How Real is YouTube?

[Chris Gohlke]

"The popularity of user-generated video sites like YouTube has given rise to deceptive videos created for self-promotion, advertising, or even smearing rival brands. This latter format, dubbed the 'smear video,' depicts a rival brand's product exhibiting fictitious faults. One example is the 21-second YouTube video entitled 'Samsung handset, easy to break at one try!', which shows a smiling woman easily snapping the new Samsung Ultra Edition mobile phone in half. Samsung says the phone was rigged to snap and the video has now been removed from the site. The article also accuses those who created the now infamous Lonelygirl15 YouTube videos of 'deception for profit. Misrepresenting commercials as independent user-generated content, actors as members of the public, and fiction as fact.' Will user-generated video sites increasingly confront visitors with the disturbing possibility that the video they're watching is not a home video at all, but a sophisticated ad campaign?"

http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/logo_tagline_sm.gif

I've seen YouTube as clearly an entertainment vehicle like TV. Sure there is some serious stuff on there and it is a great vehicle for people to self publish things that they might not otherwise be able to, but just like any other media, viewers should not just accept what they see as fact. I see the problem more as being one of gullible users. What are your thoughts?

[Damion Chaplin]

Oh come on. It's on the internet, for Bob's sake, so it must be true. :roll:



P.S.: Television and newspapers lie too. :wink:

[Tim Williamson]

I'm now a firm believer in UFO's after seeing a couple of UFO videos on YouTube. :D

[jeffd]

All I gotta say is..god damnit... Is not one thing on this net sacred anymore? Finally an easy way to submit video, many times it dosnt matter if its bad quality, you just want a way to share it easily, and allready we got idiots taking advantage of it.

I hate the general public...

[sojourner753]

I try to get my family to understand that its much less effort to sham on the internet than it is in most other mediums.

A chain email is easier than using regular mail. Producing audio and video to post on the internet is much easier than getting radio time or TV time.

If anything, internet content should be looked on with more skepticism than anything else. With the exception of spoken word.

One my favorite phrases is "trust, but verify".

[Damion Chaplin]

I try to get my family to understand that its much less effort to sham on the internet than it is in most other mediums... If anything, internet content should be looked on with more skepticism than anything else.

My lords, a voice of reason walks among us! :wink: