Disinformation » YouTube

Yet Again, YouTubers Ask Obama About Drug Reform

DeepCough — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:37:40 +0000

Isn’t it funny how a Democrat refuses to listen to the people who put him in power? From Alternet:

“We need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws.”

Can you guess which 2012 presidential candidate said the above statement? You’d be forgiven for thinking Ron Paul, or even Gary Johnson, since both have publicly advocated for reforming our country’s drug laws. You’d be forgiven for guessing anyone but Barack Obama, based on his actions during the past few years, but it was. It may be hard to believe, but President Obama is the same person who once called for reforming our marijuana laws, and deemed the drug war an “utter failure” during his 2004 campaign for the US Senate. Despite previous calls for reform, on Monday night, when faced with over 70,000 individuals urging him to address the issue of marijuana prohibition, Obama’s only response was his silence. NORML and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition posted two of the most popular questions submitted to the White House’s recent Q&A on YouTube, alongside hundreds of others on the topic of marijuana law reform, but Obama offered no response or acknowledgement.

This recent attempt at citizen engagement, entitled “Your Interview With the President,” was launched to coincide with the State of the Union Address. The concept was simple. Anyone could submit a text or video question through the White House YouTube channel, before the public voted on them over the course of the week. The highest rated questions would be selected for Obama to address. On Tuesday, January 24th, NORML submitted a question of our own, which inquired:

“With over 850,000 Americans arrested in 2010, for marijuana charges alone, and tens of billions of tax dollars being spent locking up non-violent marijuana users, isn’t it time we regulate and tax marijuana?”

The question exploded in popularity and received more than 4,000 votes in the first several hours, making it the 2nd highest rated question. Much to our surprise, that evening the question was removed from the YouTube channel and flagged as “inappropriate.” In response, an upset contingent of citizens flooded the page with marijuana law reform questions…

[continues at Alternet]

The ‘Strange Sounds’ YouTube Meme: Apocalypse? HAARP? Viral Marketing?

dp1974 — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 06:43:13 +0000

Footage recording bizarre mystery sounds of seemingly immense proportions emanating from the heavens (like the ones above) are being posted from multiple points of the globe but mainly in the Northern Hemisphere:

Speculation is rife as to their cause and nature and the story has been quickly spotted by the usual suspects:

i09 asks what are these bizarre sounds coming from the sky in countries from Hungary to Canada?
via h/t from paranormal newsfeed Truth Behind the Scenes
Ghost Theory have been following this since last August, and was one of the first to notice that many occurred on the same day: 1 January 2012

A dedicated blog (strangesoundsinthesky.com) of some months standing has even sprung up to cater for the phenomenon.

More Fortean sceptical write-ups include:

Doubtful News, takes the long historical view, referencing the great unsung Fortean researcher William R. Corliss’ Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds and Other Related Phenomena, and mass copycat behaviour
Reddit provides a technical analysis of the videos and gives us cause for suspicion

So what is it? The evolution of The Hum? The Last Trump? HAARP? Solar flares?

Or have we all been punked by J.J. Abram’s keen sense of mass hysteria and his latest world-wide PR campaign for Cloverfield 2?

Or is the truth some crazy combination of all the above and more? Post your opinions and rants below.

Facebook, Google, And YouTube In 1997 Format

JacobSloan — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:40:45 +0000

Miss that classic feeling of using the internet back when it was fresh? Now you can feel it once again — via Once Upon by Olia Lialina & Dragan Espenschied:

Three important contemporary web sites, recreated with technology and spirit of late 1997, according to our memories.

Best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.03 and a screen resolution of 1024×768 pixels, running under Windows 95. We recommend using a Virtual Machine or appropriate hardware, connected to a CRT monitor. If such an environment unachievable, it should be possible to experience the piece with any browser that still supports HTML Frames. The transfer speed of our server is limited to 8 kB/s («dial-up» speed).

WikiLeaks: the Novel?

moezilla — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 07:16:27 +0000

Author Thomas S. Roche has written a new zombie novel which incorporates WikiLeaks, conspiracy forums, and viral YouTube videos, studying the new wasteland where military violence intersects corporate disinformation.

