YouTube censors Blogger

WEEKS BEFORE NYC MAYORAL ELECTION, YOUTUBE.COM SUPPRESSES FREE SPEECH

YouTube.com has censored the artist-activist-citizen journalist Suzannah B. Troy by suspending her entire account (300 videos).

Suzannah B. Troy, a New York City-based artist, citizen journalist, and blogger, has had her YouTube.com account inexplicably suspended by the popular video website.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Suzannahartist

First Suzannah B. Troy, next us.

Ms. Troy has spent months creating, editing, and posting hundreds of original citizen journalist videos focusing on the controversial election this year of local candidates running for third terms in office. In particular, Ms. Troy's videos have been highly critical of the New York City Council and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The nature of the videos on her YouTube.com account have ranged from breaking news-quality videos of voter demonstrations, to video blogs of her commentary on the elections, to artistic interpretation of news events. There is no reason for her account to be suspended by YouTube other than for the political and artistic nature of their content.

Please write to Youtube at: press@youtube.com and ask them for their official policy of suspending accounts of artists and citizen journalists.

We are only weeks away from an important election, which shall decide if City Council Members and Mayor Bloomberg will thwart the will of voters' two referrenda on term limits. And missing from the free exchange of ideas during the critical debates that will be taking place in the time leading up to the election will be Ms. Troy's body of work.

Without you stepping in to blog, publish, or report about this questionable suspension of Ms. Troy's YouTube account (as well as the potential of loss of hundreds of videos), other citizen journalists may face the same sad fate : cyber suppression.

Please consider the importance of voter participation in free and open democratic elections.

UPDATE: After pressure, YouTube.com restores Blogger's account

The blog site Queens Crap is reporting that YouTube has restored Suzannah B. Troy's account.

This is what a police state looks like

Spying For Bush: Bloomberg Used NYPD To Surveil Protesters

A word-for-word reprint of a reader response by orionATL on the TalkLeft.com site :

this is a really important issue,
a central constitutional issue
vis-a-vis the bush administration.
it may seem like a peripheral issue, compared to the iraq invasion, the u.s. a's problem, or the libby trial,
but it is not.
the bush administration has, for the entire 6 years of its existence, suppressed individual, citizen dissent against itself.
the administration has employed local police across the nation, not just in nyc, to harass demonstrators and objectors.
furthermore,
white house personnel have impersonated secret service agents to suppress dissent.
and i would be surprised if the secret service itself had not "co-operated" in the suppression.
at the president's command, protesters who voiced opposition, have been ejected from meetings or speeches for simply
wearing t-shirts with an anti-bush policy message.
this small, quiet scandal is deeply unconstitutional
these are presidential abuses of the CENTRAL free speech the our "founders" had in mind -
need i remind
that that central free speech those founders were focused on and determined to protect was
POLITICAL free speech,
not advertising
not movies
not gossip columns.
specifically,
the central protected speech was speech criticizing elected officials or existing policies.
in short,
the right to publicly disagree with the mayor, the sheriff, the governor, the senator, the president, or, historically, the king.
and NOT be imprisoned for having done so.
like other aspects of its insensitivity to proper public policy in a democracy,
the bush administration has trampled on this core right of american citizens for the entire six years of its term in office - six long years.
these bastards have not a clue about what a democracy is or how it operates.