Tag Archives: Bodyart

YouTube has age-restricted my video and I don’t know why

This is the message you get when YouTube restricts a video:

“The YouTube Community has flagged one or more of your videos as inappropriate. Once a video is flagged, it is reviewed by the YouTube Team against our Community Guidelines. Upon review, we have determined that the following video(s) contain content that may not be suitable for all viewers:  2008 Transformations by Christopher Agostino

As a result, we have age-restricted this content.  For more information on YouTube’s Community Guidelines and how they are enforced, please visit the help center http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=92486.  “

You can check out the video, or my post about it:

45,000 Views — 2008 Transformations    http://wp.me/p1sRkg-tD

I am very glad that they have only age-restricted it, and not removed it completely. Below is the relevant section of their guidelines, I think, which explains that things deemed inappropriate by Community Guidelines may still be allowed for artistic content with the age-restriction warning.  I was talking just yesterday about online censorship issues (before getting this message) with my very slashdot savvy son, who has a much wider understanding than I do about just how many problem areas there about what some people post, and that therefor there do need to be some lines draw as to what is or isn’t appropriate, especially on a completely open platform like YouTube.

I do remain concerned, as an artist, that judgement on my video here is only in the hands of a “YouTube Team” and they don’t offer me a chance to ask why? Where is their line? What image is ok, what is not? Can I take an image or two out and get the age-restriction removed?

I am also concerned that the process is initiated by some anonymous  viewer deeming my work inappropriate and flagging it by clicking a button. I think that is too easy, clicking a button. I invite whoever flagged it to send me a message explaining what images are inappropriate and why—I’d like to be able to add your side of this to the discussion. Or you can add your viewpoint as  a comment here if you prefer. (I won’t get into a  fight with you, you can say your piece and I’ll leave it at that)

From YouTube’s site:

“When videos violate our Community Guidelines, we remove them. Some videos don’t violate our policies, but may not be appropriate for all audiences. We age-restrict these.  When a video is age-restricted, a warning screen displays before the video plays. Only users 18 years of age or older can then proceed to view the material. In order to reduce the chances of users accidentally stumbling across these videos, they are not shown in certain sections of YouTube (e.g. honors pages like ‘Most Viewed’).

In deciding whether to age restrict content we consider issues such as violence, disturbing imagery, nudity, sexually suggestive content, and portrayal of dangerous or illegal activities.

Notable Exceptions

There are exceptions for some educational, artistic, documentary and scientificcontent (e.g. health education, documenting human rights issues, etc.), but only if this is the sole purpose of the video and it is not gratuitously graphic. For example, a documentary on breast cancer would be appropriate, but posting clips out of context from a documentary might not be. Videos that qualify as educational, artistic, documentary or scientific that would otherwise have been removed are typically age-restricted instead.”

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To see some more possibly inappropriate fine art bodypainting:   https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/body-painting/

A few related posts about censorship of bodypainting images:

84-  Breast Cancer Awareness Body Painting Project  and  SURVIVORS Magazine    http://wp.me/p1sRkg-r0 

85-  Body Painting on TV in a Superbowl Ad, a Good Thing, Right?  http://wp.me/p1sRkg-rx   

86-  What really bothers me about this…  http://wp.me/p1sRkg-rH  

87-  Nipples    http://wp.me/s1sRkg-nipples 

88-  Is this ok, Twitter?    http://wp.me/p1sRkg-sg  

45,000 Views — 2008 Transformations

by Christopher Agostino

I was checking out a colleague’s video on You Tube when I saw one of mine come up in the column of suggested videos, and I was very surprised to see it had 45,811 views, way more than any of the others I’ve posted. [Shortly after this post, it was age restricted on YouTube, so here it is on Vimeo]

2008 was an adventurous year. The impulse to start collecting faces in slideshow videos came in response to a comment by an artist I met while painting at a Parrish Art Museum event. She came in to the gallery where we were painting and told me she had seen our faces all through the village of Southampton on her way to the museum (there’s a few photos in this video from a Parrish Art Museum event.) What she wanted to tell me was that we were creating a “kinetic art form”—particularly, that the style of our facepainting, with very colorful faces and every one different, made her look for them as she saw the painted people moving through the village, wanting to see each face. “kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer.” (from Wikipedia)

Facepainting at an event is a collective art. It is the sum total of the faces we paint that is the art form, rather than each individual face. Her description of this as a kinetic art had me thinking about this collection of faces in motion, and how to try to document that. That led to creating  “Every Face” videos, in which I photograph every face I paint at an event and put them in to a slideshow in the order painted, and that led to taking a selection to put a year together in 2008.

The music is “I am An Animal” by Pete Townshend. I felt ok using it because he gave it away as a free download on his web site, on an album of odds and ends and some unreleased “Scoop” tracks, which are the demo versions he recorded of his songs as he wrote them before bringing them into the studio to be done by The Who.

See more of our  Videos.

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Is this ok, Twitter?

Twitter didn’t like this one, my Twitpic just disappeared:

Is this one ok, Twitter?

(I wonder if they will notice the little guys’ little thingies?)

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UPDATE: I guess it wasn’t ok with Twitter, because the 2nd Ingres Venus image, with the breast and genital covers in place, also disappeared from my Tweet. Once again, the image was somehow taken off the tweet (there’s a question mark in its place) with no notice to me or explanation. In their Terms of Service the only relevant language about offensive content I find is this, and the way I read it, it says that they don’t limit content and it’s a “let the viewer beware” policy regarding whatever they might stumble across, which is how I think an intelligent culture should approach the issue of censorship in the public forum:

“We do not endorse, support, represent or guarantee the completeness, truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of any Content or communications posted via the Services or endorse any opinions expressed via the Services. You understand that by using the Services, you may be exposed to Content that might be offensive, harmful, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate, or in some cases, postings that have been mislabeled or are otherwise deceptive. Under no circumstances will Twitter be liable in any way for any Content, including, but not limited to, any errors or omissions in any Content, or any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any Content posted, emailed, transmitted or otherwise made available via the Services or broadcast elsewhere“

UPDATE to UPDATE: Apparently it’s Twitpic that is doing the image removal. From their terms of service: “TwitPic reserves the right to remove any image for any reason whatsoever. Specifically, any image uploaded that is pornographic or offensive in nature (including nudity, violence, sexual acts, or sexually provocative images.), infringes upon copyrights not held by the uploader, is illegal or violates any laws, will be immediately deleted and the IP address of the uploaded reported to authorities. Violating these terms may result in termination of your ability to upload further images. We reserve the right to ban any individual uploader or website domain from using our services for any reason.”

Twitpic’s reply to my request for explanation: “Thanks for contacting Twitpic. The photo was deleted as it was in violation of Twitpic’s TOS http://twitpic.com/terms.do It is a beautiful painting however, to be user friendly for all our users we have to have guidelines of what is allowed. While some will appreciate this beautiful art work others may be offended because of nudity.”

UPDATING, Again: I was able to Tweet the Ingres Venus photo directly via Twitter (without Twitpic) and so far it has not been taken down—different standards apparently. This tiny exploration of the way art images are censored by social media was initiated due to the removal of images on Facebook pages of some of the participants of the Breast Cancer Awareness Body Painting Project.

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