“I think WikiLeaks represents a very important impulse and the start of a strong movement toward anti-corporate sentiment and the demand for government transparency,” he explains in this new interview, “As ineffectual as that movement may end up being – because it started so late in the process of corporate control being consolidated…”

He moves from discussing fictional zombie-fighting to the brutal real-world military violence in neo-colonial nations around the world. And he ultimately wonders if our wireless technology-enhanced future will also include the potential for massive global disinformation.

Iceland Uses Social Media to Write New Constitution

HAL9000 — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 21:55:31 +0000

Aaron Saenz writes on Singularity Hub:

The newest government in the world was designed with help from comments on the internet. God help us all.

After Iceland’s economic collapse in 2008, the island nation decided it was time to write a new constitution, this one not based on its parent country of Denmark but rather made from the original ideas of its citizens. Iceland’s small population of 320,000 elected 25 assembly members from 522 ordinary candidates (including lawyers, political science professors, journalists, and many other professions), who in turn opened their process up to the public in an unprecedented fashion.

The Constitutional Council was highly active on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr, where they solicited comments and suggestions for the new government. On Friday July 29th, 2011, the Iceland parliament officially received the new constitution, comprised of 114 articles divided into 9 chapters. Set to be reviewed, and then put before vote for ratification by October 1st, the internet-assisted document marks a possible paradigm shift in governing. In the 21st Century, we’re writing our constitutions with social media. The future is a crazy place.

TSA Considering Banning Photography Of Checkpoints

BananaFamine — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 19:52:10 +0000

Carlos Miller writes on Pixiq:

The Transportation Security Administration is considering changing its policy on photographing security checkpoints after several videos depicting questionable incidents between passengers and TSA screeners were posted on Youtube.

News of the possible changes in policy was posted Friday on the TSA Blog, the same blog that posted that it is permissible to photograph checkpoints, even though most screeners act as if it has always been illegal.

The reason it is considering changing its policy stems from a Youtube video that was recorded in Phoenix when a woman opted-out of the metal detectors and chose to get patted down by a TSA screener.

The woman began yelling hysterically that she had been molested by the screener.

Meanwhile, the woman’s son was recording the incident and continued to do so, even though several TSA screeners told him he was breaking the law.

It is impossible to tell whether the woman was molested in the video, but it’s clear that the TSA screeners were creating their own laws in dealing with the videographer — as they’ve done so many times before.

This is what the TSA had to say about the incident…

For more information, see original article.

YouTube Launches ‘Town Hall’

Pelliciari — Fri, 20 May 2011 20:07:18 +0000

Time to trade in your soap box for a viral video. The Raw Story reports:

YouTube on Wednesday launched a “Town Hall” website at which US congressional leaders address issues in brief videos and viewers get to show which positions they support.

Republicans monopolized top slots in a “leaderboard” at the online forum for debating topics from energy and debt to health care and Afghanistan.

However, rankings were shifting quickly at the freshly launched website designed to let top US politicians indirectly debate important issues and then have viewers vote for preferred positions.

While the people in the videos are identified, their party affiliations are not revealed until after a viewer has chosen a side.

“How would you vote if you focused purely on the ideas needed to make our country and our world a better place, rather than on the parties putting them forward?” Will Houghteling of YouTube News and Politics asked in a blog post.

“After you watch the video, you’ll find out which party the representative comes from and sometimes you might be surprised.”

Issues that were top attention getters at Google News during the past year were selected at topics for virtual debates.

Visitors to youtube.com/yttownhall are invited to submit questions, with members of Congress to provide video responses each month to queries that get the most votes.

YouTube Punishes Copyright Offenders With Animated Pirate Cat

moezilla — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 16:08:13 +0000

Thursday YouTube announced a new program which requires copyright offenders to watch an animated cartoon starring a pirate cat. “In an adjustment to it’s three-strikes-and-your-banned-for life policy, the site is now requiring alleged offenders to watch a four minute ‘re-education’ movie featuring an animated cat, then complete a four-question multiple choice exam,” YouTube explained on their site. “Only then can the user upload clips again…”

The cartoon — entitled “Happy Tree Friends” — features singing animals who demonstrate the difference between uploading an infringing video and creating original content. (”YouTube has decided the solution is to patronize those users,” jokes one technology blog.) “Because copyright law can be complicated, education is critical to ensure that our users understand the rules and continue to play by them,” YouTube said in Thursday’s announcement. And some users who complete the YouTube “Copyright School” can also have copyright strikes removed from their account.

