YouTube caught red-handed cooking stats for Obama

By Selwyn Duke

News aggregator DrudgeReport.com is currently linking to a YouTube video of a government schoolteacher instructing young students to praise Obama in song. While this is shocking, there is an even bigger story here. Consider this: the video's "views" counter listed only 363 views as of 1:04 p.m. EST on Sept. 24.

But at the same time it had 2,279 comments.

What's wrong with this picture?

Obviously, those figures should in the least be reversed. After all, since the number of comments on high-traffic YouTube videos generally represents only one-half of one percent to three percent of the total views, we can estimate that the Obama worship video had in excess of 200,000 hits at the time. But what accounts for this? Is it a technical glitch? I doubt it.

But why would YouTube cook the statistical books?

Because the exposure a video receives is based on its number of views. And YouTube — owned by leftist leviathan Google — wants to suppress negative information about Barack Obama and the left in general.

In other words, if a video receives tremendous traffic, it appears on YouTube's "Popular" videos page or its "Most Viewed" page. This means it will get infinitely more exposure — it will be seen not just by the people who have driven it onto the front page but also those who wouldn't normally know about it. But YouTube likely doesn't want you to know about the Obama worship video. So, perhaps, like a sleazy car dealer dialing down an odometer, they dial down the hit counter to a point where the video languishes in the recesses of the site.

To get a better grasp of this problem's magnitude, know that I have a friend who is a frequent YouTube visitor. He logged on early this morning and watched the Obama worship video. He says that at approximately 11 a.m. the views counter seemed to reflect the actual number of hits, with a total of at least 196,000 (and probably more). But what then no doubt happened is that YouTube's censors realized that Drudge had linked up to the video and got busy with their usual voodoo.

So I tracked the video a bit myself. Now, remember that it had 363 hits at 1:04 p.m. Here's what I found.

• Approximately 1:25 p.m.: the video still supposedly had only 363 hits but had 2,500 comments.
  
  
• 1:39 p.m.: still only 363 hits but 2,668 comments.
  
  
• 2:16 p.m.: 363 hits but 3,018 comments.
  
  

You get the idea.

If you find it hard to believe that YouTube would be so blatant and sloppy about its censorship, understand that it's practicing it by rote at this point. It's nothing new.

In fact, my aforementioned friend reports to me that YouTube had been doing this all throughout the 2008 campaign, suppressing pro-John McCain and anti-Obama videos while showcasing pro-Obama and anti-McCain works.

And for another specific example, he mentioned a Britney Spears video titled "Circus." When it was issued late last year, it was immensely popular and was prominently featured by YouTube (currently has 56,371,680 views). Yet it quickly was "disappeared." What was its trespass?

It featured circus animals.

The obvious conclusion is that YouTube's commissars received complaints from animal-rights wackos — and these were reflected in the video's comments section, actually — and decided it wasn't fit for young, impressionable eyes. Of course, this is the same company that regularly features all manner and form of lewd, perverted behavior on its main video pages.

And all this from a subsidiary of the company whose informal motto is "Don't be evil."

As for the Obama worship video, know that if this exposé gets traction, YouTube will do damage control and allow the video's stats to reflect the truth.

Oh, I checked the Obama worship video one last time at 2:52 p.m. It still had 363 views.

© Selwyn Duke