have one solution.

It is of no surprise that a subject such as homosexuality causes these types of negative reaction, because traditionally this is a type of group that has not gotten much representation in the mass media. Over the past several decades the traditional groups, such as corporate gatekeepers, educational authorities and church leaders, have lost their power to define cultural norms. A process that Grant McCracken calls the ‘withering of the witherers’;

Ideas and practices that were once hidden from public view – say, the Wiccan beliefs that fundamentalist critics claim are shaping the Harry Potter books – are now entering the mainstream, and these groups are struggling to police the culture that comes into their homes and communities. (Jenkins, 2006, p.208)

This results in today’s environment as one of cultural ‘plenitude’, also a concept of McCracken. He argues that because of cultural conditions and new media technologies we have a wide range of diverse cultural production;

Each new technology spawns a range of different uses, inspires a diversity of aesthetic responses, as it gets taken up and deployed by different communities of users. Such transformations broaden the means of self and collective expression.

You would say that in such a culture there would be no need for strategies to be heard or to even stay on the platform. These different personal expressions could develop a greater understanding from other perspectives on life. Users don’t need to agree with it, but they can at least accept them as being part of the community.

The LGBT part of the YouTube community seems especially vulnerable to flags, because of the visibility of the flags. Firstly, the ‘confirm birtdate’ message saying that the user is about to watch a flagged video. Secondly, the ‘not suited for minors’ message saying “you are now watching a flagged video”. This is often placed on videos with LGBT content, informing the community that these videos have been flagged. This could form an incentive for flaggers to flag more LGBT videos, because they have seen that it ‘works’. At the same time, this visible sign of being flagged also feeds the LGBT community to address the issue. Which leads to the conclusion that if all the flags set on videos would be made visible to the community this would lead to greater participation and foster debate. YouTube already makes use of a variety of banners, why not insert a banner stating why a video was flagged:

And inserting the option to either confirm or remove the flag, available for a selection of users. I will address this as well in my proposal.

Similar like Internet pioneer John Gilmore puts it (“The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” ) the LGBT community has come up with their own ways to deal with their seemingly unwanted presence at YouTube. There are different ways in which the LGBT community and affiliates react to ‘fagging’. One way is creating awareness by posting videos and writing articles and blogposts about the subject. But other interesting approaches deal with it by using the system.

a. re-posting videos
The paradox in starting a new account is that it’s not only done by the so-called ‘haters’, but also by the users whom account has been ‘fagged’. They do this in a way so that their audience can trace them back. For example, keeping the same name and adding something. So has the user ‘cha970’ turned into ‘cha9701’ and is currently available under ‘cha9704’. Her whole account exists of posting and re-posting episodes of ‘The L-Word’, a TV-series with lesbians in the lead roles. And as soon as her account is about to be deleted, she warns her subscribers by the means of a video. In which she tells that her account will be deleted and what her new account name will be. ‘Luvcats4’s account has been suspended, while ‘luvcats4again’ contains solely lesbian themed video clips. Amongst which a video called ” This Video May Not Be Suitable for Minors” YT Protest.” with this text on the side:

Every time you look around you see the words, “This video may not be suitable for minors” at the top of the screen. What bothers me is that a majority of these videos are either gay or lesbian and are quite tame in their content. To all you flaggers out there, come into the 21st Century. Don’t let homophobia rule YouTube.

Sometimes it isn’t the account that has been deleted, but just videos. Also in these cases this strategy is applied as well. For example, ‘ChrisCrocker’ reposts all his deleted videos under ‘ChrisCrockerDeleted’. Renaming accounts can also be done in advance of deletion in order that not all videos are gone when the account has been deleted. The user ‘mightyatomant’ also has an account under the name ‘mightyatomantagain’. Although she refers to the other on both sites and it’s quite clearly a way of categorizing her own content, it’s striking to see the different use in naming and tags.
b. hiding / controlling
Mightyatomant’s account is used to post clips from ‘The L Word’ (written full out in the title) and ‘Queer as Folk’ (abbreviated as ‘QAF’). While the ‘mightyatomantagain’ account is used to post lesbian themed movies, from which the titles are all abbreviated except for every first clip of a movie . This could be laziness of the user, seen the fact she had to make an average of ten posting per movie. But the specific use of tags stands out, for she tags a lot of movies with just the tag ‘movie’, while her first account has an average seven tags per videoclip. A tag like that in combination with an abbreviated title makes it hard for gay haters (also called ‘gay bashers’) to find the movie in order to flag it. Mightyatomantagain doesn’t do this consistently enough for it to be a strategy. She also sometimes uses just the tag ‘lesbian’, which is also notoriously used to attract users to porn videos. But the activity of specific tagging is seen more. Previously mentioned user ‘cha9704’ avoids using the tag ‘lesbian’ and with her history of multiple suspensions, being suspended at least four times and re-posting at least 74 videoclips every time, it seems she knows what “aggravates” gay haters and/or allows the YouTube staff to suspend her.

There are different functions tags perform for bookmarks as identified by Golder and Huberman (Golder, 2006). This list is extended with an 8th function by Tisselli (Tisselli, 2008), which recognizes the strategic role tags can play as been described above;

I. Identifying What (or Who) it is About.
Overwhelmingly, tags identify the topics of bookmarked items. These items include common nouns of many levels of specificity, as well as many proper nouns, in the case of content discussing
people or organizations.

II. Identifying What it Is.
Tags can identify what kind of thing a bookmarked item is, in addition to what it is about. For
example, article, blog and book.

III. Identifying Who Owns It.
Some bookmarks are tagged according to who owns or created the bookmarked content. Given the apparent popularity of weblogs among Delicious users, identifying content ownership can be particularly important.

IV. Refining Categories.
Some tags do not seem to stand alone and, rather than establish categories themselves, refine or
qualify existing categories. Numbers, especially round numbers (e.g. 25, 100), can perform this function.

V. Identifying Qualities or Characteristics.
Adjectives such as scary, funny, stupid, inspirational tag bookmarks according to the tagger’s opinion of the content.

VI. Self Reference.
Tags beginning with “my,” like mystuff and mycomments identify content in terms of its relation
to the tagger.

VII. Task Organizing.
When collecting information related to performing a task, that information might be tagged according to that task, in order to group that information together. Examples include toread, jobsearch. Grouping task-related information can be an important part of organizing while performing a task.

VIII. Strategic.
A tag can be created and disseminated for strategic purposes

The best example of hiding is done by the user account ‘mgsg07’, for she only allows other users to see her playlists after they’ve become friends with her on YouTube. Consequently her channel contains a mere 40 lesbian themed videos for everyone to see, while her playlists contains 287 videos which can only be viewed by friends and don’t show up in search results.

She quite consistently tags her movies with just the tag ‘Movie’, with exception of music videos. She shows luvcats4again’s YT protest video on her channel, which indicates that she’s aware of (and active in) the ”fagging” discussion.

YouTube participants can broaden or limit physical access to their videos and thus create larger or smaller media circuits by using technical features such as limited “friends-only” viewing or strategic tagging. (…) For example, one video maker used his YouTube name as his only tag. Unless one were a close enough friend to know this tag, it would be difficult to find his videos using the tagging system. (Lange, 2007)

I first called this strategy just ‘hiding’, but having read the article by P.G. Lange I added ‘controlling’. Because as the excerpt above shows, strategic / limited tagging is not only a way of getting lost in the mass (hiding), but also a way to control how easily a user can be found or not. Tagging can also be used in other strategic ways as the use of the tag ‘thinkflickrthink’ on Flickr shows; which was part of the reactions of Flickr users who, in an uncoordinated way, responded to a change in its filtering policy in Germany (Tisselli, 2008). When Flickr announced on June 12th 2007 new restrictions for its German users, which would prevent them from viewing content marked (by Flickr users themselves) as inappropriate, or “unsafe”. (see 4.1.1 SafeSearch)

c. reacting
Another strategy against ”fagging” is addressing the issue directly, like previously mentioned user Grimace has done. Or posting videos about ‘Gay Hate’ on YouTube in general, without talking about the flagging system. As did the previously mentioned ChrisCrocker with “Chris Crocker – Gay HATE on Youtube!” , in which he talks about hate speech, safety and the lack of media attention to this subject. With the exception of an article in the Advocate called “Homophobosphere” , of which he posted the URL next to the video. More users address the issue of ”fagging” and gay hate on YouTube in their videopostings . But, as many of them claim, the issue should get more media attention and to be taken more seriously. By joining the discussion, starting a platform and/or openly blogging about the subject matter. Just as YouTube does with other subjects like terrorism , American politics and wars (a.o. Iraq, Myanmar and Dafur).

In the previous chapter I mentioned that often the practice of flagging is not necessarily directed towards one particular video, but it is often to be found used against a certain group and/ or opinion. With this case study I will look at the side of the flagged instead of the flagger, as an addition to the previous chapter, to get a more complete insight in the community’s view on flagging.

5.1 F(l)agging gay content on YouTube

“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. YouTube is, and always has been, a forum for free
expression. To be clear, our community is made up of millions of people across the world and is diverse racially, ethnically, politically, religiously as well as in terms of sexual orientation.”

