YouTube has suspended the account of Wael Abbas, an Egyptian anti-torture activist, because he posted videos of police brutality. The account...“This account is suspended” message. YouTube’s guidelines are very clear on this: “Graphic or gratuitous violence is not allowed. If your video shows someone getting hurt, attacked, or humiliated, don’t post it.” OK, why then can I find dozens of videos of people getting tasered by the police? If you ask me, a video of someone getting shocked with a high voltage weapon can definitely be described as graphic violence. And many will argue that the violence in such videos cannot be qualified as gratuitous.

This is an ongoing problem with practically all sites which aggregate user-submitted content: double (or simply unclear) standards. We won’t give away your info, unless you live in China. You can’t use a fake identity on our site, but we (and some other users) can. We don’t allow videos depicting graphic violence, except sometimes we do.