attacked or humiliated, we ask our users not to post it,” a YouTube spokesperson said on Friday. “And we remove such material promptly once we are notified.
“Our community controls the content on the site and they’re the ones [not us] who flag content they deem inappropriate.”
The spokesperson for the video Web site would not provide a name.
The issue of the disparaging videos was brought to school officials’ attention about a week ago, when the student newspaper ran an article about the increasing presence of MHS footage on YouTube. Curious, an administrator decided to search for Malibu High School videos and was disturbed by what they saw, according to Kelly.
One video that caught their attention was of a lecture by a substitute teacher who often fills in at MHS. The student shot the footage of the classroom lecture with their camera phone and later posted it on YouTube, adding unflattering music and commentary.
At the request of school officials, YouTube deleted the video from its Web site.
Cell phones are permitted on campus, but need to be shut off during school hours. “[The videos] are not in-line with our mission here,” Kelly said.
Some videos can be downright cruel. Two videos posted by the same user poke fun and make assumptions about the sexuality of two students. The videos were both posted about a week ago,according to the site.
Not all videos seem to poke fun at students or teachers. One stages a fight between two students, aiming to teach a lesson that violence is not the answer.
“I personally think that some of the students are feeling very disrespected because some of the videos are making fun of them,” Paxton said.“I think it’s an issue that needs to be addressed through policies or having administrators and teachers monitor technology a little better.”
School officials are assessing what measures they could take without getting into legal trouble themselves, since deleting posts could be a violation of free speech. For the past few days, administrators have spoken with parents, advising of the situation and the potential ramifications for not only the students and teachers whom the videos are targeting, but the perpetrators themselves.
“When speaking negatively or disparagingly of another student, that does sometimes have ramifications for the campus,” Kelly said.“We’re not really sure what we can do... we’re not going to sit and monitor YouTube [every moment].
“On the other hand, we have to be careful how it is affecting the school here every day,” he added. “Is it disrupting instruction? Disrupting what is going on at school?”
One big first step school officials did take recently is block access to the Web site from all computers on campus.
The student council has met several times over the past few weeks to address the issue and are working to figure a way to limit the embarrassment of those students who have been targeted.
The attention was brought to the Board of Education on Thursday when Paxton announced that administrators were working to rectify the issue. Paxton is the student representative to the school board.
Board members suggested adding a policy on video postings and soliciting student input in formulating regulations, since the youth are well aware of technological changes.
“Even on my time on the board, we changed our policy on cell phones twice,” said school board member Jose Escarce. “On this issue, we’re behind, which is not surprising because it is changing so quickly.”
The YouTube brand made national headlines this week when a video of a violent fight between teenage girls stuck in a love triangle was posted on the site. That video has since been removed from the site.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 20, 2007. Read the original PDF.