South African girls of the Zulu tribe have come up in arms against Google affiliate YouTube for blocking their pictures and videos when they are in their traditional attire especially during the Reed dance festival.
They feel like placing the age restriction to cultural content is an attack on the African culture.The South African girls say that not allowing them to post their content while allowing other content that is sexual undermines their culture.
They have vowed to fight Google which owns YouTube saying that they must stand up for their culture which is not sexual but promotes oneness and unity.
This is contrary to Google’s opinion who insist that the videos go against the platforms community standards, the South African girls believe that promoting their culture would reduce the incidences of Xenophobia which they believe is a white people phenomenon.
Google States that if they do not agree with the sets standards they can choose not to use the platform.
They believe that blocking their cultural content is the new form of discrimination as it makes the Zulu cultural practices to seem backward and therefore not many people would want to be associated with it.
Read:Thailand is the First Government to Implement Twitter’s Censorship Feature
The YouTube community guidelines state as follows:
‘In cases where videos do not cross the line, but still contain sexual content, we may apply an age-restriction so that only viewers over a certain age can view the content.
Videos containing nudity or dramatized sexual conduct may be age-restricted when the context is appropriately educational, documentary, scientific or artistic. Videos featuring individuals in minimal or revealing clothing may also be age-restricted if they’re intended to be sexually provocative, but don’t show explicit content.’
Lazi Dlamini of the TV Yabantu which was established to produce content to protect, preserve and restore African values is of a contrary opinion terming the You Tube standard s set by google as ‘cultural chauvinism’ and ‘eurocentric norms and practices’. in a letter addressed to google.
He says that google and by extension YouTube is a company that transgresses racism and oppression of Africans beliefs and cultural values.TV Yabantu has therefore organized protest with about two hundred groups in South Africa and Swaziland against Google.
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