Why hello there my pretties.  So, this is not quite the blog post i’d intended, in fac there are two that I have mentally queued up, but this is one that is current and having an effect.

So what’s going on?  Well once again we have the Streisand effect bouncing around on you tube as a young woman unhappy with her Golden Crocoduck nomination decides to DMCA Potholer54.  This use of the DMCA constitutes a false DMCA as nothing in Potholers video was used without acknowledging the source (otherwise who could he have nominated her) and it was done as comment and critisism, and also in an attempt to redress the balance of the so far male dominated awards.

Myself and the SkepticTV boys found out about it yesterday when one of my cohort of youtube geologists, the awesome KaroKoenich, brought us up to speed.  Within a short while Bair was on the case with this and the rest of us started doing what we could, I know after I mirrored Bair’s vid someone pointed me in the direction of a mirror of Potholers salute vid which meant I could mirror that and the stop whining vid as that was also mirrored.

So the mirrors are flying and even the amazing RhymeMaiden (yes I know she uses a different username now but I think this one is ace) nominated the young woman for a dimbulb of the week, getting DMCAed as well for her efforts and meaning the young woman gets a Life Time Achievement Dim Bulb Award. *

And then to top it all off for me I check my e-mail this morning and I find the following message:

“Regarding your account: AngryWomble

The YouTube Community has flagged one or more of your videos as inappropriate. Once a video is flagged, it is reviewed by the YouTube Team against our Community Guidelines. Upon review, we have determined that the following video(s) contain content in violation of these guidelines, and have been disabled:

• MIRROR Stop whining (potholer54) – (AngryWomble)

Your account has received one Community Guidelines warning strike, which will expire in six months. Additional violations may result in the temporary disabling of your ability to post content to YouTube and/or the permanent termination of your account.

For more information on YouTube’s Community Guidelines and how they are enforced, please visit the Help Centre.

Sincerely,

The YouTube Team “

The thing that gets me about this, the deep down wtf moment, is that this video of Potholers wasn’t even addressed to the young woman in question.  The stop whining was addressed to the uppets that hadn’t watched the first video and had decided to yell at him for what they thought his video was about, now if thats not top end muppetry then I don’t know what is.  Potholer even says that if people want to find fault with what he’s said (even if he’s not said anything fault worthy, we all have different things that we consider faulty) then people are more than welcome to do their own videos where they go about debunking what they think is wrong.

It’s stuff like this that does make me wonder what goes on in some peoples heads, it really does.  Yes this young woman is entitled to make whatever youtube videos she likes (so long as they’re within guidelines etc), and if she says something stupid she’s kinda got to expect that other people on youtube will download that shit and go on a debunking mission with it.  Hell there’s nothing wrong with being wrong about something, hell as a child I used to think Chenobyl was in Scotland because they were testing the Scotish sheep for radiation but since then I’ve actually learnt a few more of these things called facts and now know I was wrong and also what caused my misunderstanding.

But this young woman seems to want to revel in her ignorance, or at least this is what the DMCA and flagging fest seems to indicate.  Being wrong about something isn’t a bad thing, being an arse about people pointing out you are wrong is a bad thing.  Now if she has faith that’s fine, I think only the hard core/militant atheists will have a beef about that, but most of us arn’t going to care just so long as she can actualy get the science right.  As Ricky Gervais once said, you are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts.  So if you are using bad facts to spout drivel we will object, if you get your knickers in a bunch about it and try and get the objections removed you will trigger the Streisand Effect.  And if you were really that concerned with accuracy you’d take the time to double check the comments that have been highlighted and if it’s science based you’d actually read a science book or speak to someone with an appropriate scientific qualification.

But hey, why try and find out if in fact you are wrong when having a hissy fit is easier.  And if anyone objects to something written here post a comment below and quote the text.  I’m grown up enough to re-evaluate and correct if needs be and the resulting discussion could enlighten both sides (as it has on a previous blog post here), or if you’d prefer you can always click on my name on the right of the page and get my e-mail from there.  Either way be an adult and don’t have a toy throwing session.

Womble

*It seems her original video still exists, thanks to your friend Answers in Books for his mirror, not sure how long it will be up so it might not hurt to download t in preperation for more uploading 😉