Man, you gotta love YouTube just for the sheer empowerment it has the potential to give the disenfranchised.
A Venezuelan television station is the latest to use the video-sharing site to get around government and legal pressures.
It’s pure freedom of the press in action and a nice reminder of why the US established the principle to begin with.
Thanks, Hugo Chavez, for reinforcing what we’ve been saying for over 200 years.
Blogging for 10ZenMonkeys, Venezuelan Rodrigo Arcaya deftly narrates the angst happening right now surrounding the country’s President Chavez.
It’s a long (but worth it) read about the political climate there, and a tale of how one TV station is taking its show on the road – er, the Information Super Highway.
Chavez, not liking how RCTV was portraying him and other critical historical moments (Arcaya regales the reader with the goings on in 2002, when Chavez took control of the airwaves to tell a different tale of what was happening outside his doors than what was happening – shown in split-screen format by RCTV), booted the national network off the air, leaving only tepid, supportive and governmental channels.
The group of hard-hitting reporters aren’t taking that lying down though.
They’ve taken their channel online to YouTube, where anybody with a modem and unfettered access can see unapproved reporting.
While this is a very exciting eff-you to Chavez, it will be interesting to see what El Presidente’s next move is.
It only takes a little research to know that Google and YouTube have been soft when it comes to government pressures.
Google has folded to China, Thailand, South Korea, and Brazil in the past.
If Chavez were to block access to YouTube in Venezuela, it makes one wonder if Google would crumble again, or if the company would finally bow-up and stick it to The Man.