This written respond from YouTube’s marketing manager, Jenny Nielson, to AfterEllen.com shows that they actually downplay the issue of ‘fagging’. The term ‘fagging’ in this context, is used by the user ‘Grimace’ who posted a video called “Flagged or Fagged?” on January 25, 2007. In this video Grimace and CrazyStacey present a few videoclips from YouTube, while asking the question whether these videos were “fairly flagged or unfairly fagged.” Grimace himself explains the term ‘fagged’ as: “flagged on the basis of homosexual content.” This definition is used with the further use of the term ‘fagging’ in this article. An ironic sidenote is that ‘flagging’ has a whole other meaning within the LGBT community, where ‘flagging’ means carrying a colored handkerchief from the back pocket. And the different ways of doing this indicates that one is gay and the type of company he/ she is looking for.
After a video has been f(l)agged and the YouTube staff agrees with that, the video will get deleted or marked as “inappropriate” and/or the user account will be deleted . When a video has been marked “inappropriate” a user that wants to see that specific video has login first:

and to confirm the viewer’s birth date in order to verify the age of the viewer:

After doing so the following banner will remain in sight above the video:

“This video may not be suitable for minors.”

It’s quite debatable when a video is marked “inappropriate” based on gay content. And can there for be considered as ‘R’ rated . But as soon as a video or an account gets deleted because it has been unrightfully flagged for containing gay content without nudity or sexual content, flagging stops being a tool for moderating content and starts being a tool for censorship. And because it is the community that censors itself, in a way this is self-censorship. Even though it’s YouTube that has the last hand in the deletion process, it’s the flaggers that decide which videos are up for deletion. Although this case study only handles flagging on gay content, more types of content are being unrightfully flagged.

It seems that something really provoked the LGBT community in this year. For not only was 2007 the year Grimace posted his video about ‘fagging’, but many other articles and videos dealing with ‘fagging’ on YouTube were mostly written and posted in this year. The video, that caused a great upheaval about homophobia by the LGBT community on YouTube, was part of an ad campaign of Snickers (called “Snickers Satisfies”) that was aired during the Superbowl in 2007. The accompanied contest, using YouTube as a platform, asked people to vote for “the most satisfying ending”, posting the alternative endings on their own website . In the ad two guys accidentally kiss after which they try to prove how manly they are by ripping hair out of their chest. The website also displayed the reactions of five NFL players to the several versions of the ad. “The players’ reactions range from general amusement (…) to non-verbal disgust (…) to overt expressions of prejudice (…)” It was the endings together with the players’ reactions that provoked gay rights organizations (a.o. GLAAD) to take a stand. Although the original advertisement is still online on YouTube , the site has been taken down and the players’ reactions show up on YouTube under the message:

“This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Mars, Inc.”

The “Snickers”-outrage was followed up by a smaller discussion in August 2007 in response to the flagging of a videoposting of the first teenage gay kiss during American daytime television, between Luke and Noah from As The World Turns . It was claimed to be ‘fagged’ and later taken down in request by Viacom due to copyright infringement. The video has been mirrored (= copied and posted by other users, while the original video is still online) numerously since then. Although YouTube responded in its own way by improving their flagging system in November of 2007 , the main issue has not been resolved yet.

The main cause for the issues is invisibility of the flags and the flagger towards the community, which keeps them from responding in an accurate way. So they create their own strategies to deal with falsely flagged videos by appropriating the flagging system in many different ways. Both the unauthorized use of votebotting and flagging campaigns as well as the informal self-organized efforts of against these practices can be interpreted as a form of grassroots convergence. The reaction to this by YouTube can happen in two ways; either they respond to it by democratizing the system or they will accept the community’s efforts of pushing the boundaries of the existing flagging system.

“No sooner is a new technology – say, Google Maps – released to the public than diverse grassroots communities begin to tinker with it, expanding its functionality, hacking its code, and pushing it into a more participatory direction.” (Jenkins, 2006, p.255)

Similar to the case of ‘fakesters’ which , as explained by danah boyd, allowed people to play within the system. A phenomenon that is now widely practiced and accepted on sites like MySpace, Facebook etc.

There are three possible methods of analyzing the First Amendment:

1. The Absolutist Approach holds that the First Amendment means exactly what it says:
that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.
2. The Categorical Approach would protect or not protect speech based on the label that is
attached to the speech in question.
3. The Balancing Approach sees the Absolutist Approach as impracticable and the
Categorical Approach as artificial. Balancers believe that in every case courts should weigh the individual’s interest in free expression against the government’s interest in restricting the speech in question.

Most of the earlier mentioned ‘Self-Righteous Flaggers’ are approaching free speech in an absolutist way, while YouTube clearly takes the categorical approach by dividing the content up in issues for the community to flag. Which in the context of flagging makes sense, for as how it now works only offers the users the option ‘I don’t agree’; without the possibility of argumenting their case and also leaving out the ‘I do agree’ option.

While this all takes place in the flagging context, the third approach already takes place in the unfiltered comment section. Where instead of a government (or the company), it is the community that makes the verdict.

Such is the crux of the argument made by free-speech absolutists: Unfiltered comments sections allow debate to flourish, and other commentators will organically shut down homophobes. Call it free-market tolerance. “Comments sections of blogs, like blogs themselves, offer a space where people can challenge stereotypes and push others to exchange ideas rather than slurs,” says Marc McCarthy, senior director of communications for GLAAD.

The choice of not filtering the comments is a conscious decision by YouTube as revealed by
YouTube spokesperson Kathleen Fitzgerald: “YouTube is, and always has been, a forum for free expression (…) Our community is made up of millions of people across the world and is diverse racially, ethnically, politically, religiously, as well as in terms of sexual orientation.”

But this claim becomes debatable when the rating entered the comment section in August, 2007:
- Remember: you can choose which comments you want displayed, based on their overall ratings, on all video Watch pages. You can always choose to show all comments regardless of their ratings. Just use the pulldown menu near the comments section on the Watch page.

- In the near future, we’ll make comment ratings a feature that the video creators can turn on or off for their uploaded videos.

Which would enforce the categorical approach that YouTube already handles the flagging issues. The comment section is the only area available for absolutist free speech. And maybe in that aspect I am a free speech-absolutist. For I see the online environment as a radical change in outlet from the offline outlet sources, in which I see the Chomskyan possibility of letting the underdog be heard;

“How likely is it that anyone calling for radical change in society – whether environmentalists, human-rights activists or opponents of the arms trade – will be consistently and fairly reported by corporate news organizations? How much more likely is it that their arguments will be vilified, marginalized or simply ignored?”

Another issue that takes place on YouTube is what the community calls ‘votebotting’; which is similar to flagging campaigns, except for it being done by bots and not users and it is not misusing the flagging system, but the rating system instead. Resulting in a video receiving for example 9000 one star votes in order to lower the average rating. All of which can be monitored by the user through the ‘Insight’ feature. This analytical feature on every YouTube account contains detailed statistics about the videos they upload, such as viewer demographics and ratings. ‘Votebots’ are often mentioned in combination with ‘flagging campaigns’ by users, and is therefore thought of as targeting the same sort of accounts. In general these are the accounts that hold an outspoken opinion about debates such as Atheism/Christianity, Pro-life/ Pro-choice and Creationism / Evolution theory or accounts that represent a minority amongst the community, such as Scientology. The reactions from the community to ‘votebotting’ do not necessarily address these subjects, but more the fact that the system is flawed and misused. These reactions from the community range from videos complaining about ‘votebotting’ up to entire accounts against the practice, such as ‘BotAttack’ and ‘justsaynotobots’ . These accounts approach the issue the same way as flagging campaigns are organized. They use multiple platforms to spread the word and to mention all the accounts that got ‘votebotted’. This way the viewers can counter-attack the ‘votebots’ and rate the videos a five star rating.
Different aspects of this ‘votebotting’ debate draw my attention. Firstly, the fact that the system is hacked and therefore appropriated for other means can be seen as a characteristic of grassroots convergence. And secondly, the same goes for the way in which the community addresses this issue by self-organizing efforts to stop it. Both sides can be interpreted as a demand for control and a bigger role of participation on YouTube. The hacker has found a way around the system and the community is using the system to be heard.

