[ NNSquad ] YouTube's bizarre description of their new "safety mode"

[Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>]

Google's YouTube has just launched an opt-in "safety mode," which can
be locked into browsers via YouTube accounts.  There was even
apparently a demo on CBS this morning.

Given the wide variety of, uh, unique material on YouTube that is not
necessarily "office friendly" (though still often quite amusing), my
initial thought when I heard about this new feature was "good idea."

But I must admit total puzzlement over how Google chose to describe
objectionable material:

   "An example of this type of content might be a newsworthy video that
    contains graphic violence such as a political protest or war coverage."

Huh?  Given the range of "violence" or perhaps sexually oriented
materials that different people might not want to see on YouTube, I
find the examples of "political protest or war coverage" to be
absolutely bizarre -- the sort of thing that could have been written
by the Pentagon PR department and the Department of Homeland Security.

I'm going to assume that the YouTube Blog posting in question was
somehow not well vetted, and that Google's official position isn't
that the best examples of objectionable violence they could think of
are videos of political protests and coverage of wars -- two areas
that are critical to people knowing what's going on and that have been
increasingly lightly or non-covered by traditional broadcast media
playing the ratings game.

http://bit.ly/bKluIq  (YouTube Blog)

I'd very much like to hear some official clarification from Google on
this issue.

--Lauren--
NNSquad Moderator