A Defense Department decision to ban YouTube and several other sites from its unclassified network has been challenged by YouTube’s founders.
YouTube Guys Call BS On Pentagon
Bandwidth concerns have driven the Pentagon to drop the hammer on some video and social networking sites. That decision has prompted disappointment from soldiers and derision from a skeptical DC press corps.
A military spokesperson ended up being grilled over the bandwidth question by reporters. The Washington Post said Rear Admiral Elizabeth A. Hight, vice director of the Defense Information Systems Agency, stuck to the Pentagon’s assertion that bandwidth usage was the sole reason to shut down access to those sites.
Reporters asked if that usage had ever jeopardized operations, and were told it had not. The decision to block access to these heavily used websites was a “proactive” one, Hight said, due to the growing demands created by the likes of video and other sites.
YouTube’s top executives aren’t convinced by the military’s explanation. “They said it might be a bandwidth issue, but they created the Internet, so I don’t know what the problem is,” company CEO Chad Hurley said in an AP report. The company is trying to work with the Pentagon to find a solution to the access ban.
