6: YOUtube makes YOU the Leviathan

Until recently, I had never really been exposed to YouTube, and thus knew nothing about the conventions or regulations of this site. I was entering it as would any other newcomer and so I searched for something that would tell me the rules, something that would give me a feeling for the norms of this particular website. So with a little navigation and investigation I hunted down the “Leviathan of the YouTube community,” as I have nominated it.

I was not surprised to find a written “code of conduct,” representative of what Wallace describes as the “sign on the door.” This guide is written extremely informally which becomes very clear in their first statement. “We're not asking for the kind of respect reserved for nuns, the elderly, and brain surgeons.” It appears that they had a great time writing this list of rules with intermittent jokes, which Wallace illustrates is very common among websites now, especially in areas like a code of conduct or Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). Their focus was on the concept of trust. They remind users that there is only so much they can do, so in essence, be trustworthy when using their site. The code of conduct then illustrates how they will review videos that have been “flagged as inappropriate,” which any user has the power to do, and then they will decide if the video should be removed.

The final section of the “code of conduct,” and that which I think is the most important is entitled “YouTube is for the community.” We can tell people hundreds of times that they should not post inappropriate videos, but there is no saying they will abide. However, I do think that reminding people that this is a group, a cohesive unit of people that are taking a risk and putting themselves out there for the entire world to see, is an extremely vital feature of the internet community. Put simply, don’t take advantage of others’ vulnerability and do respect the norms of this community that people have come to have faith in it. According to Wallace, the internet community is so vast and filled with so many different types of people that sometimes rules need to be written out as in the “sign on the door.” However, Wallace also demonstrates the key concept that most of what we refer to as the Leviathan actually comes from within ourselves. To preserve these groups that we want so much to be a part of, we will conform to the conventions that they put forth. Though “signs on the door” may be a part of it, we ultimately have an innately human need to fit in and to conform to the norms that society puts forth for us, whether they are explicitly written out on a wall or something we learn simply by time spent in a certain society, such as that of the YouTube.

YouTube is definitely a special case when it comes to the development of trust because some people are truly putting their heart and soul into these videos. They are not simply selling something on e-bay or writing a blog post, but putting up videos of their friends, families, and other things that may be extremely important to them. For this reason, YouTube does have a team to write up a code of conduct and to inspect any inappropriate videos, but it really comes down on us, the users of the site. Not everyone will read this “sign on the door” and not everyone will respect the rules and norms put forth by the team. People will still write terrible things in response to someone’s video, completely bashing their views on the world and everything they put into making it. However, for this site to be the successful place for sharing and communicating that it is, the Leviathan could not simply come from a “sign on the door,” but rather from the users themselves. Since the users of YouTube want the website to perpetuate through time, they will have enough reason to maintain a mutual respect for the norms set forth by the YouTube community.