‘First Orbit’ Celebrates Today’s 50th Anniversary Of Man In Space

majestic — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:10:33 +0000

Move over PBS: YouTube/Google funded this very cool and very free movie about the beginning of spaceflight, with today being exactly 50 years since Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space.

You can download the movie or watch it on YouTube.

From the official First Orbit site:

April 12th 1961 – Yuri Gagarin is about to see what no other person has seen in the history of
humanity – the Earth from space. In the next 108 minutes he’ll see more than most people do in a lifetime. What sights awaited the first cosmonaut silently gliding over the world below? What was it like to view the oceans and continents sailing by from such a height?

In a unique collaboration with the European Space Agency, and the Expedition 26/27 crew of the International Space Station, we have created a new film of what Gagarin first witnessed fifty years ago.

By matching the orbital path of the Space Station, as closely as possible, to that of Gagarin’s Vostok 1 spaceship and filming the same vistas of the Earth through the new giant cupola window, astronaut Paolo Nespoli, and documentary film maker Christopher Riley, have captured a new digital high definition view of the Earth below, half a century after Gagarin first witnessed it.

Weaving these new views together with historic, recordings of Gagarin from the time, (subtitled in Englsih) and an original score by composer Philip Sheppard, we have created a spellbinding film to share with people around the world on this historic anniversary…

Is This The Absolute Dumbest Thing Ever Posted To YouTube? (Video)

bluemana — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 03:30:29 +0000

Alexandra Wallace’s “Asians in the Library” rant:

Why Evan Emory Could Spend 20 Years In Jail For Edited ‘Prank’ YouTube Video

BananaFamine — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 03:25:37 +0000

Unfortunately the original video is removed, however I cannot reasonably see how this man could face up to 20 years for a fake, edited skit. If anybody has the original, please share in comments. The Chicago Tribune reports:

The Muskegon County prosecutor who charged a 21-year-old West Michigan college student with manufacturing child abusive material says a recall effort targeting him likely is based on misinformation.

Tony Tague tells the Muskegon Chronicle he “will not be deterred in my efforts to protect the children of Muskegon County” after a Facebook group dedicated to his recall was set up.

Tague charged Evan Emory of Fruitport in connection with a sexually-themed YouTube video he [edited] that featured local first-grade students and vulgar lyrics.

Fox News: YouTube May Encourage Self-Injury

BananaFamine — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:02:49 +0000

That darn Youtube! Fox News reports:

One of the most popular sites on the Internet, YouTube, started as a place for web users to share comedy skits, music, movie trailers, and other miscellaneous content. Now a study warns that a new kind of video is the latest trend on the site—cutting and other self-injury methods.

The data from the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics found more than 5,000 YouTube videos on self-injury, including live enactments and graphic images of cutting arms and legs with razors—complete with haunting music, attracting millions of hits from viewers.

The videos have officials and parents alike worried that the videos may trigger the self-injuring behavior in others.

Canadian psychologist Stephen Lewis, a study co-author, said the study focused on 100 videos the authors found in December 2009. Their analysis was published online Monday in Pediatrics. The 100 videos were viewed more than 2 million times and generated many online comments.

Parents and mental health professionals should be aware of the YouTube postings and that the videos might be perpetuating the problem, said Lewis, an assistant professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario…

For more information, see original article.

Activists Hijack North Korean Tweets

Pelliciari — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 21:22:25 +0000

It seems North Korea’s internet borders are the only ones capable of being breached. Via BBC News:

Hackers have taken over social media sites associated with the North Korean regime, to make derogatory posts.

On 8 January, a Twitter account affiliated to the North’s regime began posting messages calling for an uprising.

Meanwhile a video appeared on the regime’s YouTube channel, depicting heir-apparent Kim Jong-un driving his sports car into women and children.

Users of a popular South Korean website have claimed responsibility.

The attacks coincided with Jong-un’s birthday.

