By Courtney C. Radsch
Washington, D.C.
Nov. 26, 2007 (arabisto.com) - Prize-winning Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas was invited to Washington before the holidays to receive an award from the International Center for Journalists, right on the heels of the conviction of two Egyptian police officers for torture. The evidence that cemented their conviction? Cell phone video taken by an amateur. The torture video was posted on Wael’s blog (Misr Digital) and YouTube account and soon picked up by blogs and mainstream media throughout the world. Now, however, YouTube has suspended his account because the torture video – which showed the two policemen sexually assaulting the 22 year old bus driver who had been arrested retroactively for trying to prevent a confrontation between his cousin and police (according to the BBC) – violated the company’s “gratuitous violence” prohibition (though as AllyF points out on her comment on Brian Whitacker’s blog, such video is essential not gratuitous – I mean, violence by state police can hardly be considered gratuitous can it??!). Wael calls this “by far the biggest blow to the anti-torture movement in Egypt” and goes on to write that he is investigating why they closed his account, hypothesizing that perhaps the Egyptian regime put pressure on Google (which owns YouTube) to do so, which I must say would not be surprising given that the company’s track record in China. For those of you who don’t read Arabic you can read the Arabist’s account of what happened or The Gaurdian’s Brian Whitacker’s post. The debate in the comments on the various blogs posting about this incident is whether YouTube is an entertainment vehicle or human rights tool, with some people asserting that YouTube is about entertainment and thus videos like Wael’s should find a place on Amnesty International or social activism sites like The Witness Hub. But this is wrong on two accounts. First, YouTube is what people make of it, it is not inherently entertainment-based but rather is a platform that people can and have used in many different ways. Second, and more importantly, relegating such controversial but important videos to less popular and more obscure sites will not generate the same amount of traffic nor will random surfers come upon such videos as they are perhaps are indeed scrolling for entertainment and inadvertently come upon a video that make wake them up and shake them into activism. I realize that the site’s “community guidelines” state that violence does not belong on the site, I believe the company should reconsider and fulfill the democratic function that people are trying to make it perform. By posting such witness videos on YouTube, bloggers are serving an important watchdog function, especially in countries where the press and news media in general is unable or unwilling to do so. Furthermore, YouTube is people power. It gives ordinary citizens the power of publicity, one of the only forms of power an individual possesses against that of governments, militaries, and corporations. I wrote about YouTube’s decision to remove video of Iraq insurgent attacks on American troops last October.

It took me about 5 minutes and more than 20 clicks to finally get to an email form where I could contact the company. Here is the link (hope it still works).