Group Looks to 'Cyberarmy' to Stop Violent Videos

 

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Karsten, Barker and Lloyd recently participated in the annual National SAVE Youth Summit in Raleigh, N.C.

'Not Listening to the Moral Police'

Currently the social networking sites follow "a flagged model," which is outlined in online warnings.

YouTube's guidelines caution that "if your video shows someone getting hurt, attacked or humiliated, don't post it."

"We do not allow the uploading of videos that contain threats, hate speech, dangerous acts, or fights involving minors," a YouTube spokesperson told ABC News. "We strictly enforce these policies and such videos are typically flagged by our community and promptly removed."

The spokesperson stated that they "do not comment on individual video sets", but highlighted the company's work to prevent cyberbullying, such as enhanced privacy features and an initiative with UK's Beatbullying.org to start a YouTube channel to raise cyberbullying awareness.

"Cyberbullying and harassment are a violation of MySpace's terms of use," said MySpace Chief of Security Hemanshu Nigam in a statement about the Florida attack. "In order to enforce our terms, MySpace reviews every image and video that is hosted on the site. To our knowledge, the mentioned video was never hosted on MySpace. However, since the alleged assailants had MySpace profiles, we are working with the Polk County Sheriff's Department to assist their investigation."

On its website MySpace reminds its users that "harassment, hate speech and inappropriate content should be reported. If you feel someone's behavior is inappropriate, react. Report it to MySpace or the authorities."

"Don't post anything that would embarrass you later," the site also warns. "It's easy to think that only our friends are looking at our MySpace page, but the truth is that everyone can see it. Think twice before posting a photo or information you wouldn't want your parents, potential employers, colleges or boss to see!"

Since the sites don't prescreen their users' videos, Aftab says it's just as easy to post clips online as it is to hang a poster at a construction site. Then, once a video is on the Internet, it can be flagged and removed, but as Aftab notes, "when you have 200 million profiles, it's pretty hard for anyone to review that many of them."

"[The sites] need to get a lot of content up there and if they don't get it up there fast enough, another site will take over tomorrow," she said.

Cantrell, who compares the Web sites' systems to a post-first, ask-questions-later policy, says that the rush to post any and all user-submitted video is all about the financial bottom line.

"The companies are certainly in it for the money. They're not trying to provide a community service," he said.

"I do put a moral responsibility on these Web sites," Cantrell added. "They could be doing a much better job than they're doing at the sacrifice of some revenue. A lot of times they're not listening to what the moral police are saying because they're just looking at the bottom dollar."

"It's all a business," stated Karsten, adding that for these sites, "the only thing that matters at the end of the day is how much money they're going to make."

'Pictures Will Follow Them Throughout Their Lives'

Aftab and her militia want to make sure that more kids like Victoria Lindsay are not hurt in the future.

"[Kids] don't understand that these are people who are seriously hurt, they could be killed, and there are serious consequences for what they're doing," said Aftab.