Groups and/or persons that initiates or participates in a practice called ‘group flagging’ (also known as ‘flagging campaigns’). This is a semi-organized form of collectively flagging one specific video or account. Similar to the ‘Ego-Flagger’ there is a sense of power at play, because a lot of these types of channels list a number of accounts they have already got deleted, thereby showing the effectives of their campaign. These channels / users organize these campaigns from both inside the YouTube platform as well as from outside forum and personal websites. Which gives them the appearance of being similar to ‘smart mobs’. A term coined by Howard Rheingold to refer to “the ability of people using mobile and networked communication devices to organize and respond in real time to developing situation.” (Jenkins, 2006, p.332) The users extend the functionality of the flagging system by appropriating the system to their own demands. This can be seen as part of the bottom-up consumer-driven process (grassroots convergence) of consumers learning how to use the different media technologies to bring the flow of media more under their control (Jenkins, 2006, p.18). One particular difference with ‘smart mobs’ is the fact that not all flagging campaigns are being held by a number of users, some are speculated by the community to be performed by one user with a lot of ‘sockpuppet’ accounts. A ‘sockpuppet’ can be created in a matter of minutes. Which completely takes away the accountability, because they tend to close them or abandon the ‘sockpuppet’ accounts after the flagging campaign. This together with the ease of flagging a video, a push on the button is sufficient, not only lowers the barrier to flag a video, but also to do this sooner. Which increases the chances for false flagging practices. A user does not need to be right, for there are no direct consequences to flagging a video for the wrong reasons. The underlying motivations vary from a dislike towards the online behavior of a certain account to an account posting videos representing an opinion different from the flagging group. And flagging a video, because the account shows for example a ‘pro-life’ opinion is not in accordance with the flagging reasons given in the TOS.
Flagging campaigns, and false flagging in general, raises the demand for a different approach towards flagging. For example, a rule that prohibits an account to flag after three unjust consecutive flags. But the ‘sockpuppet’ accounts are already one phenomenon that would cause such an idea to fail. In addition to this, it would remain the question of who gets to determine whether a video was justified flagged; who will be the ‘watchdog’? A meta-moderation system in the hands of the community, not unlike the Slashdot system, as proposed in the final chapter would decrease the amount of false flagging by adding a reputational factor into the community.

There are different motivations at play when it comes to flagging practices. In my countless hours of watching YouTube movies that address or are related to flagging, I repeatedly came across similar type of movies and issues that revealed certain archetypical types of uses and users in the practice of flagging:

The Classic Flagger
The Classic Flagger is the prime example of how YouTube envisions how flagging should work. This is the type of flagger that YouTube relies on:

“The next time you come across inappropriate content on the site, flag it! We’re counting on you.”

Only flagging a video when it clearly violates YouTube’s Terms of Service (TOS) and thus keeping the platform clean from spam, racism, violence and other unwanted practices. Some flaggers have a clear agenda in their flagging practices in accordance with the TOS. A prime example is BullyingUK, an account set up by the organization of the same self-explanatory name. They’ve also uploaded a movie in which the founder explains how to flag videos on ‘bullying’ to inform the community.

The Angry Flagger
Also known under the more widely known phenomenon ‘haters’. Haters are to be found in complex discussions such as religion and politics, where there’s a certain overlap with the ‘Self-Righteous Flagger’. A lot of ‘haters’ also address less complex subjects such as showing a general dislike towards anime, emo or alike; which results into account descriptions of anime channels containing sentences like:

“Stop letting flaggers get rid of all the anime
Anime Rules”

But the most interesting ‘haters’ are the self-referential accounts that address aspects of the system itself. An activity that caused a lot of irritation in particular amongst the community was the use of misleading thumbnails and/or titles of videos. This came to a highlight with the Internet meme called ‘RickRolling’ in 2008; a hype to YouTube links to people directing them to a videoclip of Rick Astley’s song “Never Gonna Give You Up” instead of the video they thought they were going to see. This was made possible by inserting a misleading frame in the middle of the movie, which was presented automatically as being the thumbnail. This soon came to be common knowledge amongst the YouTube community. Another variation on this is placing a frame of a woman’s cleavage in the middle of the video (often in combination with a misleading title). The account ‘AtheneWins’ is infamous for successfully drawing attention to their videos about net-neutrality this way.
Another less specific aspect that leads to irritation on YouTube is spam in general, both amongst videos as well as in the comments section. Although the term ‘spam’ is often used as an umbrella term for all the flagging issues, the videos/ comments addressing the issue of spam reveal the same critique as the videos/ comments about misleading thumbnails. By making videos and leaving comments about these seemingly small details in the system and on the platform, they collectively show they care about the YouTube platform, wanting to improve it and that they regard themselves as being part of the community.

The Self-Righteous One
These accounts mainly accuse YouTube and/ or the community of withholding them from their right of free speech, regardless of the subject matter. The videos often have the words ‘falsely flagged’ in the title or in the description text. They are defending their own videos or those of other Tubers and mirroring their videos . Mirroring is the practice of uploading the flagged video under other multiple accounts, by the same and/or other users. This way it gets spread over YouTube in various directions and makes it hard for flaggers to trace them all down. These videos and the practice of mirroring form another example of the self-reflexive nature that exists on YouTube. Entire accounts and playlists are dedicated serve as mirror account and/or contain videos about flagged videos, banned accounts and notorious flaggers. The underlying motivation is to prevent someone else from telling the community what they can and cannot put online and is in that sense a critique towards moderation in general. This often involves taking on the role of the victim, by doing so showing the same characteristics as trolls/trolling have:

“All are rooted in one psychological insight: If you simply ban trolls – kicking them off your board – you nurture their curdled sense of being the oppressed truthspeaker.”

Looking at the videos they’re defending, often these are not the most world changing videos. This leads to think that it’s not that specific video or argument they are defending, but they’re either defending free speech in general and/or showing their support (by mirroring that video or posting a video response) to a certain side of a specific discussion. For example, accounts showing their support or mirroring videos from either account ‘VenomFangX’ or ‘Thunderf00t’ are actually supporting either creationism or the evolution theory. And can be seen as having the reversed effect of flagging: keeping a video online and the discussion that surrounds it alive. Another way of interpreting the fact that the debate is not about one video in particular, is by comparing it to the way Jenkins describes the role of gossip:

The specific content of gossip is often less important than the social ties created through the exchange of secrets between participants. (Jenkins, 2006, p.84)

Defending certain videos, users and opinions towards the community builds common ground between the users and thereby a stronger sense of community. This is beneficial towards YouTube, until discontent rises to the point that users are abandoning the platform.
Until that point, it is in YouTube’s advantage to stay out of these discussions, even though a lot of users are addressing them to solve the problem.

The Ego-Flaggger
Some flaggers brag about which accounts they got deleted and dedicate movies and channels to this fact. Revealing a sense of power play that is caused by flagging a video; exhibiting the influence a user has by getting someone else’s video removed from the site. An illustrational example would be Iflagwweuploadersv3’s movies. All of which are two or three sentences in basic white typography on a blue background with titles like “Bye Bye Emilking943”, “Notice from I flag wwe uploaders” and “MY real Backup account”. The use of backup accounts is something that is both used by accounts that are repeatedly flagged (see strategy from testcase) as well as by accounts that are engaged in group flagging practices (see flagging campains). With the difference that the first group uses it as something to fall back on in case their main account gets closed down, while the second group uses their other accounts as sockpuppets for flagging purposes and close them down afterwards themselves.

Trollers, flamers & spammers
These three types of users can be found on different types of platforms and aren’t YouTube specific. A troller is generally the one “who baits and provokes other group members, often with the result of drawing them into a fruitless argument and diverting attention from the stated purposes of the group.” A flamer sends out messages “intended to insult, provoke or rebuke”. “[Trolling] differs from flaming in that the goal of the flame bait is to incite any and all readers, whereas the goal of a stereotypical troll is to draw in particularly naive or vulnerable readers.” The common opinion on the Internet is that these types of users need to be ignored, which can be summed up in the advice: “stop feeding the trolls.”

Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it.

An interesting trend of spamming has sprung up amongst the YouTube community to make videos by the name “This Video Will Be Flagged.” This form of spam is known under the name “YouTube poop”, these clips consist of repeated sequences of mostly cartoons, from which the editor has taken a few frames and repeated it. Resulting in videos where words like ‘fuck’ and ’sex’ are endlessly repeated. In the text column they challenge the ‘flaggers’ to flag the video, often referring to them as ‘flaggots’ or ‘fl@ggots’. A related trend is to insert “Flag This” in the video title, or even “Flag this, YouTube!” This could be interpreted as being a direct critique against flaggers, the flagging system and YouTube itself.

Due to these different types of users and emotions that are at play in the discussion of flagging videos and flagged videos, the odds are high enough to say that probably a lot of users are right in saying their video was falsely flagged. Because for many users it’s not about attacking one specific video or user, but taking part in a certain discussion. And flagging is one of the tools they have to do so. Which raises the same question that Benkler asks in his ‘Wealth of Networks’: “who will play the watchdog function?” (Benkler, 2006, p.261) The effects of leaving the question of what is right and what is wrong up to the community would be downplayed if the role of the ‘watchdog’ would be in the hands of the community. To take the role of community serious, it would mean for them to monitor each other’s activities. Which means that they will be their own ‘watchdog’.

Interesting is that a lot of Tubers complain that they cannot contact YouTube staff directly to state their argument on why they think their video/account was falsely flagged and appeal against YouTube’s decision. In the comments section of videos related to flagging it is often found that users falsely accuse YouTube itself of flagging their videos, while it’s the community that does the flagging.

