@Trancecoach, maybe if we changed the crime from rape, a notoriously difficult situation under any circumstance, to some other crime.

Because when the crime is rape, and a woman's sexual activities outside the actual event are introduced, things get hairy.

So. Push the reset button. Let's pick another crime and see if google searches are pertinent.

Building a bomb. How did they learn how to build the bomb? Did they search the internet for sources of materials? Did they order the materials online? Yeah, I'll say a subpoena for that information is in order.

Child pornography. Yeah, I think you are going to need the computer for that.

Organizing a terrorist cell. Yeah, email records, I think that is admissible evidence in court.

Even the judge in this case found the subpoena for her google searches and her journals that recorded her healing process after the rape to be inappropriate and voided them.

I glad she had that judge. Who restricted the case to the physical evidence of assault.

Well there's plenty of places to go for jack-off fuel. Unless you're the type of guy in a titty bar trying to look down the cocktail waitress's blouse, if you want to handle business you go somewhere that brokers your own specific kind of wonderful smut.

It's your site, I'm just trying to help with generalizing the rules to these abstract and subjective ideas like "pornography". But where the line is hazy, I always tend to vote away from censorship >> ^dag:

That's true - and a valid point. I guess it comes down to VideoSift's raison d'etre - jack off fuel or entertaining, thought provoking videos and good conversation?
>> ^rottenseed:
@spoco2 "merit" is funny word...
@dag there is no shortage of this kind of stuff on the Internet - why does VideoSift have to be one more dump for it?
Take a look at the top 15...there's plenty of that kind of stuff on the internet...

I don't think you should transpose how you feel the sift should be (not just you but in general)...it's not an individual's call. As far as pornography...as somebody that looks at it every day, not joking here, I masturbate to internet porn daily so I'm kind of a connoisseur, this is not porn. Would I show it to my mother? no. Then again, that's me. I would say this does walk some sort of line. Some might claim "slippery slope" others might cry "CENSORSHIP!" and both sides will be right and wrong at the same time.

What is a sure thing, though, keeping this on videosift won't change anything. The controversy will die off by Tuesday and it'll all be forgotten until it'll used as precedence in the next debate about some overtly provocative advertisement. Also I wouldn't view Vimeo as a propagator of pornography, so in some cases I think it's ok to use one of our accepted video hosts as a proxy for posting criterion.

[edit] no disrespect by the first part, I was speaking towards everybody here >> ^spoco2:

>> ^pumkinandstorm:
Sorry, but this is just fucking sad.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that because you had the sarcasm checkbox on... but my issue with this is that it's got zero merit other than being titillation. You said in your description of the video "In my opinion a really cool and original idea for an ad" What? Since when is using sex to sell something cool or original? It's neither. And as said before, this doesn't use the naked women in ANY clever way to sell what it's supposed to. It's a video of attractive women being naked, rubbing each other and kissing and that's it.
The sift should be above this. There's nothing wrong with sex and nudity, but to be here they should really have a point. This has none other than to arouse people. If there had been some clever or funny way that the nudity was worked into bike rental, then sure, that might warrant inclusion, but as it stands it's a not clever, not original, pretty sad example of someone in advertising going "Nope, I got nothing, let's just go with 'sex sells' shall we?"

Here are some interesting articles regarding the erotica versus porn debate.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolution-the-self/201104/what-distinguishes-erotica-pornography

http://varietypages.jamiedebree.com/2011/02/24/sex-on-the-page-porn-vs-erotica.aspx

http://www.jessink.com/porn_vs_erotica.htm

I had to look up the "We oppose the teaching of...critical thinking skills." bit.

"Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."

But they do support beating snot-nosed punks at least...
"Classroom Discipline –We recommend that local school boards and classroom teachers be given more authority to deal with disciplinary problems. Corporal punishment is effective and legal in Texas."

But damn it, they want to illegalize pornography, this cannot stand!
"Addictive Behaviors – We encourage state and federal governments to severely prosecute illegal dealers and manufacturers of addictive substances and pornography. We urge Congress to discourage import of such substances into our country. Faith based rehabilitation programs should be emphasized. We oppose legalization of illicit drugs. We support an effective abstinence-based educational program for children. We oppose any “needle exchange” program. We urge vigorous enforcement of our DUI laws."

Anyway, even if they didn't mean to include the words "critical thinking skills", they still don't want people to have the ability to reevaluate fixed-beliefs. Which require critical thinking skills. Damn, they accidentally said what they meant.

>> ^mxxcon:

It's a video for some #уберизадругом (убери за другом) (clean up after a friend) competition/campaign.
I guess they want some funny videos of pointing out where people throw garbage(or dog shit) on the street or otherwise make Moscow(or Russia?) dirty.
btw https://www.google.com/search?q=i
2;ария+Ивакова is the owner of that youtube channel.
How disappointing. I preferred thinking that this was some kind of obscure pornography.

child pornography is the root of all evil

>> ^chingalera:

snuff


No human fatalities occur in this video. Therefore, per the videosift guidelines, it is not considered as "snuff".

"Please do not post pornography or "snuff" films (which we define as the explicit depiction of loss of human life displayed for entertainment).

Note: The presence of human fatality is acceptable and not considered "snuff" if presented as a limited portion of a lengthy educational, informative news report or documentary. Our definition of "snuff" does include but is not exclusive to any short clip in which a human fatality occurs whether or not any victims are actually visible on camera."

I saw this video about a week or so ago. I thought about sifting for the policewoman's heroism and her nonchalance, but ultimately decided that this was basically a snuff film.