[Continues at BBC News]

YouTube Removes Pro-Palestinian/Anti-Motorola Video

imkaan — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 06:43:19 +0000

Via River Front Times (YES, on YouTube while this post lasts…)

Two weeks ago, we told you about the local activists who busted out an anti-Motorola song-and-dance routine at the Best Buy and AT&T stores in suburban Brentwood — and we posted a video of the performance. That video quickly drew more than 35,000 hits:

Last week, however, YouTube unceremoniously removed the video in question, saying it was subject to a copyright challenge by WMG (apparently, the Warner Music Group).

The group of activists who assembled the Brentwood flash mobs, the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee, is now questioning the video’s removal.

As organizer Colleen Kelly points out, there are close to 1,000 YouTube videos showing flash mob-type performances or other recreations of Lady Gaga songs. Those haven’t been taken down — courts have long recognized that parodies are not copyright violations.

Ryan Higa – Agent of Secret Stuff (ASS)

majestic — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 18:07:43 +0000

Ryan Higa is the star of a massively popular comedic espionage “TV” series, Agents of Secret Stuff, but you won’t find it on any actual television network. 20-year-old Higa is making ASS for his YouTube Channel and in just a few days the latest 35-minute episode has amassed nearly 4 million views. I doubt he’s making money from it yet, but chances are that Higa is going to parlay his giant audience into some megabucks before long. One question, though … is he any good? Check him out:

Mainstream Film Rentals Coming Soon To Google/YouTube

Pelliciari — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:01:40 +0000

Google, YouTube, Hulu, Netflix … it’s only a matter of time till Blockbuster files for bankruptcy. In case we didn’t already have enough access to instant movie viewing, Google is looking for a new deal with Hollywood studios. From Wired:

Google is reportedly in talks with the major movie studios to launch full-length video rentals on YouTube by year’s end.

YouTube has already experimented with film rentals, offering selections from the Sundance Festival earlier this year when it would not rule out the addition of Hollywood movies. And the site was reportedly in talks with the same studios around this time last year, so this does not come as much of a surprise, the Financial Times’ “scoop” notwithstanding.

However, YouTube’s movie rental program currently focuses on independent filmmakers and music artists. The addition of mainstream, pay-per-view feature films to YouTube would represent a significant development, regardless of how long these reported talks have been ongoing (at least a year).

Most of us want to watch full-length films on our large, flatscreen televisions and — if we’re lucky — our surround sound speaker systems, which transform any living room into a private movie theater delightfully lacking in other people, their cellphones, and their crinkly candy wrappers.

Continues at Wired ….

Annalee Newitz: How ‘Max Headroom’ Predicted My Job, 20 Years Before It Existed

ralph — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 20:27:25 +0000

Very interesting essay from Annalee Newitz on io9.com. If you grew up watching American television in the ’80s this was one of the weirdest and most interesting shows on network TV, even for kids like myself who didn’t fully grasp the implications of what I was seeing on the screen. (The show obviously baffled many adults as well, since it only lasted fourteen episodes, thankfully the entire series has finally been released on DVD.)

Making sense of it all and putting the show in perspective twenty years later is Annalee Newitz on io9.com:

For those who don’t know the premise of the 1987—88 series, where every episode begins with the tagline “twenty minutes into the future,” here’s a quick recap. Investigative reporter Edison Carter works for Network 23 in an undefined cyberpunk future, where all media is ad-supported and ratings rule all. Reporters carry “rifle cameras,” gun-shaped video cameras, which are wirelessly linked back to a “controller” in the newsroom. Edison’s controller is Theora, who accesses information online — everything from apartment layouts to secret security footage — to help him with investigations.

They’re aided in their investigations by a sarcastic AI named Max Headroom, built by geek character Bryce and based on Edison’s memories. Sometimes producer Murray (Jeffrey Tambor) helps out, as does Reg, a pirate TV broadcaster known as a “blank” because he’s erased his identity from corporate databases.

In the world of Max Headroom, it’s illegal for televisions to have an off switch. Terrorists are reality TV stars. And super-fast subliminal advertisements called blipverts have started to blow people up by overstimulating the nervous systems of people who are sedentary and eat too much fat…

Russian Court Bans YouTube Website

Pelliciari — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:34:01 +0000

Russia joins the company of Turkey, China, Pakistan and Iran, in banning YouTube. After an “extremist” nationalist video appeared on the website, a Russian court ordered YouTube to be blocked within the Khabarovsk region. The Guardian reports:

Russia’s blogosphere reacted with anger today after a regional court banned YouTube because it carried a single video containing “extremist” content.