This sort of mistrust towards the company behind a social site is also observed by danah boyd on Friendster, when the company tried to ban out fakesters from the platform and started to implement regulation and force a code of conduct on the users for consumer protection:

Because of earlier efforts to regulate Friendster community norms, the service creators were widely mistrusted; many participants felt they were being punished for their fun. Paranoia emerged in the bulletin boards as word spread that individuals were being targeted for limited access; others argued that the problems were the precursor to a tiered fee structure. (boyd, 2008, p.151)

The possible reason for the user-community on YouTube to ‘blame’ the company for falsely flagged videos (besides being misinformed about how the system works) is because YouTube is the one who has set up the rules to begin with;

“Although participants play a strong role in the development of cultural norms, Friendster is still a privately controlled environment. The company sets guidelines for acceptable practice, via both rules of conduct and architectural constraints. A ban on nudity in profiles is one such rule, although many participants push that boundary. Participants are further restricted from linking to their personal web sites and they are expected to use real names and upload photos that depict them in natural settings, without digital alteration or copyrighted material. Friendster enforces its policies by removing
infringing material. Tensions emerge when participants perceive themselves as the primary norm setters and the developers’ actions as restrictions of presumed freedoms.” (boyd, 2008, p.141)

And YouTube does make the final decision in the flagging system as it is set up now, but that does not mean that users cannot appeal in their decisions or on the system itself. All the changes that have been made thus far are partly inspired by feedback of the community. It’s true however that flagging a video is much easier to do than it is to appeal a decision through contact forms and getting through to YouTube.

But more importantly, there is no one else to hold accountable. Which leads back to the question of ‘Who Flagged My Video?’ Wouldn’t it be easier to take out YouTube of this part of the moderation process and that we’ve got each other to blame.

4.2.1. Anonymity & accountability: who flagged my video?

Control is introduced into the relationship between the entity of YouTube and the user at the very beginning, when the user is asked to self-identify by logging-in. While this action is not required, it is rewarded by an architectural design that privileges those who do log in; providing them access to production tools, giving them individual channels, and the ability to rate other members’ work. (Rassi, 2007)

In chapter 2, I already mentioned the fact that ‘flagging’ is one of the most invisible options in the sense of not traceable back to a specific user (‘sharing’ being the other). Although this is the case for the rest of the community, it does not apply to the company. YouTube knows which user flags, which video is flagged and why it was flagged; this is not surprising and even stated in YouTube’s Privacy Notice:

“If you submit personally identifiable information to us through the YouTube Sites, we use your personal information to operate, maintain and provide to you the general and personalised features and functionality of the YouTube Sites and to process any flagging activity or correspondence you send to us.”

In the lawsuit between Google and Viacom, US court ruled in July of 2008 that Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched any video on YouTube by handing over the viewing logs of YouTube to Viacom. These contains the log-in ID of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video clip details.
This shows that it isn’t that anonymous to begin with. Its functionality in respect to flagging is not that it provides anonymity towards the company, but towards the community instead. The benefit of this is that a user can flag a video without having to worry about other users ‘getting back at them or other types of reprisals. In that sense the system now works similar to the Dutch telephone service Meld Misdaad Anoniem (Report Crime Anonymously), the so-called ‘kliklijn’ in the vernacular, provided by Stichting M. Civilians can call this service to anonymously report crimes. The service has proved to be effective. Which leads to the conclusion that when offered the option to report anonymously, more people will do so.
Stichting M is part of Crime Stoppers International Foundation, which is an umbrella organization for similar programs around the world. One difference however is that Stichting M does not work with rewards, in contrast to the Crimestopper’s program.

Meld Misdaad Anoniem works more discrete than YouTube, because it does not hold any records on its callers. Securing the anonymity of their callers is their main priority, even higher than the quality of the report. They don’t see the telephone number, don’t tape the conversation, don’t make notes of personal details, other notes are destroyed after transferring the report and the number doesn’t show on telephone bills. Which makes the previous described scenario between Viacom and YouTube impossible to happen to Stichting M.

Another similar service is the Kindertelefoon, a telephone service for children. They can call anonymously when they’re experiencing problems of any kind. This service is secured in the law of childcare and has been around since 1975. This service is only partly to report crime and is mostly used for more personal problems. But again, anonymity has a high priority when using the service. All noted data is anonymous and cannot be traced back to specific children or youngsters. The Kindertelefoon works in accordance with the law of Protection of Personal Data .

The benefits of anonymity implied by these two services can be summed up in the words ‘control’ and ‘safety’:
- You are in control.
• Kindertelefoon: “We will only bring you in contact with Childcare if you give your permission.”
• Kindertelefoon: “ We will never come to you and will not contact you. You are the one that calls or chats.”
• Stichting M: “the phone number of M. does not appear on the phone bill.”
- You are safe.
• Kindertelefoon: “We never tell something to others.”
• Kindertelefoon: “All employees have confidentiality obligations.”
• Stichting M: “When the caller has information that leads directly to him? In that case the operator will discuss this and M. does not make a report.”
• Stichting M: “ We don’t make records of personal details and other records of any kind are destroyed after the report is transferred.”

These benefits can be translated into “You cannot be held accountable” or responsible if you will. Which in these two cases (crime and childcare) is understandable and defendable for the offline world. But anonymity in other contexts can also bring forth other (unwanted) consequences, for example the high rate of hate speech and spam in YouTube comments.

“It’s called John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory,” says Clay Shirky, a journalist and New York University adjunct professor who studies the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. The theory is based on this simple equation: Normal Person + Audience + Anonymity = Fuckwad.

“There’s a large crowd,” says Shirky, “and you can act out in front of it without paying any personal price to your reputation,” which creates conditions most likely to draw out the typical Internet user’s worst impulses. The Fuckwad theory is the modern-day equivalent of the dilemma described by the late ecologist Garrett Hardin in his 1968 essay “Tragedy of the Commons”: How do you manage a communal resource when everyone who uses it has an interest in sustaining it but also the opportunity and the incentive to abuse it?

It would seem that if one would take out ‘Anonymity’ from this equation, the problem would be solved. But the issue of both this so-called ‘Fuckwad Theory’ and the Tragedy of the Commons is the fact that no one can be held accountable for the consequences. I am of the opinion that accountability towards the online community is a good thing. This does not necessarily mean connecting the offline identity with online identity and exposing someone. But extending the online identity with a reputation, which in turn can be held accountable. Because the anonymity of an online identity can also have its benefits:

“Anonymity plus physical distance plus rare & ephemeral dialogue enable for this type of hatred as public performance. But it also allows people to feel really relaxed and to have this freedom to experience humanity without fear or (social) anxiety.” (Wesch, 2008)

Whether or not staying anonymous, it will remain the choice of the user to perform their identity with, according to Particia G. Lange, a ‘publicly private’ behavior or a ‘privately public’ behavior. The user’s true identity can still be kept from the community by assuming a nickname for instance. And this nickname is shown when performing all kind of user actions, such as commenting, subscribing etc. Only sharing and flagging are quite hard to trace back. And all options have in common that they have a low barrier to be used, they require a mere push on the button to perform the action. While the (collective) consequences of these actions are quite visible, as we saw in chapter 1. The combination of not being held accountable and the ease with which the action is performed with, leads me to think that these are the two main incentives for misuse of the flagging system. Making user accounts accountable for their actions to the community would decrease the amount of flagging in general and especially decrease the amount of unjustified flagging. I will elaborate on how this should/could work in chapter 7 ‘My proposal for a reputation system amongst the YouTube user accounts.’

In the previous chapter we could already read the issues that flagging is trying to prohibit, but now we’ll take a look at the issues that are experienced with the flagging itself by the community.

4.1. Methodology

Because the YouTube community addresses each other through videos and comments, I went ahead and looked up videos that addressed ‘flagging’ on YouTube, which I found to be very self-reflexive. Both the system/company as well as the community is criticized for its use of the flagging system. And by analyzing the text of both the videos as well as the comments I came to the different issues they seem to have in regard to the way flagging works or rather how it does not work.

In this chapter I’ve analyzed the options in the interface, legal issues (such as TOS and TOU) and interviews with and blogpost by the company itself. In order to trace which (company) intentions, TOS etc. have formed flagging. I have also showed that flagging is not merely a technical aspect, but that on both the side of the user as well as the company editorial processes are at play.

YouTube’s Model can be deconstructed to three levels; international, automated and self-regulated. The international level shows the role that governments play on a platform such as YouTube, based upon different national laws and other legalities. In this process the average YouTube user has no participatory role. All the decisions are taken by YouTube, the so-called ‘G Team.’ Appropriately translated into the field of online communities, this could be seen as a form of representative democracy in which the ‘G Team’ can be held accountable. Even though users don’t elect the persons in charge, they do choose to go on YouTube and thereby choose to be represented by YouTube. The laws to which they abide are openly accessible (transparent) for whoever is interested. The automated level works almost the same way, except that the logarithms are not as transparent.

The self-regulated level is presented as a form of direct democracy. A form of decision making in which every video that has been posted on YouTube is a small referendum, which registered voters can choose to reject. In practice it turns out to be part of the representative democracy model, because YouTube reviews the votes. No insight is given into this reviewing process, neither is it visible for users to see if and why a video has been flagged. These aspects are crucial to foster debate around flagged issues. By increasing the level of user-participation even more, the system would encourage “the kinds of people who habitually revise, comment on, and add to their cultural setting [and who] may be more critical and engaged citizens, if competence, initiative, and collaboration in cultural life affect the way people engage in politics.”

In the previously mentioned report Mr. Walker gives a small insight of how flagged videos are reviewed by YouTube. Due to obvious reasons YouTube gives minimal information about the technical back-end of the reviewing process, but this answer given by Mr. Walker implies that there is a certain flagging queue in the process and, by the means of coding, movies can be moved ‘up’ or ‘down’ in this queue.

