Inspecting YouTube's ban on "drug abuse" videos

A shot of cannabis from the YouTube show "The Weed Report."

A lot of attention was paid this week to several categories of controversial YouTube videos.  The New York Times reported on the trend of videos depicting users smoking Salvia divinorum, a highly potent natural hallucinogen. Web Scout took a look at the thriving online pot video culture, much of which lives on YouTube.  And yesterday, Sen. Joe Lieberman's May demand that YouTube ban terrorist training videos was met when the site changed its community guidelines.

Among the other changes handed down was a prohibition of videos containing "drug abuse"--a phrase that, like other parts of YouTube's rule set, comes with no context, elucidation, examples, or anything else that would help users figure out what "abuse" might actually mean in practice. 

Of course, the subjectivity of YouTube's language is deliberate.  If you've ever moderated a busy Internet site, a task that can require you to make hundreds of judgment calls an hour, you know there's no time to ponder every yea or nay--you just gotta go with your gut.

YouTube calls its enforcement approach a matter of common sense, and partly relies on its users to flag material they consider questionable.  "It's a combination of users policing the site and [the working of] our proprietary tools and technology that review videos 24 hours a day," said Chris Dale, a YouTube spokesperson.  "If we come across content that does violate those guidelines as we clearly laid them out, we'll take them down."

Clear is a bit of an overstatement.  YouTube keeps the details of its policy vague so it has the wide latitude it needs to police its site without the need to explain every decision.  The trouble is, when enforcement decisions are not transparent, they start to look unfair and inconsistent.  Users may have little sense of the reasoning (or lack thereof) that led to their video being yanked.

The Salvia videos--which Valleywag suggested might be purged under the new rule--are a good example of an enforcement grey area.  The drug is still legal in most of the U.S., and its effects have not yet been thoroughly studied, let alone proven harmful.  As such, it's not clear who decides whether smoking a hit of this mint-family plant counts as "drug abuse," or just  use.  And YouTube won't say.

The case with booze is fuzzy, too.  The prohibition of "under-age drinking" suggests that of-age drinking is acceptable.  Okay.  But alcohol is a drug, so that means YouTube does not necessarily consider drinking "drug abuse."  Slippery slope?   

YouTube will also have to decide how to approach the sticky wicket of pot videos, where it can be impossible to tell if the smoker has a state-sanctioned prescription, lives in a country where the activity is legal, or is even smoking pot and not, say, banana peel.

Not until drug videos do begin disappearing will we be able to tell if there's any rhyme or reason to the application of the rule.  But as far as a drug purge goes, count me as a skeptic.  I doubt if YouTube tries to smoke out every last pot, Salvia, and alcohol video from its giant database.  It'd be too much work, and with all that stuff already in its system, I doubt YouTube would have the motivation anyway.

— David Sarno

Special thanks to tipster Ryan Chaffee

Comments

[Salvia Divinorum]

The problem with videos is they only capture the external effects of salvia. Only a well written article can truly capture what went on inside someone's head. I think http://www.salvia-trip.net is one such place for submitting comprehensive, responsible experience reports - something a bit more substantial than some kids rolling around on the floor laughing.

If anyone wants to help out the salvia cause, I suggest they flag any inappropriate & irresponsible salvia videos on youtube themselves, instead of waiting for this new policy to kick in.

[Mexican dude]

First of all, youtube is a community of international users. It depicts video footage of several sources, from different people and cultures. You tube is not the USoA. If those guys want to ride the right wing again and ban the access of youtube in their country, be it. Ban 'drug' use, ban the boobs, ban protestants, muslims, gays, hispanics, black people, ooops! Wait a second. I've just banned three quartes of a country! Am I ranting without sense? Let me tell you something. Freedom is not only a nice words to put next to fries, as that clown of a president (no offense W) wants the people to believe. I took a group of brave and intelligent ones 200 years ago to build the USoA. A group of thinkers that established a nation on freedom, of all kind. The internet is the only relict of freedon we have in this modern society of CCTV cameras and X-ray searching. It starts with slight things like banning a video and the snowball gains momentum and size. My dear Northamerican fellows: stop allowing being treated as 5 year olds. You don't pay you taxes to be told off. Unless you like it. Unless you like to be treated as retardeds and to have a nanny government to clean your drooling. But I guess you don't.

Mexican dude(Here we go with all the racist responses 'a greasy mexicna ain't gonn atel me 'ow to rule my own country...'. Bring it on. In 100 years we will be a quarter of thet country, anyway.

[steven c jackson]

give me a break youtube.
k__s my a_s
We do what we want.

[Ham Bone]

When you watch the You Tube scene from "Pulp Fiction" it shows the girl snorting the drug before she nearlly dies from it. The scene should be shown since it shows the dangers of drugs.

[Lewis]

When will Military.com ban violent videos from their site?

[Jake]

The internet was never SOLD, because the kind british gentleman who owned most of the rights for its creation (as the Royal mail had as much input into the creation of the inner workings of the web along with all the major universities world-wide) never sold it. This means that without corporate restraints it can be whatever it wants to be, it is a larger personification of ourselves, a collective concioussness in which we divulge in over wires and cables. If people want to show the weed report on Youtube.com why not? It is still the individuals right and consent as to what they are watching. I'm quite sure that a person did not type into the search field, 'local economic and financial issues' and a video of a guy smoking a Bong appeared. No, however this is what they wish us to believe in order to gain some sort of order and restraint over the interent. Besides America (i'm British) get yourselves to Amsterdamn an have a Shmoke and a pancake or a Bong and a blinche' and liven up. Its only weed...

