Mr Straw's support of the campaign was recently documented in The Guardian newspaper and the ban has the in-principle backing of ministers from the House of Commons. His involvement comes after Labour member of parliament, Iain Wright, raised his concerns about the appearance on the YouTube site of a video of a man being kicked unconscious in his constituency.
The video that has created this uproar shows an argument on the streets in which a man is punched in the face. After being stuck, the victim runs away and is followed, he then knocked to the ground and kicked in the head.
Mr Wright said he was: "worried that acts of violence and instances of happy slapping recorded on mobile phones are being transferred to the Web for wider consumption". The video has also incurred a stream of complaints regarding the ease at which children can access violence across the internet.
Mr Straw, the leader of the Commons, told Iain Wright that he should indeed bring the matter up during the debate on the Violent Crime Reduction bill. This was expected to be raised on the 25th of October.
Accessibility is a serious problem on the internet, and one that should be of concern to any parent. Although the user is warned before downloading videos containing unsuitable content on YouTube, the cautions are no obstacle.
To view the "happy slapping" video on YouTube, the user is greeted with an automated message which reads: 'this video may contain content that is inappropriate for some users', and is then asked to verify that they are over 18 years old. In order to verify the user's age, the user needs only to go through a simple sign-up process, logging his date of birth. It is obvious that, at this stage, any under age user will simply do the quick maths and log in without blinking an eye!
The YouTube guidelines on the subject of violence may also appear to be too lenient. The guidelines state: "Real violence is not allowed. If your video shows someone getting hurt, attacked or humiliated, don't post it." This is hardly a stern message which is likely to wipe out determined users, although it is certainly unequivocal in its condemnation of the acts of violence which do manage to make their way onto the site. A YouTube search with the term "happy slapping" currently returns 1375 results and "violence" returns 10227.
This is not the first time that YouTube has featured in the news since recently being bought over by Google. YouTube's media presence is becoming significant and this may be reinforcing its brand strength. This most recent news, although very negative, may have no detrimental effect on YouTubes traffic volumes. All publicity is often regarded as good publicity and the popularity of YouTube for online videos is likely to stay and continue to grow.