Q321 Mr. Evans: Can I ask what changes you have introduced in the company since making that error
[ed. : regarding a gang rape video that was not taken down fast enough] to ensure it does not happen again?
Mr. Walker: A number of different things. The mistake that was made had to do with the way the individual reviewer coded the video so that additional flags that came in were not immediately escalated to the beginning to the queue. We have made that much harder to do. It is now a double trigger, it needs to be reviewed twice. I do not want to go into the details because it would allow people who are trying to game the system to avoid the technologies. Where there are other signs of content being inappropriate that allows for a secondary review. There are a number of other things I would be happy to talk about in a private session. (House of Commons, 2008, Ev 121)

Xanga has patented its flagging system, that it launched on May 1st, 2006 , the patent is entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FLAGGING INFORMATION CONTENT ” The patent was filed on April 27, 2007 and is a direct reaction to the “explosion in the amount of User-Generated Content (UGC) being created” and the fact that this “is exceedingly difficult to police such a massive amount of content. A problem that will only grow over time as the UGC industry matures.” This was not an understatement; it was during 2005 that the term UCG was picked up in mainstream usage. And if we look at the startups of the earlier mentioned video sharing sites; Vimeo and Yahoo! Video started in 2004. YouTube, 56.com, Blip.tv, Dailymotion, Google Video & Tudou started in 2005. iFilm was founded back in 1997, but was taken over by MTV in 2005. Youku started in 2006 and Veoh in 2007. The content that was generated on all these platforms was in need of some kind of moderation that was suited for that amount of content, such as flagging by the community. Resulting in user-controlled content. The reasons that this is not done by hired moderators is summed up in the patent:

“(…) full time moderators are very expensive.”
“(…) such moderators can not respond quickly enough to police content (…)”
“(…) it is difficult to “scale up” and quickly hire as many moderators as needed (…)”

The second and third reason are inherently connected to each other, the amount of moderators can never measure up to the amount of users and their activity. A recent example, taking place in China, not only gives an (unrealistic) indication of how it could work;

“In addition to its massive firewall and intrusive software, the government employees thousands of paid commentators who pose as ordinary Web users to counter criticism of the government. Known derisively as 50 Cent Party members, these shapers of public opinion are often paid a small sum, 50 Chinese cents, for every posting.

In another sign that Chinese officials are trying to assert more control over the Internet, the city of Beijing wants to recruit 10,000 volunteers by the end of the summer to monitor Internet content, according to the Beijing government’s Spiritual Civilization Office.”

But also provides an additional argument against hired moderators, for this approach is highly sensitive to censorship. YouTube uses a similar argument, against pre-monitoring content, in the report by the House of Commons.

But what’s left out being mentioned here is that the task lies outside the community itself. Leaving us with the question what the users have to say in the moderation process (in the case of moderators being hired). The second question would be which side gets to decide who’s fit to be a moderator. Just as the amount and speed of the content, it’s also a matter of judgment. The judgment of a few moderators against that of a whole community to decide whether a video is right or wrong.

But a decentralized flagging system that gives it all in the hands of the community also has its downsides such as fraud and other misuses. This patent claims to have formulated a fraud-resistant flagging system by adding prioritizing hierarchy amongst the users in the form of adding ‘flagging weight’ in accordance with accuracy of the user’s flags. My main objective towards this patent is an argument I have used earlier, who gets to decide whether a video is accurate or not? Which in their case is left up to moderators and/ or ‘flagging review module’ (by which they mean the software).

A few days before the official launch Zahava Levine (Chief Counsel for YouTube) reveals in an interview with Artist House Music a few details about the technology:

Well, Google is working on some proprietary technology, that it’s testing right now. That will enable.. as to extract the audio.. the visual elements of a user-uploaded video and compare it to against a database of reference material provided to us by rights-owners. And so it’s very important that the rights-owners to cooperate for this to work. It’s not something that can work without their cooperation. Then we’ll be able to compare the unique aspects of the video that’s been uploaded to the same files in the reference database and see if there’s a match. And if there’s a match we want to give the rights-owner the option to use that content on YouTube however they wish. That might mean blocking the content or it might be enlicensing it to us or just tracking it.

The beta version of Video ID Technology was officially launched on Oct 15, 2007 during the lawsuit of Viacom vs. YouTube. The technology “creates ID files which are then run against user uploads and, if a match occurs, the copyright holder’s policy preferences are then applied to that video. Rights owners can choose to block, track or monetise their content.” “If a rights owner specifies a Block policy, the video will not be viewable on YouTube. If the rights owner specifies a Track policy, the video will continue to be made available on YouTube and the rights owner will receive information about the video, such as how many views it receives. For a Monetise policy, the video will continue to be available on YouTube and ads will appear in conjunction with the video. The policies can be region-specific, so a content owner can allow a particular piece of material in one country and block it in another.”

Other video sharing platforms are working with comparable technologies. On February 25, 2008, Dailymotion announced the full implementation of INA’s “Signature” technology across all localized and local language Dailymotion sites; They had announced the signing of this partnership agreement on Oct 17, 2008, a few days after the launch of the beta version of YouTube’s Video ID Technology.

Dailymotion vigorously encourages copyright holders to supply fingerprints to the Audible Magic and INA databases so that all copyrighted content can be identified and filtered, and future uploads of infringing material prevented.

Notable here is that although Dailymotion claims to work “across all localized and local language”, the Institut national de l’audiovisuel (INA) is a database of all French radio and television audiovisual archives. Of which both the English version does not exist anymore and neither does the worldwide version (inamedia.com). Which according to Dailymotion’s press release: “since February 2004, Ina has been providing professionals with a unique service worldwide at inamedia.com, the first global bank of digitized audiovisual archives available online.” On their website they do still refer to this INA database, which leads to the conclusion that it’s either very French orientated or European to say the least. In my eyes, it would work better if they had joined forces with YouTube’s Video ID Technology.

This innovative technology recognizes video fingerprints. Any content already supplied to INA’s database will be automatically detected and rejected before being put online. This technology is particularly effective with live broacasted content. Signature Technology is already being used to protect the content archives of INA, and has been adopted by key players of the cultural sector such as Canal+ and Europa Corp.

The answer is we do not proactively review in a human way— (House of Commons, 2008, Ev121: Q302

YouTube’s staff does not pre-screen the content before it has been uploaded online, in the same manner as they do after it has been flagged. “(…) a rule that would be effectively trying to pre-clear or censor content before anyone could post something to the Internet. I think we would have concerns with the latter.” (House of Commons, 2008, Ev121: Q275) In the report, which advises pre-screening, YouTube expresses their concerns on many occasions on the matter of prior constraint of the content. When asked the difference between pre-screening and reviewing after content has been flagged, Mr Walker answers:

If you try to take that vast amount of content and pre-screen all of it, it is neither efficient nor effective and would burden the process of creation. Think of the delays that would be occasioned between the time you tried to edit a document or post a comment and some days later when it would appear online. It is a very different model to anything the Internet has ever had. (House of Commons, 2008, Ev 121: Q 300)

Whether it’s impractical to pre-screen the content or this would restrict free expression, both these reasons are given by mr. Walker in the evidence. Not to mention it would create an environment that is very liable for censorship. Which we were reminded of in 2004 when video-censoring through broadcast delay became an issue after the so-called Nipplegate incident in 2004. Broadcast delay is an intentional delay in the broadcasting of live shows to filter out profanity or other unwanted recordings in the actual broadcast. Which can be regarded as a form of censorship. From that point of view, I strongly agree with Mr. Walker against pre-screening.

Interesting enough, Mr. Walker does not mention the liability for the content as described in the previous mentioned OCILLA. Which states as one of the conditions for a OSP “not [to] be liable for monetary relief, or, except as provided in subsection (j), for injunctive or other equitable relief, for infringement of copyright by reason of the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider, if the service provider— (A)(i) does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing” Which makes up for another reason not to pre-screen the content before it is uploaded, because it would make YouTube directly accountable for copyright infringing content. It is said that this works in another way in favor of YouTube as well, because OCILLA’s clear process allows them to avoid making decisions about whether or not material is actually infringing. This is not entirely true however, because the staff of YouTube still has to make these kinds of decisions when screening flagged videos.