The court in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Khabarovsk region in the Russian far east ordered Rosnet, a local internet provider, to block YouTube as well as three online libraries and a website that archives deleted web pages.

The regional ban was made because YouTube hosted Russia For Russians, an ultra-nationalist video which was added to the justice ministry’s federal list of banned extremist materials after a separate court decision in Samara region in November.

The other four sites – Web.archives.org, Lib.rus.ec, Thelib.ru and Zhurnal.ru – all carried copies of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Anton Nosik, Russia’s leading internet guru, condemned the decision. “The level of crassness in this court ruling is typical of legal proceedings concerning the internet in Russia,” he said. Google, the owner of YouTube, said the ruling violated Russians’ constitutional right to freedom of information.

Many bloggers also decried the ban, warning it could be a slippery slope to tighter censorship across the country.

“I can imagine it now,” wrote Ghost82 on LiveJournal. “Russia in 2015, YouTube is banned everywhere. In search of a gulp of air, people travel to the border with Georgia where they will sit with their laptops and pay unimaginable sums to connect to the internet via powerful Wi-Fi transmitters for a taste of depraved western civilisation.”

Alexander tweeted on RuTvit: “YouTube has been given to understand that Russia, Pakistan and North Korea have much in common.”

An engineer with Rosnet said the company had suggested prosecutors should contact the portals concerned directly to request they take down the offensive material, rather than issuing a blanket ban. “They [prosecutors] remained deaf to these pleas,” he told the Gazeta.ru news website. Rosnet is appealing the ruling.

Story continues at The Guardian …

DIY Medicine From YouTube Videos

JacobSloan — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:05:09 +0000

One of the positive things about the recession era is that it’s inspiring people to get creative — for instance, by performing their own minor surgeries, using how-to videos from YouTube. The Globe and Mail reports:

Before, doctors worried about patients who self-diagnosed after doing Internet research on questionable medical websites. But the social Web has given birth to a new beast: users who document their DIY medical procedures on camera and share the videos on YouTube.

Doug Southern would have preferred to see a doctor, but bad timing meant he was without health insurance. He was laid off from his job a short while before a three-year-old baseball-sized cyst on his back became infected.

When his brother-in-law, a family practitioner, and his sister came to visit him in Tuscaloosa, Ala., he decided to put down a towel and pillow on his kitchen floor and turn it into a makeshift operating room so his cyst could be taken out “Alabama style.”

The graphic, seven-minute YouTube video is punctuated with squeals of delight and revulsion from Mr. Southern’s sister (the camerawoman) and commentary from the doctor (“Now you see how that’s a little bit cheesy there? That’s some of the cyst stuff comin’ out.”).

His video was posted mostly for entertainment (“You don’t want to see it, but once you see it happening, you can’t take your eyes off it,” he says) but it was uploaded to the “Education” category of YouTube.

World’s Most Creative Online Video

majestic — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:17:00 +0000

From Techcrunch:

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, YouTube and HP have teamed up in search of the world’s most creative online video. In collaboration with Hewlett-Packard and Intel, Google’s YouTube set up a dedicated site section dubbed Play, in an effort to find and showcase the most exceptional talents working in the realm of online video.

In the – international – search for new creative video, everyone is invited to submit their best works, which people can do until July 31st. Anything goes, from straight-up art to animation, music videos, motion graphics, narrative and non-narrative work, or even entirely new art forms (that should be interesting).

Hitler ‘Downfall’ Parodies Removed from YouTube

ralph — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 06:28:04 +0000

Nein! Nein! Nein! Gottverdammt YouTube! Gottverdammt Constantin Film! Es ist wahr! Mein Leben ist vorbei.

