I’m enjoying the review of the week’s tweets that I am basically assigning myself to read. Looking at the weekly post is a way to review my thinking over that time, and now posting a tweet is also writing a short note to myself that I’ll read the following week.
Here’s one from the other night:
Too much censorship begins with well-intentioned people worrying about other people’s kids.
The tweet came at the beginning of a conversation with Vicki Davis in reference to an idea that she has about ratings on YouTube videos. I promised her an explanation of my position. So here goes:
I’m not for forcing one’s will on any organization that exists as a for-profit, private enterprise. I’m certainly not for forcing one’s values on that enterprise, either, in the name of education or anything else. It sounds cold – but it’s not YouTube’s responsibility to be everything to everyone. They built themselves around the audiences that they wished to serve. Further – I think we hide behind the education shield a little too often.
If I wanted to build a school on the block where a popular bar was, and then I decided that I didn’t like having a bar so close to my school, so I attempted to try to shut the bar down, I’d be completely in the wrong.
So, too, with YouTube. When we go there for educational purposes, and don’t like what we see, how is that the fault of YouTube?
I’d rather let YouTube be YouTube. I can bring their content into my educational spaces, if I choose too, but I could also be responsible for creating my own space to post and share videos and decide the rules for its use.
It’s not up to them to make a space that I am happy with. Nor is it up to a third-party to make them change for my benefit.
Hope that makes sense, Vicki.