In answer to the repeated question whether it’s true that YouTube doesn’t employ a single person to pre-screen the content, Mr. Walker states that YouTube sees this as the wrong approach and compares this to asking a telephone company to monitor phone calls;

(…)Here again I think trying to create a model which turns the Internet into a monitored broadcast medium where everything you want to post to YouTube or MySpace, whether it a comment to a blog or a blog itself or even your email which goes out to 100 people, should have to run through a filter before it is made public— (House of Commons, 2008, Ev 121, Q 312)

YouTube does have “automated tools which review material to see if it has been previously flagged and will stop its reoccurrence.” (House of Commons, 2008, Ev 121: Q303) “(…) there is some automation at the back end to make sure that once posted something does not get reposted. That automation then comes back to the front end again. If a user posts something that has previously been pulled down, that would be blocked initially and will never go up.” (Ev 121: Q298) And YouTube is “working very hard on various forms of automated filters” (Ev 121: Q305) and “on additional software tools to identify material such as pornography and prohibit it on the site. If we can recognize that and hold it until it can be reviewed, that is something we continue to look for.” (Ev 121: Q298) “In some cases I believe some of these filters are already being used to identify pornography content.” (Ev 121: Q306) Insight on how these filters work exactly is not given, but a tip of the veil is revealed when the chairman suggest filtering the content on keywords to decrease the amount of data that would need pre-screening. Mr. Walker takes the suggestion in account, but also explains that only filtering on keywords is not effective for it would also filter out a comment on ‘Sex and the City’. He does not mention the fact that users do not always tag in accordance with the actual content. He does mention other criteria for filter signals;

“At the end of the day, I think we all agree that the goal is to minimize the amount of controversial material that is on the site. What is the most effective way to do that, not the least expensive, but the way that is best for the user experience, to block it? It may be that some combination of an analysis of the material that is being uploaded through technological tools, an analysis of the labels that are going on, an analysis of the history of the user if they have previously posted problematic material but not so much that their account has been suspended and an analysis of how many people were viewing an item or have viewed other items in the past. We take a lot of different signals data into account. Certainly it is a fair suggestion and it is one we will continue to look at.” (House of Commons, 2008, Ev 121: Q315)

This sounds very acceptable, but it also means that all this data needs to be stored for analysis. That is a lot of data on a lot of users, which raises the concern of privacy. This concern was justified when US District Court Judge Louis Stanton (in the copyright lawsuit of Google vs Viacom) ordered Google to hand over the YouTube viewing records; containing both the IP addresses as well as the login names of YouTube users.

On one hand, we have reached a point at which we cannot go without automating parts of any regulation system seen the amount of data it involves. On the other hand, taking away the human reasonable intellect in these kinds of systems would be a very scary thought.

A. Sexual content

• – graphic sexual activity
• – nudity
• – suggestive, but without nudity
• – other sexual content

The sub-category ‘graphic sexual activity’ used to be ‘graphic sexual content’ and is defined by Google as “content which contains actual visible or implied sex acts. ” In this sub-category together with ‘nudity’ (“refers to exposed or see-through coverage of areas typically covered by a bathing suit or underwear. Sometimes nudity is allowed on YouTube, depending on the context.”) and ‘other sexual content’ the viewer is asked to specify a timelapse in the movie. ‘Suggestive, but without nudity’ is explained by Google as “materials with sexual themes that do not necessarily depict sexual activity or nudity. Sexually suggestive content may not be suitable for all audiences and may include fetish-related content.” And in ‘other sexual content’ the viewer is also asked to briefly describe the inappropriate content.

B. Violent or repulsive content
- adults fighting
- physical attack
- youth violence
- animal abuse
- shocking or disgusting content

The sub-category ‘youth violence’ was previously named ‘minors fighting’
All the flags in this category only offer the option to ‘Flag This Video’. ‘Shocking or disgusting content’ is defined by Google as “ disturbing imagery, such as graphic depictions of violence, accidents or gore, which lack an appropriate context.”

C. Hateful or abusive content
- promotes hatred or violence
- bullying

The dropdown menu ( in the ‘promotes hatred or violence’ flag) is to indicate the group attacked. It contains an alphabetised list of options; age, color, disability, ethnic origin, gender identity, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation and veteran status.
This flag term is defined by Google as: “hate speech is content that promotes or encourages hatred or violence towards a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status and sexual orientation/gender identity.” The Bullying flag contains only the ‘Flag This Video’ option.

D. Harmful dangerous acts
- drug abuse
- abuse of fire or explosives
- other dangerous acts

‘Harmful Dangerous Acts’ is defined by Google as “may include content which depicts behaviour likely to cause serious injury or death to a third party.” The flags in this category all contain only the option ‘Flag This Video’.

E. Spam
- mass advertising
- misleading text
- misleading thumbnail

The category ‘Spam’ used to be placed below ‘Infringes My Rights’ and was not subcategorised.

F. Infringes my rights
- infringes my copyright
- infringes my privacy

’infringes my copyright’

‘infringes my privacy’

The importance of a clear TOS, is exemplified in Craigslist and the Puppy Wars (aka ‘the CL Pet’); The flagging system on Craigslist is most known as a result of the ongoing ””Puppy wars”” or also known as ””the CL Pet””. In the writings about this it is stated that this re-homing rule is found in the Terms of Use (TOU) , but in the TOU is referred to the list of prohibited and restricted items in the ‘About’ section. Which states that: “Household pets of any kind including but not limited to dogs, cats, primates, cage birds, rodents, reptiles, amphibians, fish. Re-homing with small adoption fee OK.” Accordingly, the people selling animals/pets on Craigslist are flagged for selling ‘household pets of any kind’. While these people claim that they are just re-homing the animals for a small adoption fee. Apparently this flagging and unflagging (in the sense of getting the flagging undone by contacting Craigslist) happens to an extent that people started calling it ‘Puppy wars’. Complete discussions between the pro and con site of the matter can be read on the forum section of Craigslist. To human nature, it is being used rather to critique than for praise. But just the mere fact that we can entitle this discussion as the ‘Puppy Wars’. Does not only mean that we know what the debate is about, but also the different opinions that exist in the debate and the motivation with which these groups flag each other. Instead of undirected hate comments or hate flags. But it’s not only used for debates, it also served as chat room on a wide variety of subjects. YouTube has a similar section called the Community Help Forums in the Help section, which is hosted by Google. Users have to log in which their Gmail account in order to post questions and answers on this forum. And the link to the forum is placed at the bottom of each YouTube page. Because it’s easier to hold discussions in the comments section, the dialogues that are centralized at one place on Craigslist, are scattered around on YouTube. The argument to centralize this would be to give a better insight into the different perspectives on different topics.

The most prominent example of where this kind of discussion happens on YouTube is about the age-restricted videos. Especially with regards to the LGBT-discussion (see case study), where it’s common that gay non-nude content is marked inappropriate for minors.

When a video has been age-restricted, a warning screen is displayed and only users who are 18 or older can watch it. In order to reduce the chances of users accidentally stumbling across these videos, they are excluded from certain sections of YouTube (e.g. honors pages like ‘Most Viewed’).

Some of the most commonly age-restricted content includes:
* Sexually suggestive content
* Partial nudity or non-sexual nudity
* Actual violence or very graphic fictional violence
* Gory, disturbing imagery in an appropriate context

Very visibly, the content gets marked by a warning screen stating “This video may not be suitable for minors”:

This strategy is similar to the hiding of bad rated comments, it requires that extra click for the user to see the actual content. Although it causes a lot of discussion, especially amongst topics such as homosexuality, it also visualizes for the user what is seen as inappropriate by the community, which can lead to discussion and debate.

The self-regulatory model exists of two ways for viewers/ users of YouTube to help regulate the content. They can either submit a notice of copyright infringement directly to YouTube/ Google. And they can flag videos.

(…) hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded to YouTube every day. Because it is not possible to pre-screen this much content, we have developed an innovative and reliable community policing system that involves our users in helping us enforce YouTube’s standards. Millions of users report potential violations of our Community Guidelines by selecting the “Flag” link while watching videos.

But if one would read this thoroughly, it says that they’re not able to pre-screen “thousands ” of videos. But they are able to review/moderate those “millions” reported potential violations. In other words, they are actually openly admitting here that their flagging system is flawed. And that while the emphasis of the self-regulation part of the model is based on flagging, as will become clear in the responds of Mr. Walker and the company’s blog.

“Many of our solutions are in fact worldwide. We have a variety of different tools, from the global flagging to the global review teams that we have in place, to an increasing emphasis on filtering tools which are designed to block and remove inappropriate videos.” (House of Commons, 2008, Ev121: Q268) In respond to the question [Q308] whether somebody has got to flag a video before it is taken down, Mr. Walker answers that it is an important part of the way the material comes down.

Q299 Philip Davies: How many people do you employ to monitor what is going on? You have said that you get hundreds of thousands of things a day being put on there. How many people do you employ to monitor what gets put up there?
Mr. Walker: It is a variety of different teams that are working on it. Our primary focus is on the tools and the development of something that facilitates what I think is actually the industry leading responsiveness on the speed of review. If we are reviewing more than 50% of the things within half an hour, the large majority within an hour, the queues are short. The challenge is not so much the review teams but in making sure that we have identified the things quickly. It comes back to the earlier point that was made about how to enhance community flagging. How do we enhance that process and potentially empower the community itself to be able to identify and remove material and suspend the appearance of material pending review? (House of Commons, 2008, Ev 121)

In answer to the question “how many people YouTube employs to look at stuff that is flagged as offensive” (House of Commons, 2008, Ev121: Q323, 324, 325), Mr. Walker says it’s impossible for him to sort out the people who are doing the physical review from the people who are engineers. He was accordingly asked to supply the Committee with further information, which has been supplied in confidence according to the report. The answer was also withheld when Jeffrey Rosen asked the question for his NYT article “Google’s Gatekeepers”, but he was allowed to walk around the YT office in San Bruno passing “one 20-something YouTube employee after another — all sitting in cubicles and wearing the same unofficial uniform of T-shirt and jeans. The internal reviewers were identifiable, [he] was told, only by the snippets of porn flickering on their laptops.”

