Tim Almond

via The BBC

YouTube has been criticised by MPs, who say it must do more to vet its content.

I’ll bet YouTube are pretty nervous about that, seeing how they’re an American company who I’m sure keeps their servers in the US, where they’re protected by the right to freedom of speech. Short of blocking them with a great firewall, there’s no sanction they can impose on Youtube thankfully.

In a review of net safety, the Culture, Media and Sport select committee said a new industry body should be set up to protect children from harmful content.

It also said it should be “standard practice” for sites hosting user-generated content to review material proactively.

Try it. Because I’ll tell you precisely what the result will be: any company that might be based in the UK and handling a sufficient volume of user-generated video content will simply up sticks, servers and staff and go across the channel to where they don’t have to jump this hurdle.

These MPs are still living in a pre-internet past when the BBFC could ban people from buying a video of Reservoir Dogs in the UK and no-one would be able to see it. But the net isn’t like that. I can move this site from servers in the UK to the US or anywhere else in a matter of hours, and everything would work just as before.

Tags: Politics, Technology //