[evolve dammit!]

salvia bad !!! but this is ok?
“white power” video results 1 - 20 of about 31,700

hmmmm kinda makes you think huh?

[evolve dammit!]

“white power” video results 1 - 20 of about 31,700

kinda makes you think huh?

[makesyoumadd]

It's about time, YouTube!

[SoDo]

There are worse things in the media than pot. So what if someone wants to screw up their brain? That is their choice. It's the violence in the media that worries me.

[jezebel]

Someone write a script to submit lots of salvia videos... freak the control freaks out.

[Saying what needs to be said]

It doesn't matter which country the videos are taken in, or if it's medical marijuana, or not, etc. It's all irrelevant. Youtube reserves the right to remove whatever they want from their site because it's THEIR SITE. Not the peoples, or any countries. Above all, Youtube is a business. They need to do what they need to do to keep their integrity up, and earn the most sponsorship dollars possible. If changing legislation and removing drug use videos does the trick, then that's what they will do. Welcome to the world of business kiddies!

[Okin]

There's a BIG difference between drug use, and Abuse.

And it is NOT Youtube's job to be everyone's parents. Jeezus... The age restriction warning is good enough to handle this... Maybe force users to set their date of birth, in their account, and not allow them to view mature content?
That is the MOST they could/should do.

[....>.>]

pot doesnt mess up your brain. read the facts.

[Free Xbox 360]

Eh, they'll remove videos that they want to remove. They'll leave the rule broad and general so that they have no problem justifying which videos they'll remove and which ones they don't.

[thabooger]

its funny how they want to ban videos of people doing drugs. yet white supremists are all over that site.

[Thu Jones]

What's wrong with that bud, it looks like spinach!

[Olivier]

It's not easy to be open mind in our world ! For YouTube and for all the other...

Post linked on http://eng.fidgee.com - Feeds from the Geek Side

[derek]

what about freedom!! omg i'm so pissed off!! have you even seen some of the stuff out there on the net? well? you're moaning about a little bit of weed!! get a f###kin grip!!

[veedom]

It depicts video footage of several sources, from different people and cultures. You tube is not the USoA. If those guys want to ride the right wing again and ban the access of youtube in their country, be it.

Uh, did you read the article? This is not something from the right wing, it's being proposed by Sen. Joe Lieberman. LOL, you libtards are soooo funny. It's like the time Gov. Palin tried to ban books, oh wait, SHE DIDN'T! It's you guys trying to enact the "Fairness Doctrine", aka, "Keep Rush LImbaugh off the radio". It's you guys in the MSM that are trying to rid the world of ideas that don't agree with you. You guys make me sad. I thought in the USoA, they taught people better, guess not.

[bcbud]

It looks like someone is making oil from the looks of that bud.

[snaxalotl]

the distinction between use and abuse is crucial. abuse necessarily involves harm, and it needs to be more than the small and incidental harms that accompany other normal activities. and yet the debate is frequently framed by people who are arbitrarily defining use to be abuse, based on no deeper principle than the fact use intrudes on their sense of "correct culture".

there's an important principle here, which is that allowing people to impose their values and frameworks without adequate debate or agreement removes the ability of people to escape the arbitrary control of people and ideas that don't deserve to wield power. and the people who insist on mindless blanket bans on "sending the wrong message on drugs", who like to think of themselves as peole of principle, are people who don't deeply consider principle much at all; principle being an issue of abstraction, which is not these people's strong point. their "principle" is only the tissue-thin principle of mindlessly imposing your values upon other people, without much interest in the rigorous enquiry needed to defend those values

[mcx]

Regarding salvia: YouTube videos are being presented to committees and legislators and are the main reason that salvia prohibition laws are being passed. All other reasons for bans are secondary. And without YouTube videos, ban supporters have nothing--no police stepping up with stats about salvia related crime, no superindendents saying its a problem in schools, no doctors reporting a flood of salvia emergency room visits, no abuse centers talking about salvia admissions. They play on fear--"Look at these kids messing themselves up! We have to do something to protect the children!"

Then think for a moment about history--all other prohibition in the US, whether alcohol, opium, weed, LSD, MDMA, whatever, start at the state level. When some threshold is reached, the Feds get involved. And if that happens, expect the US to export salvia bans to the rest of the world.

Make no mistake, salvia vids on YouTube will be the reason salvia is outlawed worldwide. Y'know, to "protect the kids."

[Jacquelyn Pope]

I am trying to find videos for my children to watch to help them learn the ill effects of marijuana and other drugs either for free or for a minimal cost.

[cultofmetatron]

the youtube videos should be banned. not because salvia itself is harmful or addictive( its quite the opposite actually.) rather its mre feul for the fire for all the conservatives who wish it to be banned outright. is it really worth getting this sacred plant bannded to future users forever prohibiting the wisdom it confurs just so you can show the world yourself acting like a complete idiot?