The idea of a 20-something with a laptop in San Bruno (or anywhere else, for that matter) interpreting community guidelines for tens of millions of users might not instill faith in YouTube’s vetting process. But the most controversial user flags or requests from foreign governments make their way up the chain of command to the headquarters of Google, in Mountain View, Calif., where they may ultimately be reviewed by Wong, McLaughlin and Walker. (Rosen, 2008)

The feature of moderating video content by the use of video flagging was announced on August 11th, 2005 on the companies’ blog. Moderating other users is a feature that was announced in a blogpost on December 14th, 2005 where YouTube introduced the ability to block/report other users.

Flagging is one of the options given to users to react/ respond to any video on YouTube. The others being: share it, favorite it, add to playlist, comment on it either in text or with a video response and rate it. None of these options (with the exception of ‘flagging’ and ‘commenting’) are moderated by the YouTube staff. In the beginning there were five reasons the user was asked to choose from when flagging a video. More than two years later , these were changed into six categories (adding ’spam’) and subdivided into 17 different subcategories . After a video has been flagged, it will be reviewed by the YouTube staff or, as they say on their blog:

We will aggressively monitor these submissions and respond as quickly as we can.

Two blogposts in October address and explain how the flagging system works;

How Flagging Works
(…) A video gets ‘flagged’ by a user clicking on the ‘flag as inappropriate’ [this later changed into 'flag'] link located below each video. Once a video is flagged, it is sent into a queue for our customer support team to review. Videos are NEVER automatically removed simply because they’ve been flagged. Every single flagged video is reviewed by someone at YouTube who then determines if the video contains material that is against our terms of use. You may have noticed that sometimes you’re asked to login or register to verify your age because the video you’re attempting to view may contain content that is inappropriate for some users. Sometimes flagged videos that we review do abide by our terms of use, but are not quite appropriate for all YouTube users. This could be due to a number of things – profanity, violence, adult content etc. Although they still abide by our terms of use, you can think of these videos as ‘R’ rated.
There are thousands of videos that are flagged for review every single day, and since we’re still a small company with an even smaller team of people reviewing videos we do admittedly make mistakes at times. Occasionally a video gets flagged and we accidentally take it down, or mark it as inappropriate. We’re doing everything we can to diminish that margin of error but we would be lying if we said it’s a 100% fail proof system. (…)

The fact that it is not an automated process is again being mentioned on November 6th, 2007. When they write about the improvements they’ve made in the flagging system to make “the video flagging system consistent, fair and less mysterious.”

“When users flag a video, it is reviewed by real-life humans at YouTube who check to see if the video should be removed, age-restricted or left alone.”

A small change has been made and announced on Oct 27, 2008, when YouTube replaced “minors fighting” with “youth violence.” In this post they also mention the flagging system as a way for the user to communicate with the YouTube staff and emphasize the role that the user has in making flagging work as a tool of regulating the content on YouTube. After that they repeat what they have said before about their strive for transparency about their policies and that they see the blog as one way to do so;

Think of the Guidelines and the flagging pull-down menu as part of our ongoing conversation with you. We give you a structure that makes it easier for you to talk to us, and you become the eyes and ears of the site. Of course, the best conversations are never static, and the same is true about this one. We’re always reviewing our Guidelines and the flagging categories to make sure they reflect what you see on the site.

The new flag is part of a larger, continuous effort here at YouTube to keep the community safe for all of our members. But we can’t do it alone.

Literally.

With 13 hours of video uploaded every minute, we need you to be our first line of defense against content that violates our Community Guidelines, and we’ll keep doing all we can to make doing your part clear and easy.

We’re committed to having transparent, effective policies and to helping you understand them through blog posts like this.

A reminder about the system was given on November 13, 2008 with the blogpost “Flagging at YouTube: The Basics.” in which they shortly address what the flagging is for, what are the rules, how-to flag and how they respond to it.

On June 24th, 2006 YouTube commented on a bug in their comment code that was being exploited by several users. Maryrose of The YouTube Team explains the situation, apologizes, addresses the users in question and explains a part of the YouTube philosophy:

(…) To all of our users who have been abusing comments with flagrant spamming, hate speech and other malicious activities – this behavior will simply not be tolerated on our site. If you engage in such activity be forewarned your account will be deleted and you will be permanently banned without warning. YouTube is a place for everyone to express themselves. It is meant to be a creative, entertaining and democratic environment. Let’s not allow a few bad apples spoil the bunch.

Maryrose and Mia of the YouTube staff join together on October 19th with a blogpost directed at the YouTube community. In which they address the subject of discrimination towards “sexual orientation or weight or looks or skin color” in comments, without using the word ‘discrimination’ specifically. YouTube makes it quite clear on their blog, they wish to be a democratic environment where everyone is accepted. Recently however they’ve softened up by making changes in their policy enforcement. As of April 16, 2008 they’re working with “strikes that expire” and “muting accounts” instead of banning users permanently and deleting accounts.

The previous mentioned Notice and Takedown Policy is part of The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA), which is section § 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In 1998, US Congress passed OCILLA in an effort to protect service providers on the Internet from liability for the activities of its users and thus creating a conditional safe harbor for Online Service Providers (OSPs) such as YouTube. The statute describes two ways in which an OSP can be put on notice of infringing material on its system by a notice from the copyright owner or the existence of “red flags.” In which case, the OSP looses its liability for the law and could be held accountable for the infringing content and thus liable for monetary damages.

When a movie is taken down because of copyright infringement, a notice is put up instead of the video stating that the video is no longer available due to a copyright claim and from whom.

“On the one hand we’re not generating the content and we aim to offer a platform for free expression. On the other hand, we host the content on our servers and want to be socially responsible.”

YouTube is informed by the concerns of governments around the world (House of Commons, 2008, Ev 121: Q269) and has worked with different governments to respect different laws and made illegal material unavailable without “letting one country, any country, dictate the global content of the Internet.” (House of Commons, 2008, Ev 121:Q265) Thus Nazi paraphernalia has been removed from the German YouTube, defamatory content toward Mahatma Ghandi in India and toward Kemal Atatürk in Turkey with the use of a technique called I.P. blocking. Yahoo! was the first company to use this technique after it was sued in French court on behalf of the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism and others in April, 2000. (Goldsmith, 2006, Chap. 1)

Besides working together with governments, YouTube also works with a lower level of authority as a YouTube spokesman says in a BBC article: “it encourages police to let them know if they see videos of criminal acts. If the police ask for information then YouTube cooperates, as long as police follow the correct legal process governing disclosure that the government has laid down.”

YouTube continues “to look at ways of implementing [their] guidelines in a way that would have either a legal or cultural sensitivity built into them so that [they] could have different standards for different countries, but that is a work in progress.” (House of Commons, 2008, Ev 121:Q267)

Q294 Mr. Evans: At what level in the company are these decisions [ed.: regarding the assessment of various criteria applied to different countries] made? Is it one person or is it a group of people that make these decisions? Are they different people for different countries?
Mr. Walker: Right now our Executive Management Group, which is the very senior people in the company, has reviewed several of these issues. There is a woman on my staff who we have christened “the decider” who is involved in reviewing a variety of these things around the world. We have policy teams, corporate communication teams and people on the ground involved because these are close issues. There are different points of view even within the company as to the right approach. In most cases we are able to reach consensus internally. In some cases we have escalated them to the senior management of the company for decisions as to what to do.

The G Team: Nicole Wong, the “Decider”; Andrew McLaughlin, global public-policy director;
and Kent Walker, general counsel. (Photo: Jason Madara for The New York Times)

The ‘decider’ mentioned in this excerpt is identified as Nicole Wong (the deputy general counsel of Google) in a New York Times article. “Google has given Nicole Wong a central role in the company’s decision-making process about what controversial user-generated content goes down or stays up on YouTube and other applications owned by Google” (Rosen, 2008); Blogger, Picasa, Orkut and Google the search engine. Giving her “and her colleagues arguably [have] more influence over the contours of online expression than anyone else on the planet.” Of course she is not alone in this and is accompanied with Andrew McLaughlin (global public-policy director) and previously mentioned Kent Walker (general counsel). The question of who is placed in these positions is a very hot topic nowadays, in the light of the net neutrality discussion, of who controls this “ultimate power to decide who has an opportunity to be heard, and what we may say, lies increasingly with Internet service providers, search engines and other Internet companies like Google, Yahoo, AOL, Facebook and even eBay.” (Rosen, 2008) This aspect of the story makes it interesting for me to highlight such a seemingly minor detail as flagging. To me it forms a way to democratize the regulation of content, if applied in the right way. Down the line I’d like to get to adjustments to the system as is and / or alternatives, in order for it to (possibly) work in a truly democratic manner.

Flagging is part of the way that content is being regulated on YouTube. As an extension on the first chapter about the ontology of user-tools, I’d like to get into the aspect of control; how is this executed, who controls this user-generated content and to what extent? In this chapter I not only look at the options that YouTube’s interface presents to the user. But also how this interface offers an insight in how the company YouTube (Google) works.

YouTube’s regulation model is only part self-regulatory with a ‘Notice and Takedown’ policy. It is basically a system that works on three levels:

1. International level / legal level: rules and regulations set by governments
2. Level for self-regulation: community flagging practices
3. Level of automation: automated filters.

