Drug Gangs, Now on YouTube

Part of the problem with an open Internet is that “users” don’t always use the technology for the higher-minded purposes it may have been intended for. That’s why it’s perhaps not a surprise that in the wake of watching teenagers beat each other up on YouTube, the next natural progression would be for more advanced online thuggery, like drug gang hostage videos profiled in this report on CNN today. According to an accompanying CNN story, one video even showed a beheading.

While we’re sure that YouTubers are doing their best to remove such material as soon as it surfaces, the ability of humans (or even advanced software) to keep up with determined video-posters will probably never be an exact match, so this stuff is always going to have some public air time, like it or not.