We're sorry, this video is no longer? Available

How many times has it happened to read this sentence while trying to view a video on YouTube .

For some time, to learn more, you can look at YouTomb , a research project of MIT Free Culture that aims to catalog the video removed from YouTube with a statement of reasons for removal (copyright infringement, content not suitable, etc..).

YouTomb is an answer to the lack of clarity on how to delete videos from YouTube: The purpose of the project is to identify and understand which removed the videos were deleted by mistake.
In this respect, the reason is mainly that of alleged copyright infringement by record companies, television networks and legitimate holders of the economic use of video.

Obviously the project is not intended to make them still available, for each video is arranged a screen with an indication of the period for which it was visible, of how many views recorded and, of course, of the subject who has requested the removal . It 's possible, for example, look at what are the videos that RAI has called for the removal .

The project is definitely interesting because, in addition to providing important statistics, shows the inefficiency of the system of repression: the videos remain online long before the cancellation so that it is very difficult (or impossible) to prevent further movement in the network.

YouTomb shows, then, a very disturbing fact: in the western state censorship (of which there is much talk on the Net) has been replaced by censorship by private companies, like YouTube, which control what people can say-do on the web.

In my opinion not talked about enough. For those interested, I report a beautiful post that some time ago Bill Thompson wrote on his blog.