barely fatal

Today when I youtubed one of my favorite comedians I stumbled upon this tv ad for a right-wing extremist party. The comedian (Oliver Kalkofe) makes fun of it, and he’s good. Linked as “related” though, there are real videos, made by, err, let’s say right-leaning, guys. They have a web site and all, and they go on and on with all the old rubbish, I don’t need to give any details I think. I won’t link them; they really don’t need any additional traffic.

The thing is, I was really surprised how openly they can show this stuff on places like YouTube. Yes, there are all these flame posts by radical left-wingers – who’s intelligence has to be questioned as well, considering the discussions going on there, by the way. It’s all hate back and forth, both ways.

Now, how come YouTube fights all the copyright infringements as hard as they do, illegal videos or vids with sexual content never stay up for long. But this stays online?

The freedom of speech. You can say and show whatever you want (unless it’s something someone else could make money of or it contains sex). Ok, this isn’t true in all countries, but the more the merrier. It reminded me though why it’s so important to vote. I skipped the last two opportunities to make my voice be heard. There was an outstanding decision on what should happen with a public place (sell to a bank?) and the the election of a new mayor.

I didn’t go to the first one because I had no idea what it was all about and I’ve never been to that place. I didn’t go to the second because I had no idea who the candidates were or who the last mayor was (who had died). Can’t vote if you can’t make an informed decision. I think I was wrong. Next time I’ll go.