I view YouTube issues as a kind of proxy for the kinds of issues the broader Net increasingly faces in the technical, policy, and political arenas. Full disclosure: YouTube is certainly one of my top favorite sites on the Net. So I have a vested interest in trying to help it stay healthy and prosperous.

Given that YT is currently ranked the second most popular site on the Web (after Google itself -- so Google effectively holds both the #1 and #2 slots) its particular mix of services presents some fascinating challenges.

Many of these are obvious at least in their outlines. Massive amounts of storage space for all that video. Tremendous amounts of bandwidth necessary to distribute the video. The complicated nature of YouTube's interactions with ISPs, the intricacies of content delivery networks, and so on. And it's impossible to consider peering disputes, ISP bandwidth caps, and an array of other fundamental Internet concerns without considering their interplay with and implications for YouTube.

To be sure, many of these matters also apply to any other large-scale video oriented Net services, such as Netflix.

But where YouTube in particular diverges from Netflix is in YT's deep commitment to user uploaded videos, and it's that aspect that brings into play perhaps the most complex, and certainly the most controversial issues.

Virtually every day, my inbox receives queries related to YouTube. The lion's share of these are from persons who feel that YT has wronged them in some way. Perhaps they're concerned about a video of them that someone else posted. Or a video they posted that was tagged, demonetized, and/or removed via a Content ID hit or copyright strike -- or that their account was forcibly closed entirely.

Sometimes their concerns are valid, more often they're not. I know one classical music pianist who has been through the YT wringer with many repeated false positive YT problems related to his self-played works (classical music, and public domain materials in general, present rather fascinating technical challenges to abuse detection, especially at Google/YT scale).

But while it's easy to throw around the hyperbole about the DMCA's "guilty until proven innocent" model (which, obviously, Google/YT must abide by -- keeping in mind that the DMCA in key respects has made YT possible at all), and the definitely improving but still somewhat opaque nature of the YT appeals process, the reality is that systematic, intentional abuse of YT by bad players is very real.

How bad is it? Just for jollies, toss this URL into your browser when you have a few minutes to spare.

This will display the uploads with full movie in their title over the last hour. Skip the ads at the top and explore the organic listings. I'll bet you find that every single one is a "come on" spam -- the movie isn't actually there at all, they're rather trying to get you to click through to another site (the specific ways they do this will vary -- don't even get me started about the obnoxious and notorious girl in red).

Most of these spam videos seem to be from a relatively small set of uploaders, despite the vast number of throwaway accounts they're creating. Interestingly, they appear to target not only current release films, but often old classics as well.

An hour doesn't seem like too long for these to be around, but many persist for weeks and much longer -- and many of those add insult to injury by monetizing the spam video with ads! That's right, the spam uploader crooks are attempting to steal money with content to which they have no rights at all.

This also applies to the content uploaders who aren't spamming, but "merely" monetizing other parties' content, like many years' worth of classic television programs. Keep in mind that these aren't people making available long lost programs based on some radical all information should be free! philosophy. Since they're monetizing these uploads they're just simple crooks, trying to make money off someone else's work. This really disturbs me. It's the kind of abuse that is damaging to the broader YouTube and Internet video ecosystem in very significant ways, and provides ammunition to forces who push for draconian legislation that would make the DMCA look like a walk in the park by comparison.

Google works diligently to kill this crud, but at scale -- especially considering the desire to minimize false positives as much as possible -- it's a real game of Whac-A-Mole. The evasion techniques in use are certainly imaginative: Static inset box videos, moving inset boxes, mirror images, translucent backgrounds, and much more. Not only are these crooks stealing content, they're presenting it in horrendously substandard ways as well.

I think it's important that YT users at large understand that this sort of monetized abuse is not at all benign, and makes everything harder for Google/YT and honest users of the ecosystem. I always urge users to report these spams and monetized ripoffs when they find them. (Sidenote: Many users don't realize they can report them. The reporting link is currently hidden under the YT player UI More link. While one doesn't want to encourage frivolous reporting, having the reporting/flagging function being more visible in the interface strikes me as a proposition worth considering).

And perhaps most importantly of all, we have the entire array of free speech, government censorship, and related issues that focus on the ability of ordinary users to upload materials that might reveal horrific police abuse -- or attempt to ruin an innocent person's reputation. And everything in-between. We have governments attempting to takedown (or block) videos that they consider sacrilegious or simply politically inconvenient. The complex dilemmas related to Terms of Service and appropriate content rules -- issues of adult materials, horrific materials, hate speech, viewers who are children, religious intolerance, racism, on and on. How to set these standards, how to evaluate them, the gray areas, evaluations, and the emotional realities and emotional costs of balancing such complicated concerns and interests -- I won't even try to scratch the surface of those issues right now.

So again and again, we see that YouTube issues are a representation of the broader issues facing not only the Internet, but the entire global community as well.

That makes them important. Seriously important.

--Lauren--