What the hell YouTube, you did this on Hitler’s birthday?!? WTF. Reports Mashable:

The movie studio responsible for the award-winning, German-Austrian film Downfall (German: Der Untergang) has asked YouTube to take down several videos from the massively popular subtitled “Hitler finds out…” meme, and the site has complied.Search YouTube and you’ll still find hundreds of Downfall parodies, but click through to some of the bigger ones and you’ll now get the message, “This video contains content from Constantin Film, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.”

Yep, all the ones we have on disinfo.com are gone…

YouTube: A History

Raymond — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 02:48:50 +0000

From the Telegraph:

YouTube, the online video site, marks its fifth year this week. Here are some of the key staging posts in its history.

February 2005: YouTube founders, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim begin work on a video sharing site — they all met at PayPal.

April 2005: First video uploaded to YouTube — a video of Jawed at San Diego Zoo

November 2005: YouTube secures first round of funding with Sequoia Capital for $3.5m

December 2005: Official Launch (8m videos watched a day)

February 2006: 15m videos watched a day; 20,000 uploaded a day

May 2006: Mobile video uploads released

July 2006: 65,000 new videos uploaded every day, site passes 100m video views per day

August 2006: YouTube launches first advertising concepts — Participatory Video Ads (PVA) and Brand Channels

Autumn 2006: YouTube signs deal with three major music labels (Sony BMG, Warner, Universal)

October 2006: YouTube partners with first major network (CBS) Begins testing Content Id tool to protect copyrighted material

October 2006: YouTube partners with Audible Magic to create audio identification technology

October 2006: Google acquires YouTube for $1.65bn, says its revenues are “not material”

[Read more at the Telegraph]

Google Unleashes Make-Your-Own Video Tool

majestic — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:57:52 +0000

Jason Kincaid reveals the details, at TechCrunch:

Remember Google’s Hell-froze-over, critically acclaimed Super Bowl ad Parisian Love? The one that managed to use a series of basic search queries to tell a touching love story? Now you’ve got a chance to tell a story of your own.

Some time in the last few days Google launched a new feature called the “Search Stories Video Creator“. And damn if it isn’t fun. The new feature prompts you to input up to seven search queries spread across Google’s search features (including Images, Maps, and standard web search), choose a song, and it generates a video in the same style as Google’s other Search Stories.

The whole process only takes a few minutes (the tool automatically uploads your video to YouTube when you’re ready). And while there are plenty of parodies already out there, we can expect a whole lot more of them to pop up in the next few days…

Here’s Kincaid’s own video:

Man Arrested for Death Threat Against Eric Cantor Claimed to Be Messiah (Video)

ralph — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 20:49:45 +0000

Now this is one crazy dude. Kevin Spak writes on Newser:

A 33-year-old Philadelphia man has been arrested and charged with making YouTube death threats against Eric Cantor. The video has since been pulled down, but in it Norman Leboon promised that Cantor would “receive my bullets in your office, remember they will be placed in your heads. You and your children are Lucifer’s abominations,” according to Talking Points Memo.

When Google provided the FBI with Leboon’s IP address, they discovered that local police already had a warrant for his arrest for another threatening video. When federal agents visited him Sunday, Leboon said he was the “son of the god of Enoch,” and that he had made over 2,000 threatening videos. He allegedly admitted to making the Cantor video three days earlier, and called Cantor “pure evil.” Another video warns that, as punishment for removing his videos, “all the YouTube employees both men and women will lose their first-born sons.” (see below)

YouTube Censors Marijuana Question In Obama Interview

ralph — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:32:55 +0000

Thanks Steve for the news tip! Steve Elliott writes in the Toke of the Town:

If you voted for marijuana as a CitizenTube question, then your vote didn’t count. Yes, questions about marijuana were the most popular in the CitizenTube voting Monday afternoon.

But YouTube, in a gutless move, decided at the last minute not to present the highest ranked questions to the President. Initial reports that the President had ignored the marijuana questions were inaccurate; YouTube took pot, the top vote getter, out of the running.

President Obama never even got an opportunity to answer the most popular question of all.

Wait, what? “We’ll let you vote, but don’t expect it to actually MEAN anything.”

If they were going to ignore the questions that got the most votes, then why, exactly, did YouTube ask viewers to go to the trouble of voting? And why did they go through the motions of counting those votes, if they were good for bupkis, nada, zilch?

Read More of Steve Elliott’s article in Toke of the Town