YouTube to Pentagon: Stop Blockin’ Us

In a story coming from a sit-down interview with the Associated Press, YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen take a shot at the Department of Defense for its decision to ban YouTube viewing from computers using the military’s network:

“They said it might be a bandwidth issue, but they created the Internet, so I don’t know what the problem is,” Hurley tells the AP, in regards to the military’s decision to cut off access to YouTube, MySpace and a host of other social-media sites. The story goes on to say that YouTube and the others are trying to work with the DoD on a solution to the draconian ban:

Chen said YouTube was reaching out to the Pentagon, along with the other banned Web companies, to learn “what it’s going to take to keep the YouTube site up.” He said they were willing to work with the military to install controls on what type of content would be available.

In a somewhat ironic aside, the AP stories (there was another general state-of-the-YouTube article) note that Hurley and Chen declined to be interviewed on video:

In their first extensive interview since YouTube was bought by Google in November, the YouTube video pioneers refused to allow the session to be videotaped. Apparently sensing the irony — and adding to it — Chen said facetiously: “We wanted to be candid and honest, and we thought the camera would interrupt that.”

Of course if you are really hurtin’ to see Chad on the small screen, there is always the Markey-cam video, hosted on YouTube of course.