YouTube is beloved by almost all of America but the worldview of this new media is not always so glowing. On this page of my project I want to explore the reactions of other South Asian countries to YouTube. Only a few months ago, in February, Pakistan banned YouTube because of a Danish cartoon and a trailer for the movie "Forbidden". The cartoon was an animated form of the Danish cartoon, which caused riots in 2005. "Forbidden" argued that Islam is an inherently violent religion. You can see the clips here: (http://valleywag.com/360376/pakistan-bans-youtube-for-hosting-these-videos-of-muhammed) Once these movies were removed, the ban was lifted from YouTube, but as you can see, that does not stop the videos from spreading online to other sites. The following article is about the ban being lifted and also shows the power that Pakistan has over its Internet Service Providers. (http://andhravilas.com/Newsdetail.asp?id=129347&curPage=2). Pakistan is not the only country that has had problems with content on YouTube. One year earlier, India had many problems with an offensive Gandhi video posted by a man who used to be a clown in a circus. Since the video has been taken down, a screen image of the video can be found here: (http://bp0.blogger.com/_bnTH_4QgfBA/RatqndH65qI/AAAAAAAAADY/zLM4zIx3PD0/s1600-h/gandhivideo.jpg). There were many articles written online about this video that can be read here:
Khaleej Times article:
Apology by the creator:
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jan/14gandhi.htm
These problems as well as other potentially racist or offensive material is a problem that YouTube (and its owner Google) has to deal with on a daily basis. There are rules for posting videos but often people will site free speech as their rationale for why they say or do things online. I think that YouTube should monitor their site a little better but I understand the difficulties of banning material if the issue is not one of copyright.
Many Indians are starting to flock to YouTube and YouTube like sites finding a lot of very interesting content. YouTube is not the only online video site of its type on the web. In India there are many other YouTube like sites. A list of them can be found here: (http://www.venukb.com/2006/12/10/youtube-indian-clones/)
You can also find clips of famous Bollywood movies found on YouTube and other sites from this person's live journal, http://noolmusic.livejournal.com/16655.html. As YouTube grows, we will see many new cultures adopting this new media into their everyday lives.