YouTube, or "EditorTube"? [UPDATE]

A few days ago, YouTube, the giant videosharing site, unveiled some site upgrades that has a vocal chunk of its user base up in arms. The most important change, from the point of view of YouTube's burgeoning critics, is the removal of social data about videos in all the different categories and its replacement with videos that are being handpicked by the site's editors. As Brave New Films' Jim Gilliam, who alerted me to this, explains, "Before there used to be several pages of 'the most viewed,' 'most discussed,' 'top rated,' 'top favorited,' etc. for each individual category there...not just the editors picks and some random other videos."

Because YouTube made all this social data visible, it created a peer-moderated open forum where all kinds of people could help "bubble up" the most interesting videos to watch and share. As Gilliam says, "What would happen is that you'd put your video up on YouTube and try to get enough views (or ratings or favorites, etc) to show up on the top pages for your particular category. Then that would get you a bunch more people seeing your stuff because those pages of the most viewed were quite popular. Which would then give you a chance to rise even further up the ranks to get on the top list for all of YouTube, reaching even more people. Now there's just the top list for all of YouTube. So there's no booster in there anymore."

There are literally hundreds of angry comments on the YouTube blog discussing the change. "Having only 'editors picks' stifles the free exchange of ideas that is paramount to the existence of the Internet!," writes DANNYT41. "Without the ability to browse by category videos other than the editor's picks, my means of discovering new videos has been severely crippled," writes sjotime22. A user named ostekakepstsnet writes, "Have you absolutely and utterly lost your mind ??? First you pioneer viral media then you do a 180 and start forcefeeding people what you think they should watch ??? omg... NUTS !!! (no more youtube material from me until you fix this.)"

And the rebels are using YouTube's tools to spread their message. "This bullshit kills the little guy on YouTube," says CapnAwesome, a 24-year-old self-described "Atheist, Rabid Libertarian and shock comic" who has been posting his videos on the site for a year and has 5,300 subscribers to his channel--more than Hillary Clinton. He adds on his video about the controversy: "Supertalented people are never gonna get...because they haven't been on here long enough... nobody is going to be able to see their videos." Along with more than 4,000 text comments, his video protest has already prompted more than 200 video responses--a huge number. In just three hours, it became one of the most discussed on the site.

I asked him if he had any idea why this change might have been made and he wrote me,

Outside of YouTube's growing connection with the mainstream media and apparently the Government, there is no reason for YouTube to take down the catagories. A number of people have coincided this with the fact that YouTube doesn't want a number of videos highly critical of the candidates splashed all over their website. Instead all you get is ones handpicked by the YouTube editors which all give glowing reivews, (The one exception is a video entitled "Ron Paul is full of Shit") However a side effect of their sudden corporate sucking up is the death of the community, and people have started nicknaming YouTube as EditorTube.

Could it be that behind all these changes, YouTube just wants to make it harder for us to find content critical of their upcoming debate? I doubt it, though they are hiding all the social data generated by people viewing the 163 voter-generated questions that have been posted so far. I would be very surprised if YouTube doesn't restore the social features being requested by its users, but so far there hasn't been an official comment from the site about the controversy.

In the meantime, if you want to see a different approach to video sharing, go check out the new and improved home page for Brave New Films. Until recently, BNF was mainly the home for videos made and produced by Robert Greenwald and his partners, who come from the political left and were taking on targets like Wal-Mart, Fox News and John McCain. Now the site is attempting to curate all the progressive video out there and make it easy for people to help get the best stuff noticed. Says Gilliam, "It's very easy to add your YouTube videos. Candidates, bloggers, grassroots groups... just sign-up, put your YouTube name in, and the site will automatically add all your videos now and in the future. You can also add "actions" to each video, to encourage people to sign a petition or whatever you like."

Gilliam and Greenwald have already been at the cutting edge of documentary video distribution (their Wal-Mart movie launched on several thousand house parties, all organized via their website). They also have involved their core contributors in helping pre-edit some of their work, again via the web. Now they are taking a brave leap forward into becoming a new kind of channel, not one where they decide what is best for you to watch, but where they invite a community to share and sift videos together. Perhaps YouTube can learn from them.

[UPDATE]

YouTube just posted this announcement on their blog:

We wanted to officially address the current situation of category browsing having gone missing from the site after the latest update (which also affected search for channel honors). We want to apologize for the upset and frustration that this has caused you. We wholeheartedly understand and we have been listening to the overwhelming feedback from all of you to "bring them back!"

It was actually not our intention to take this helpful function away from you. There were technical reasons this had to happen in the short-term, but the good news is that we're working hard on a solution to bring it back. More news when we have it, and thanks so much for your patience in the meantime.