The Pakistan Telecommunication  Authority (PTA) has urged YouTube to reconsider its decision to prohibit a TV channel managed by the late Dr. Israr Ahmed’s foundation on hate speech grounds.

“The PTA’s unilateral banning of Dr. Israr Ahmed’s channel, a notable Muslim scholar, raises questions about the arbitrary boundaries of online expression,” the PTA wrote in a Tuesday appeal to YouTube. According to PTA sources, the channel in question used to broadcast Dr. Israr Ahmed’s videos that attempted to shed light on the socio-economic structure envisioned by the Holy Quran.

The PTA argued that such movies were merely intended to “educate the audience.”

After Jewish organizations protested that the channel’s programming incited anti-Semitism, YouTube shut it down. Dr. Israr’s channel had about three million subscribers, and his lectures were respected by many individuals in the West.

The station, which is run by Dr. Israr Ahmed’s son, broadcasts recordings of the late scholar’s old remarks. These comprise his thoughts on the end of the world in light of Quranic scriptures and the history of the Jews. The move was denounced by a disciple of Dr. Israr Ahmed as an infringement of free expression by the West.

On his own YouTube channel, engineer Muhammad Ali Mirza said the move reflected the West’s double standard.”They acted only on accusations from Jewish organizations, without listening to the opposing side,” he claimed. Dr. Israr’s “preaching could provoke violence against Jews in the West by Muslims,” according to the complaints filed with YouTube.

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Snapchat has made it easy to share YouTube videos directly from your snap or story, eliminating the need to copy, paste, and attach the video as a link (via Android Police). Both Android and iOS users can use the feature.

All you have to do now is go to YouTube, click the “Share” option, and then choose “Snapchat.” Snapchat will open, and the video will appear as its own sticker in your camera, complete with the video’s name, thumbnail, and creator.

After you’ve taken your photo or video, you can play about with the size, rotation, and placement of the sticker on the screen. Anyone who sees your snap or story can open the link and watch the video on YouTube or in their web browser.

If you’ve ever tried to incorporate a YouTube video in a Snapchat photo or video, you’ll remember having to copy the link from YouTube and then open Snapchat, where you’d shoot your photo or video, tap the paperclip button, and paste the link in (or give Snapchat access to your clipboard). The video would be shown as a resizeable banner with a small thumbnail and the video’s title.

You may still use this method to add YouTube videos, but it doesn’t look as nice in my opinion as this YouTube-specific sticker.

The new sticker provides a clearer view of the video’s thumbnail and actually displays the name of the video’s author, whereas the old link format did not include that — often vital — piece of information.

In 2020, Snapchat released a sticker for Twitter, allowing you to avoid transmitting pictures of tweets or, god forbid, photographing a tweet on your computer screen.

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YouTube has released lots of new new movies and TV episodes for free streaming in the United States, if you’re prepared to go through some adverts. Unfortunately, locating them all is difficult.

YouTube has already offered free, ad-supported movies, but this is the first time it has expanded to include TV episodes. YouTube’s updated catalogue of free content now includes over 1,500 movies and 100 television shows, including 10 Things I Hate About You, The Sandlot, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Legally Blonde, two seasons of Kitchen Nightmares, and a good number of more obscure titles like 1970’s Western The Return of a Man Called Horse, which was announced last week.

Depending on your definition of the term, not all of the recently added films are technically new to YouTube. For example, in 2018, Legally Blonde was available to stream for free with commercials, but it then departed the site and is only now making a comeback. Even yet, if you’re wanting to save money on a night in, YouTube has some good options.

YouTube, on the other hand, has made exploring its free titles far more inconvenient than it needed to be. The platform will not just display all of its free titles and allow you to scroll through them in search of your next binge watch. You won’t be able to filter them, so you won’t be able to limit your search to all of YouTube’s free action movies or romantic comedies.

Viewers can search for titles using YouTube’s search box, as well as explore content in genre-themed categories that include a mix of free, rentable, and purchaseable video. However, there is no section dedicated to listing all of YouTube’s free films or television episodes, leaving users with no choice except to trust YouTube’s recommendations.

“All 1,500 free movies and 100+ shows, as well as the titles live across the Movies & Shows area, your home page, and the watch next choices — all of which are personalised,” stated a YouTube spokeswoman.

It appears to be a weird lack of functionality, but YouTube’s bread and butter is user-uploaded material, not big movies. It also benefits them if you give up and rent No Time To Die on YouTube for $5.99 instead.So, while YouTube’s ad-supported film offerings are fun to explore when you have free time, don’t count on them for weekend amusement.

The post YouTube Added Over 1500 FREE Movies, Shows—But There’s a Catch appeared first on Techlist.

Pakistan has banned social media about 8 times in its history, and has a long and dark history of restrictions on various forms of media, and “continues to impose arbitrary legal and regulatory restrictions on online speech and content, order prohibitions, suspensions and warnings against media applications ‘’according to reports.

However, he now plans to introduce new digital media rules that may be stricter than any previous attempts to suppress or curb freedom of speech on social media. The government has proposed the establishment of the Pakistani Media Development Bureau (PMDA), which will be solely responsible for overseeing print, broadcast, and digital media.

A government proposal explained: “This will be a new statutory agency designed to regulate Pakistan’s efforts in metadata, digital and social media and Film, electronic, print, and digital media in the age of internet-based content and advertising. ‘’

PMDA will have the right to register a digital media platform, monitor and analyze it, and check the revenue generated through online advertising. ‘’Unlicensed and unregulated’’ online advertising means there is a possibility of “income loss and tax evasion “has been pointed out in the proposal.

