New policy could affect student YouTubers

For those who don’t know, YouTube Heroes is a new oversight policy being rolled out this month on the website. Through a video posted to its own site on September 20th, YouTube explained the changes to come. The policy is as follows, based on the video released by YouTube: Any YouTube user can sign up to oversee and police content on the site, with YouTube providing perks to these users such as access to new products and services before they launch.

These “YouTube Heroes” have the ability to flag and report any video they find inappropriate for any reason, and YouTube will give the Hero points used to gain the aforementioned perks. YouTube also plans on giving these members special site tools such as the ability to mass-flag videos they believe contain “negative content”, an ability that most YouTubers don’t have access to.

As technology has grown over the past decade, so too does our ability and desire to connect with each other. It’s this wish to be part of a growing community that content sharing sites such as YouTube and Tumblr use as their foundation. These sites make it astoundingly easy to experience the free expression of new ideas and creative endeavors, especially for those who are around college age in America.

Campuses are filled with students who run YouTube channels, Tumblr blogs, and various other media dedicated to the streamlined export of content and conversation. These sites give students the power to gain confidence in themselves, spread their creative ideas and thoughts, and become part of a community.

Zach Nobile, a student here at Pitt who runs the channel KingAzxoll9, believes this is the most appealing part of using content sharing media. “It’s one of the things I take the most pride in. It allows me to gain recognition and get my name out in the world,” Zach says of creating content on his channel, which as of this writing has 115 subscribers and over 40,000 combined views on his videos. This type of expression is vital, and always will be, no matter how we choose to interact in the future. That’s why we have to talk about YouTube Heroes.

Plenty of websites have self-policing systems where users can report content they find to be offensive or inappropriate, but there’s never been anything quite like this before. This is an incentive-based, site-encouraged oversight program with no clear vetting process and vague guidelines on what is considered acceptable or unacceptable content.

Now before we all get out our pitchforks and keyboards to condemn YouTube, let’s talk about what they’ve done to explain this new program. Two days after the launch of the original September 20th video, YouTube’s official blog posted an explanation of the true aim of YouTube Heroes and who will be the first users to be allowed into the program.

The post goes on to say that users who have already been deemed trustworthy moderators (called “Trusted Flaggers” by the site) will be the first wave of Heroes and that these people have always had the ability to mass-flag videos. There is also a repeated effort to remind everyone that all reported or flagged videos are reviewed by YouTube employees before being taken down and that this program is simply meant to streamline the flagging process.

Problem solved right? Well not exactly. Currently, anyone of legal age who runs a channel can apply to become a “YouTube Hero,” not just those the site has deemed to be trustworthy user. Even with YouTube employees reviewing reported videos, essentially acting as hall monitors for the site’s hall monitors, the prospect of anonymous content oversight still looms. Zach is certainly concerned by the policy: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely. YouTube certainly needs a few tweaks to make the site better, but this isn’t the way to go.” Time will tell how this policy will affect the way we communicate in the near future.