Experts: YouTube not to blame for beatings
NEW YORK (AP) - April 11, 2008 But that doesn't mean YouTube or any other media company should
get the blame, legally or ethically, for the attack, media experts
said Friday.
In fact, they have a duty to share the video, said Kelly
McBride, the ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute
journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla.
"The fact that the video was shot because they were seeking
publicity was secondary," McBride said. "A crime was committed in
our community, and if there's a videotape of it, I want some
information. That video was incredibly revealing. It told more
truth about what happened than any other form of reporting could
have told."
The teenagers have been arrested on charges that they beat the
teen so they could make a video of the attack to post online. One
of the girls struck the 16-year-old victim on the head several
times and then slammed her head into a wall, knocking her
unconscious, according to an arrest report.
"It's absolutely an animalistic attack," Sheriff Grady Judd
said earlier this week. "They lured her into the home for the
express purpose of filming the attack and posting it on the
Internet."
On Friday, a judge set bail for each of the defendants at
$30,000 during the teens' first court appearance. Prosecutors said
seven of the girls will be tried as adults in the March 30 attack
in Lakeland, Fla. They face charges of kidnapping, battery and
witness tampering.
It's not clear who posted the video on the Internet. But the
Polk County sheriff's office released a clip that has been widely
circulating online and on television, including The Associated
Press' video network.
Those who blame YouTube or news organizations should blame
themselves first, said Steve Jones, a communications professor at
the University of Illinois at Chicago.
"The public is culpable as well because they are paying
attention," he said. "There is no medium that forces them to pay
attention."
CNN spokeswoman Barbara Levin said the cable news network has
tried to place the video in the proper context.
"In reporting the story, we have gone to great lengths to
explain that these young women face severe consequences for their
actions, and in fact may be facing harsher sentencing because the
videotape provides evidence of the nature of the attacks," she
said in a statement.
YouTube, owned by Google Inc., declined to comment on the video,
but said its general policies call for the removal of clips that
show someone getting "hurt, attacked or humiliated."
From a legal standpoint, YouTube and other online service
providers are largely exempt from liability because of a 1996
anti-pornography law. One provision says Internet service providers
are not considered publishers simply because they retransmit
information provided by their users or other sources.
Federal courts have applied that broadly to cover not just
Internet access providers, but also video-sharing sites, message
boards and other online services.
Even without that provision, there doesn't appear to be anything
illegal about the video, said John Morris, senior counsel with the
Center for Democracy and Technology, a civil-liberties group in
Washington, D.C.
"There is no legal reason this video cannot be shown. It is
obviously distasteful, abhorrent what the teenagers did to the
victim, but it doesn't really make sense (to ask), 'Should YouTube
have taken it down?"' Morris said.
Even if there were a claim of illegality, he said, the courts
should be the ones deciding, not YouTube.
"Many of those assertions are really very difficult, legal
determinations that YouTube has no ability to make," Morris said.
"Really, YouTube is not in a position to be a traffic cop."
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Associated Press Business Writer Seth Sutel contributed to this
story.