RSSThis is Your Government, On YouTube
By Ed Oswald | Published September 20, 2006, 12:30 PM
Hoping to target a young audience, the U.S. Government has turned to YouTube to educate young people about the dangers of drugs.
For some, the addition of anti-drug messages may seem comical, especially considering the government's videos could sit alongside others whose message would so obviously contradict what the White House is trying to say. However, government officials would beg to differ.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy is the agency behind these videos. To be posted on YouTube are television advertisements, drug policy announcements, and other exclusive content. ONDCP says the use of the social video site would help to spread the message on how the government is working to combat illegal drugs.
"We know that in order to remain effective communicators in this new information age, public institutions must adapt to meet the realities of these promising technologies," Bush administration drug czar John Walters said.
The ONDCP has also used other Internet technologies in order to spread its message, including launching a blog in February 2005, and later podcasts of speeches and commentary from anti-drug officials.
Officials said since the YouTube service is free to upload to, it would cost taxpayers practically nothing to put the videos on the site. All videos uploaded would have been previously produced and paid for by the agency, they said.
To ensure the videos are seen by the teens and twenty-somethings the agency hopes to target, the government has linked its videos to keywords that youths may search in order to view information about drugs.
People who search for the "war on drugs," "peer-pressure," "marijuana," "weed," "ONDCP" or "420," a popular reference to marijuana, would all find the government's video's interspersed within the search results, the agency said.
Reaction to the service has been mixed. While some analysts called the move "adventurous," others said the social video site was the wrong place to attempt to tackle such a serious message.
Smart move
Score: 0
|HOW ABOUT CONCENTRATING ON THE REAL ISSUES!?!?!?!?!?!
american war crimes, nonexistant WMD's, the continuing loss of American troop's lives, republican's obsession with blood for oil, the extremely high gas prices, the piss poor education system lacking in funding and resources, our natural disater recovery (NewOrleans still hasn't recovered), the rising crime and violence, the sharp increase in single parent families, rising insurance rates and fraud, the declining economy, the huge trade defecit that was going down when Clinton was president but is now skyrocketing under Bush, other countries now hating us because of the republican international policy of shoot first and ask NO questions later, the perverse distortion of the 911 events by ABC's "special" made by republicans only citing republican sources...
The list goes on, and on, and on, and on...
BUSH using the drug war to try and distract us away from the real issues is morally wrong in so many ways.
Score: 0
|Re: Troll. Yup, they are only concerned with YouTube, only one project at a time you know. It is a small government, they can't multitask.
Score: 0
|You know... there are plenty of different branches of government. The Office of National Drug Control Policy is given an allocation of tax payer money and has employees whose task it is to spread anti-drug messages. The choice to post to YouTube ads that already exist is great - it may have taken two excited employees who had a great new idea and are wanting to get a promotion or a pat on their back plus some job security.
Honestly - if President Bush listed this project as something that the White House was focusing on and started spending his time in this project, then yes, I would be concerned that the wrong issues were being focused on.
In this case, getting upset at this agency for creativity in a task they are already performing is like penalizing the FDA for food testing.
Score: 0
|In your hysterical tirade you forgot to mention global warming, but then you are exhibiting the classic symptoms of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), where reason and logic does not exist.
BTW, Gas prices were falling last I heard. Maybe Hugo Chaves and you could team up and try raising them again.
Just a thought. Why don't you videotape your outrage and post it on YouTube? That could be some real comedy.
Score: 0
|I'm more familiar with FOSS ( Full of S*&# Syndrome ) that Republicans seem to have spouted to cover up this car wreck of a president and his delusional administration. An oil president in bed with his oil buddies bringing the gas prices down for the November primaries; doesn't take a genius to figure that one out. Oh and as far as global warming only greedy corporations and ignorant self serving morons would ignore the Mt. Everest amount of data burying their head in the sand to our global warming contribution. I'm an American and I'm pissed off because of what's happened to this country. It's Bush sympathizers like you defending him that have contributed to the downfall of everything that America once was by spouting your so called reason and logic that's only serve serving tripe. Hope you enjoyed Chavez's speech ( Bush, just like you can't spell the man's name either ). Besides, your special guy is too dumb to come up with an original thought without his puppeteer masters in his ear giving him orders.
Score: 0
|let me just add this also.
our countries education sucks more than ever because we have to educate the illegal imigrants also. our property taxes will (mine have) skyrocket and we'll all have to live in the outskirts of town.
Score: 0
|Thanks for the global warming contribution, which was missing from the previous post.
As usual we are responsible, that being the knee-jerk self loathing response to every problem in he world today.
If you're so fond of that pig Chavez, why don't you move to his lousy country and enjoy his benevolent dictatorship?
Score: 0
|I go to youtube to be entertained as I am sure many people do. I fail to see how an ad saying not to do drugs will be entertaining.
Score: 0
|I'm more familiar with FOSS ( Full of S*&# Syndrome ) that Republicans seem to have spouted to cover up this car wreck of a president and his delusional administration. Oil president in bed with his oil buddies bringing the gas prices down for the November primaries; that's all that is. Oh and as far as global warming only greedy corporations and ignorant self serving morons would ignore the Mt. Everest amount of data ignoring our contribution to global warming. I'm an American and I'm pissed off because of what's happened to this country. It's Bush sympathizers like you defending him that have contributed to the downfall of everything that America once was by spouting your so called reason and logic that's only serve serving tripe. Hope you enjoyed Chavez's speech ( Bush, just like you can't spell the man's name either ). Besides, your special guy is too dumb to come up with an original thought without his puppeteer masters in his ear giving him orders.
Score: 0
|