Congress, YouTube Bring On Demand Video To Government
Jan 12th, 2009 | By James Lewin | Category: Internet TV, VideoYouTube announced today a new project, in collaboration with the US Congress, to bring government videos to the video sharing site:
Two new channels were announced:
“These YouTube channels have the potential to make Congress more transparent and accessible than ever before,” sccording to YouTube’s Steve Grove, “but only if you continue to connect and engage with your government on the site.”
While YouTube is a convenient tool for Congress to get out its message, by putting its content on YouTube, Congress is making a tacit endorsement of the site and sending it a ton of traffic.
Congress should either make its videos available far and wide or implement a government video portal. This content should also be released in source form as public domain content, so the video can be used by the American public as it sees fit, reused, remixed and mashed up.Â
In my opinion the government should not endorse/support the property of Google, a company which is slow in the privacy department.
I agree with you, the government should build its own video portal.
So, while transparancy is always welcome, the method used is not perfect yet.