There are three issues with Youtube:

By: American Decency Staff

Personal note: Every now and then I receive an email that especially reminds and encourages me of those who love the Lord so much that they faithfully seek to pursue holiness even if it means that it may chase away customers and/or supporters. The email below is one of those emails from a man that I'm thankful to call my friend.  I'll have another comment at the end of this quote. Quoting: From time to time I get the opportunity to help our staff process the daily unblock requests.  These are requests for sites that subscribers think should be unblocked and we review these requests as they are received.  Most of the time (95%), the pages are blocked for good reason.  While helping out recently, I noticed another upward trend in Youtube requests.  The Youtube requests is one of those that is frequently requested, but usually has to stay blocked.  Here is why! There are three issues with Youtube: 1) Anyone can load anything to Youtube, there is no monitoring or editing! 2) Every video has a comment section and anyone can say ANYTHING in the comment section. 3) Every video is displayed with other videos and cannot be separated. The results!  Often people posting to Youtube are trying to get as many viewers as possible, in other words to be popular.  This often results in vulgar, obscene and immoral videos being posted with no monitoring or editing.  The problem is that when you request what might be a good video, you will often get links to a LOT of bad videos on the same page.  In addition a good video, especially one with values, will often get comments containing extreme vulgarities including the f-word and taking God's name in vain.  These comment sections are not filtered or monitored by Youtube and are often very vulgar.  All of this comes with the good video and in the case of Youtube, the good video cannot be separated from the bad. The web filter is designed to detect this bad content and therefore what might be a good video gets blocked because of the OTHER content on the page!  As you might imagine, this drives everyone crazy because good videos cannot be viewed due to bad content included with the good content. I should mention here that we cannot and will not unblock a video if the page contains other bad content.  Our mission is to protect you and your family and if we have to open bad content to allow some good content, we are not protecting you at all.  Besides, these good videos are usually available on other good video sites that do not allow bad content or comments. My recommendations: 1) Don't use Youtube!  When we Christians use Youtube we are inadvertently supporting the bad content. 2) If you must use Youtube, don't be surprised if  what you think is a good video gets blocked (because of the other bad content). 3) Do use the other good Christian video web sites like http://nmatv.com, http://tangle.com and many others. 4) Please understand and be patient with us if we cannot unblock a requested video due to other bad content. Hope this little note will keep you informed and help make your life easier with other family members. Thanks for being an AFO subscriber and supporter!  Together, we may not change the world, but at least we can keep ourselves from being changed by the world! Steve Ensley Executive Director Cleanwww Inc – dba American Family Online 850-362-6180 x100 sensley@afo.net http://www.afo.net http://www.myafo.net Closing comments: There you have it. In these days of moral confusion, the slippery slope, carelessness, titillation and lust, there are those who say as for me -  I'm not going to place dirty things before my eyes. Why?  Because that's what Jesus calls me to. May it be with you and me. To support this ministry: https://secure4.afo.net/ada/main.php?f=donate/display9 ================ American Decency Association Bill Johnson, President P.O. Box 202 Fremont, MI 49412 ph: 231-924-4050 www.americandecency.org http://www.twitter.com/billwjohnson

---