This in order to comply with not only the demands of the user community, but also the concerns raised by privacy agencies, data protection agencies, the copyright industry and other legal departments.

I have researched the flagging system in a bottom-up approach; starting with the software itself, talking about the overall model, how this is presented and experienced. And from there I worked my way of the platform by comparing it with other platforms. Concluding with a proposal of how I think YouTube would work more democratically when my findings would be applied to the flagging system as it is now.

First, I have analyzed the agency of the average YouTube user by setting up an ontology of content-controlling tools. From a software studies perspective, I showed in the first chapter how these tools affect the content and how they can be subdivided according to similarities and differences.

Flagging is the only user-controlled tool that can get content removed from the site. For the community to have control over what stays on the site and what has to go is the key point of interest for me to do this research. Therefore I will elaborate extensively on the flagging aspect of the model. By breaking down the regulation model of YouTube in three levels, I came to see how flagging is part of the overall strategy of YouTube. And in how far they rely on this coded aspect as a means to control the data.

“people experience these controls as nature. And that experience, I [ed. Lawrence Lessig] suggested, could weaken democratic resolve.” (Lessig, 2006, p. 138)

A textual analysis of the companies blog reveals not necessarily the technical aspects of the flagging system, but more the way YouTube wants to keep their regulation system as open and democratic as possible and how the company experiences the problems and solutions in the flagging system. This is followed up by a textual analysis of different videos addressing flagging on YouTube as an empirical test case, in order to get an insight on what the problems are as experienced by the user community.

To get a sense of how these problems are experienced, I follow this up with a case study that focuses on the problems that the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender (LGBT) community is faced with on YouTube and how they deal with this.

After that I compared the flagging system on YouTube with flagging systems of other platforms and systems that are alike these flagging systems; to see which problems can be avoided from within a flagging system and which problems remain.
Concluding with a look at hierarchical moderation systems and what the benefits and downsides would be when applied to the YouTube ontology. Amongst which is the increase of transparency in the decision making process and whether that is a good thing;

“to which extent should something be transparent; More particularly, where transparency would interfere with the function itself, then there’s a good argument against transparency.” (Lessig, 2006, p.141)

Followed by a proposal as to how a reputation system amongst flags and YouTube users would work in a similar way to Slashdot’s meta-moderation system.

Just like cultural scholars, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, depicted media fandom as an important test site for ideas about active consumption and grassroots activity (Jenkins, 2006, p.257). Cultural scholars nowadays take social networking sites as their playground to test ideas on network theory, participatory culture, collective intelligence, identity performance and more. With this thesis, I would like to join them and show the ways in which convergence culture changes our ideas about participation.

(…) this emerging power to participate serves as a strong corrective to those traditional sources of power, though they will also seek ways to turn it toward their own ends. We are just learning how to exercise that power – individually and collectively – and we are still fighting to define the terms under which we will be allowed to participate. Many fear this power; others embrace it. There are no guarantees that we will use our new power any more responsibly than nation-states or corporations have exercised theirs. (Jenkins, 2006, p.256)

Mark Deuze argues in his book ‘Media Work’ that work in the new media industry (in comparison to the traditional media) has been shifted from content production to setting the rules within which the users produce the content. This shift towards convergent culture logic emerges next to, and in a symbiotic relationship with, editorial and market logics.

This convergence is not just a technological process. Media convergence must also be seen as having a cultural logic of its own, blurring the lines between production and consumption, between making media and using media, between active or passive spectatorship of mediated culture. (Deuze, 2007, p.74)

With a case study about Bluffton Today, a newspaper entirely filled by citizen journalism, Deuze shows “how cultural convergence [indeed] instills increased levels of transparency in the media system, where producers and consumers can ‘see’ each other at work, as they both play each other’s roles.” (Deuze, 2007, p.252) Deuze takes the concept of ‘convergence’ from Henry Jenkins, who wrote extensively about it in his book ‘Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide.”

Convergence is both a top-down corporate-driven process and a bottom-up consumer-driven process. Media companies are learning how to accelerate the flow of media content across delivery channels to expand revenue opportunities, broaden markets and reinforce viewer commitments. Consumers are learning how to use these different media technologies to bring the flow of media more fully under their control and to interact with other users. They are fighting for the right to participate more fully in their culture, to control the flow of media in their lives and to talk back to mass market content. Sometimes, these two forces reinforce each other, creating closer, more rewarding, relations between media producers and consumers. (Jenkins, 2006, p.18)

Corporate convergence coexists with grassroots convergence, also on YouTube. A perfect example of a top-down corporate driven convergence on YouTube is the introduction of the Partnership Program in May, 2007. When YouTube started to invite “several of the most popular and prolific original content creators from the YouTube community to [their] partnership program” Offering a share in monetary revenue from ads and promotional opportunities, with the purpose of stimulating commitment from the community;

“We hope that this program inspires people to keep creating original videos, building audiences and engaging with the YouTube community.”

YouTube has succeeded in looking at the active audience as potentially valuable, courting them and winning them over by advertisers. Something Jenkins calls ‘affective economics’ (Jenkins, 2006, p. 62); commodifying commitment to get a return on investment.

With this thesis I will highlight the other side of the convergence that takes place on YouTube by looking at the appropriation of the flagging software by the community and the implications of this. This grassroots driven convergence shows the need for some fundamental changes in the system, which I address in my proposal.

Both Deuze and Jenkins speak about the changing relations between media producers and consumers. But similar to this, in debates about ‘privacy’ for instance it is not only the experts talking anymore; now ordinary citizens have entered into such debates. All around us we are offered an increase in participatory possibilities. And “people will increasingly expect to be able to make choices, to be able to express themselves, to stand up and be counted in more than just a number or a vote or a tick. So how will governments relate to people who are more empowered?” In the documentary ‘Us/Now’ the speakers repeatedly speak of the ‘old model’ and questioning the role of government in our participatory society.

“The big shift that is going on is the idea that everyone is available for group-action. It does not mean that everyone will participate in group-action. It does not mean that all participation will be equal. But it does mean that everybody can get involved.”

This exemplifies that this theory of convergence between the consumer and producer, can also be applied to the relation between the citizen and government. Whereas Dutch politics start up a Hyves account to show they are web-savvy and publicly engaged. The Obama administration is already setting out the guidelines to start “unbundling and re-constituting what a government [is]” and incorporating the benefits of participatory culture:

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

The Obama administration seems to embrace the open source philosophy of openness with the promise that it will improve the democracy. Yochai Benkler states in his book ‘The Wealth of Networks’ that the “common critique of claims that the Internet improves democracy and autonomy is centered on information overload and fragmentation.” (Benkler, 2006, p. 465) But he disagrees with this critique by pointing out the positive effects that collaborative filtering and accreditation had on keeping many information environments navigable and coherent without re-creating the mass-media model. With collaborative filtering, Benkler touches upon an interesting aspect of participatory culture. Besides the benefit of knowledge aggregation, there need to be decisions made. Otherwise the critique of information overload and fragmentation would be justified.

By the end of the day communities don’t work, unless decisions get taken.

Charles Leadbeater analyses the failure of the communes in the sixties and seventies in the US to be caused by a lack of decision making. I see flagging as such a collaborative filter, a way to make collective decisions in our online convergence culture. And perhaps, as a starting point to create a participative decision making process in politics.

With this thesis I look at the changes from a software studies perspective at the role of software in the participative decision making process. By addressing the role of software, I distance myself from Jenkins’ position on the concept of participation;

Interactivity: The potential of a new media technology (or of texts produced within that medium) to respond to consumer feedback. The technological determinants of interactivity (which is most often structured or at least enabled by the designer) contrasts with the social and cultural determinants of participation (which is more open ended and more fully shaped by consumer choices). (Jenkins, 2006, p. 328)

Jenkins’ technological deterministic view underestimates the shaping power of users on software and the role this plays in convergence culture.

If we focus on the technology, the battle [between corporate convergence and grassroots convergence] will be lost before we even begin to fight. We need to confront the social, cultural and protocols that surround the technology and define how it will get used. (Jenkins, 2006, p.223)

I would position myself more towards technological constructivism, which argues that human action shapes technology and that the ways it is used cannot be understood without understanding its social context. And show that software does play a role in convergence culture.

2.1 Research hypothesis: adding a user-controlled meta-moderation to the YouTube flagging system would make it more democratic.

This thesis is a qualitative analysis of the flagging system on YouTube to see how it works now and how it would work in a more democratic way when flagging would be combined with Slashdot’s system of meta-moderation. The motivation behind this is that YouTube is and can remain a communication system for new experiences, new modes of understanding and new frames of reference. But with the rising popularity comes the increase in business and commercial use of the site as well as the rise of spammers, trollers and haters. Leading to the possibility that users will abandon YouTube in the search of a new unspoiled playground. To avoid this I’d like to propose democratizing the moderation system by introducing flagging to a system of ranks and ratings, similar to Slashdot’s system of meta-moderation.
Which would involve not only giving the users more agency, but also more accountability. And why this would, in my eyes, boost the YouTube community and diminish the activity of spammers, trollers and haters. And where it can grow on to be a place that encourages debate and engenders an exchange of ideas, opinions and concerns in a democratic fashion.