So, I downvote as well. It is an amazing video, if true, though.>> ^SDGundamX:

Yeah, I downvoted. I don't believe videos like this contribute anything of value to the Sift. There are plenty of other sites where you can go to watch people getting horribly maimed or killed. VideoSift shouldn't be one of them, IMO.
As a reminder from the VideoSift submission guidelines:

3. Please do not post pornography or "snuff" films (which we define as the explicit depiction of loss of human life displayed for entertainment).
Note: The presence of human fatality is acceptable and not considered "snuff" if presented as a limited portion of a lengthy educational, informative news report or documentary. Our definition of "snuff" does include but is not exclusive to any short clip in which a human fatality occurs whether or not any victims are actually visible on camera.

I'll leave it to other Sifters to decide whether this video runs afoul of the guidelines or not.

Yeah, I downvoted. I don't believe videos like this contribute anything of value to the Sift. There are plenty of other sites where you can go to watch people getting horribly maimed or killed. VideoSift shouldn't be one of them, IMO.

As a reminder from the VideoSift submission guidelines:

3. Please do not post pornography or "snuff" films (which we define as the explicit depiction of loss of human life displayed for entertainment).

Note: The presence of human fatality is acceptable and not considered "snuff" if presented as a limited portion of a lengthy educational, informative news report or documentary. Our definition of "snuff" does include but is not exclusive to any short clip in which a human fatality occurs whether or not any victims are actually visible on camera.

I'll leave it to other Sifters to decide whether this video runs afoul of the guidelines or not.

How do you battle pornography? I usually beat it off. Whack it around a bit. Bash it out.

>> ^NetRunner:
China doesn't have the ability to censor anything outside of its own domain either

What are you talking about? The Chinese government controls or monitors most or all communication channels going in and out of the country (thanks in no small part to Google). Not only do they effectively prevent communication about certain topics between their own citizens, they prevent communication between their citizens and the outside world. When the censorship is circumvented, the consequences are dire, sometimes fatal.

>> ^NetRunner:
in the hypothetical situation that Google stuck to their guns, and thunderf00t decided to keep breaking Google's policy to make a point, ultimately the U.S. government would be drawn into the fight, and would, if nobody backed down, arrest thunderf00t for trying to use Google's property in a way that they didn't consent to.

lmahs! On what charges? Google wouldn't even have grounds for a civil suit unless they could demonstrate some real harm to their business. Short of thunderf00t actively hacking Google's servers to post his videos, he would face no consequences more severe than those set out in the terms of service:

1. YouTube will terminate a user's access to the Service if, under appropriate circumstances, the user is determined to be a repeat infringer.


2. YouTube reserves the right to decide whether Content violates these Terms of Service for reasons other than copyright infringement, such as, but not limited to, pornography, obscenity, or excessive length. YouTube may at any time, without prior notice and in its sole discretion, remove such Content and/or terminate a user's account for submitting such material in violation of these Terms of Service.

That might be terrifying if YouTube was the only useful video host, or could somehow exert influence on all the others to prevent access to those as well.


I think this comes down to two interrelated disagreements. First, I view censorship, like most tools, as morally neutral. It can be used morally (e.g., preventing the dissemination of information on how to design biological weapons) or immorally (e.g., preventing the dissemination of information on government corruption). The immorality of an act of censorship is based on what the information is, why its censored, who is censored, and the consequences for circumventing the censorship.

Second, in this case, I don't think Google is in a position to use censorship in an immoral way. This is what I mean by "effective" censorship. If circumventing the censorship requires little or no effort, and there are no real consequences for doing so, it can hardly be called "effective", can it? Hypocritical and unethical? Absolutely. But Google can neither prohibit nor prevent thunderf00t from communicating anything he wants to whomever he wants.

I think you're mixing a few separate questions.

In particular, the idea that Videosift banning pornography is "self" regulation. If dag decides that he personally doesn't want to post pornography on the Internet, that's self-regulation. If dag wants to host a site that publishes user content, but wants to regulate what those users are allowed to publish, that's not him regulating "himself" that's him regulating others.

I'm also not taking an absolutist stance against private censorship -- I think it's perfectly kosher to say that private publishers are free to limit certain specifically enumerated types of speech (hate speech, incitement to violence, pornography, etc.), but that the general rule is that if it doesn't clearly fall inside one of those enumerated categories it's against the law for them to censor it.

As for the historical case, I'm not aware of any country where an attempt to ban censorship turned into a regime that chilled free speech. What I'm talking about here is really Net Neutrality stated as a general principle rather than as an Internet-specific legislation.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

@NetRunner So videosift is violating free speech by its terms and agreements by not allowing pornography? People can't self regulate without Congregational approval? You think that will create MORE free speech and not less? I don't think there is a history of that being the case.

>> ^sepatown:

Please do not post pornography or "snuff" films (which we define as the explicit depiction of loss of human life displayed for entertainment).
Note: The presence of human fatality is acceptable and not considered "snuff" if presented as a limited portion of a lengthy educational, informative news report or documentary. Our definition of "snuff" does include but is not exclusive to any short clip in which a human fatality occurs whether or not any victims are actually visible on camera.


I disagree, but I'll leave it up to people who've been here longer or whoever to decide.

It's not entertaining to me. It's shocking and demonstrates in less than a minute why you should be really cautious on the road and be very wary and respectful of semi trucks even in good conditions.

Please do not post pornography or "snuff" films (which we define as the explicit depiction of loss of human life displayed for entertainment).

Note: The presence of human fatality is acceptable and not considered "snuff" if presented as a limited portion of a lengthy educational, informative news report or documentary. Our definition of "snuff" does include but is not exclusive to any short clip in which a human fatality occurs whether or not any victims are actually visible on camera.