The authorities will issue guidelines for Internet-based advertising and the revenue generated from it. In addition, permission must be obtained from PMDA to establish a digital media platform, whether it is a YouTube channel for news/video blogs, or a Facebook news page, or a website for news reporting in the future if the authorities take over the government’s control of digital media to reach new heights.

The famous reporter Muhammad Malick lamented in his talk show: “As an ordinary person or reporter, What is the need for me to obtain permission from the government to start a video blog? The license means that it will also be renewed, so my general behavior will be reviewed and the license will only be re-obtained if I am a good boy.”

The proposal to establish a media monitoring agency was widely rejected by journalists, activists, and opposition groups, who called it “unconstitutional and strict laws”.

Marriyum Aurangzeb, Information Secretary of PML-N, described PMDA as a repressive and punitive tool to suppress the constitutional freedom of expression of print media, electronic media, and online citizen news.”

PPP Senator Sherry Rehman called the PMDA’s proposed decree a “media martial law.” Digital rights advocate Nighat Dad also opposed the proposed authorization in a talk show.

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The San Bruno police have stormed YouTube’s global headquarters in Silicon Valley where an active shooter was reported.

The San Bruno police tweeted that they are responding to an active shooter situation at YouTube’s California headquarters on Tuesday, and advise others to stay away from the area.

We are responding to an active shooter. Please stay away from Cherry Ave & Bay Hill Drive.

— San Bruno Police (@SanBrunoPolice) April 3, 2018

“Active shooter” is a general police term meaning only that someone may have fired a shot and has not been stopped or taken into custody.

Emergency services are on the scene at YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, California

No information on the active shooter or shooters was immediately available. Zuckerberg General Hospital told that it had received three patients, while Stanford Medical Center said it was expecting four or five patients.

NBC reported that the shooter, a women, is down. Multiple victims were apparently transferred to the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, but no fatalities have been reported yet.

YouTube’s parent company Google said that they are

“coordinating with authorities and will provide official information here from Google and YouTube as it becomes available.”

YouTube headquarters is about 12 miles south of downtown San Francisco, close to San Francisco International Airport. The San Bruno offices house 1,700 employees in a largely open-plan environment, in four different buildings.

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The biggest video streaming website Youtube is making an effort to stop extremist content reaching the users. It has prepared four easy steps to achieve its target.

With the increasing use of social media it has become easier for some platforms to spread extremist content.  Social media platforms demonstrate a large variety and huge number of media content. Unfortunately, these have thus become an easy platform for the people who want to spread propaganda and extremist content to other users.

The increasing extremist content has led to a decision to rake serious action against them. The government now has decided the removal of extremist content from the social networks.

Google based online video platform, YouTube has come up with four steps to combat the problem of extremist video content.

YouTube issued a statement that outlined four steps that could prove useful. In collaboration with different law enforcement agencies, YouTube is soon going to remove the extremist content from the platform.

According to YouTube:

• The first step will entail the use of automated systems for better identification of content related to terror. The company is thus using machine learning that will make it easier to classify the terror-related content so that it can be removed.
• The second step is to increase the number of experts in its Trusted Flagger user’s program. This group already made up of 63 organizations, will get 50 more NGOs to help in reviewing flagged content so that it can be easily removed from the YouTube list of videos.
• Step three will entail making it more difficult for videos that may not violate community standards but all the same have content that is supremacist or inflammatory religious in nature. Such videos are to be denied any ad revenue and will be hidden behind a warning to those who may wish to view them.
• The last step is the most effective one. Using its Creators for Change program, YouTube will redirect those who wish to view extremist content to channels with counter-terrorist content which will provide them with another perspective to the terror menace. They will thus be convinced not to join groups such as ISIS.

YouTube is not the only solider in the battle with the extremist video content but it is also supported by platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The aim is to make the extremist content disappear and by looking at the efforts being done and steps being taken it is pretty obvious that the extremist content will vanish soon.

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YouTube don’t want to be questionable next to big brands advertisers. YouTube announced on Thursday that video channels on YouTube must now have more than 10,000 total views to enable ads on their videos.

So YouTube is going to block ads on channels with under 10,000 views.  Once a channel reaches that threshold (minimum 10,000 views on channel), YouTube will review it to see if the channel is following guidelines to begin making money.

YouTube said, this is policy is designed to help discourage scam artists and content creators that violate YouTube’s policy from making money on the platform.

Youtube said in a blog post,

“In a few weeks, we’ll also be adding a review process for new creators who apply to be in the YouTube Partner Program. After a creator hits 10k lifetime views on their channel, we’ll review their activity against our policies,” Ariel Bardin, YouTube’s vice president of product management, said in the blog post. “If everything looks good, we’ll bring this channel into YPP and begin serving ads against their content. Together these new thresholds will help ensure revenue only flows to creators who are playing by the rules.”

The move from YouTube comes to save advertisers money on objectionable videos. Now may be its harder for Youtube earners and video bloggers to make money but true and real Youtube channels can keep moving to their earning goals without any problem.

Since 5 years Youtube has allowed all video creators to apply to run ads on their videos, and many typically were approved. This open policy enabled many advertisers to reach users on little-visited corners of the internet, while real and professional video creators could earn only few dollars by posting their videos on YouTube. In rare cases, YouTube has given rise to full-fledged stars who can earn seven-figure salaries each year.

YouTube is seriously taking steps to investigate how business is done on its platform. Time will tell how new generation of video makers respond to these new limitations.

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