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 Extracts]

I am the owner of Blackhatbotanicals.com, a website that sells salvia extracts. I fully agree that these videos should be banned by Youtube. Salvia is not something that should be taken lightly, and it is being abused by high school kids.

We need reasonable regulation, like that passed in Maine and California, which keeps Salvia Divinorum legal, but restricts its sale to 18 or 21 years of age and older, the same way we control access to alcohol and tobacco. When used in moderation, Salvia Divinorum is not addictive or destructive to health, and should be enjoyed by every responsible adult.

[shaun]

I so agree that banning salvia in states is pathetic and its just because they cant pass anything else so they try passing something they dont know anythinga bout except the fact that they can youtube it! Pathetic!! It cost ohio 100k to ban salvia when they should have taken that money and used it for something worthwhile! People need to stop posting salvia on youtube or myspace and facebook!