Web video: Parents' concerns

One mom told the Associated Press her family, including three teens, often looks at funny online videos together. When they run into racy stuff, she uses it as talking point with them. Another mom, the AP reports, cringed when she saw her 14- and 10-year-old "encounter homemade videos online that included nudity and animal cruelty." These accounts are in the AP's "Online video boom raises risks, concerns," about how "Popular Web sites such as MySpace, YouTube, Yahoo, Google and soon also Microsoft's MSN are featuring user-generated videos that quickly have become a phenomenal form of entertainment" as well as a source of concern. The various services have different policies and practices for screening the video that gets uploaded. MySpace says it reviews every video before it appears in the uploader's profile (the AP doesn't mention this). YouTube relies on member policing, and told the AP that the really objectionable ones get flagged quickly and usually get pulled down within 15 minutes, Yahoo Video has a safe search tool parents can turn on (Google Video's considering it) and told the AP that, though it doesn't prescreen all videos, "any clips that get onto its featured pages must first pass the muster of the company's human editors." Meanwhile, these sites' success is kicking in, with the help of Hollywood – see the San Jose Mercury News on deals some of them are striking to distribute not-so-homemade video (movies and TV shows) too.