It was 2005 when video sharing became all the rage on the Internet following the launch of Google owned website 'YouTube', this website gave it's users the ability to watch videos and create their own to share with the world. The YouTube community to open to absolutely anyone, if you have a video recording device then YouTube is yours to use.
Videos on YouTube are incredibly diverse, almost anything can be found from mobile phone footage of teenagers at a party to a documentary about astra physics, from a cat on a skateboard to footage of the JFK assassination. Clearly YouTube has alot more to offer than TV ever will. In 1986 comedian Jeremy Beadle launched a show on ITV called 'Beadle's About' in which members of the public would be secretly filmed by hidden cameras whilst they were fooled by some of Beadle's pranks, this was a huge hit and even now the concept of hidden camera pranks still exist, YouTube has evidence of this as amature film makers go out with a handheld camera and pull pranks on the unsuspecting public and for it to be immediately shown on YouTube once it is complete, unlike 'Beadle's About' this wouldn't be planned ahead and no safety risks would have been considered, the creators would just go out and do it for the sheer thrill and enjoyment, it's not for money or publicity the creators just want to entertain the people who may be watching as is the case for any other YouTube video.
The idea of letting anyone in the world have the potential to become an online superstar may sound too good to be true but YouTube has flaws. Firstly it is very easy to find clips from movies, tv shows or even music videos which have been added to YouTube without permission from the production company leading to them suing the uploader of the video, one incident of this kind was back in 2007 where a woman from Pennsylvania, USA posted a video of her 13 month old son dancing to 'Lets Go Crazy' a song by the singer Prince. Universal Music Group, the recording company ordered that YouTube immediately remove the video due to the use of the song without permission.
Secondly, unlike TV the content that goes on YouTube is not strictly monitored meaning that videos with unsuitable content (i.e. sex, violence, explicitory) can easily be uploaded onto the site just like any other video and it could be days or even weeks before they are reported to YouTube staff and deleted from the site. This corresponds to controversy in 2007 where a Yorkshire newspaper condemned a video which showed footage from the 1985 Bradford City Stadium Fire, YouTube removed the video but other copies of the footage were re-uploaded again later.
The most common filming device used for making YouTube videos are camcorders and webcams, as the most popular type of video that the site hosts are usually v-blogs which are basically video blogs of a particular person. Some work on YouTube is scripted but not professionally like what is done in the media, the reason for this is that it is an amature production and the creators are not being assigned by anyone or any particular company to create these videos.
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