Your Interview with President Obama
Earlier today, for the second year in a row, President Obama sat down with YouTube for his first interview after the State of the Union speech. The President took the opportunity to respond to the protests in Egypt for the first time, to address your concerns on jobs, the debt, and health care, and to answer a series of more personal questions that you submitted in video and text over the past few days on YouTube. The interview took place in the Diplomatic Room in the West Wing, which is the same room where FDR used to deliver his fireside chats.
All told, you submitted almost 140,000 questions to our Google Moderator platform over the past few days, and you cast more than 1.3 million votes on which questions you wanted to have asked. With so many compelling questions, it was a challenge to determine the final list to bring to the White House. Our goal was to cover a wide range of issues that were relevant following the State of the Union speech; to remove duplicate questions; and include video questions wherever possible. With those criteria in mind, we looked at the top 5% of the questions you voted to the top in order to determine which questions to pose to the President. None of the questions were chosen by the White House, or seen by the President before the interview. Here is a playlist of all the video questions that were asked:
We’ll be conducting a similar interview with U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner in a few weeks - stay tuned for more details. And we’re also expanding this YouTube Interview program globally as part of YouTube World View, a series of interviews in 2011 that will give you even more access and insight into leaders and elected officials from around the world.
Steve Grove, Head of News & Politics, recently watched “Behind the scenes: Before and after the YouTube Interview with President Obama.”
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5 comments:
The interview was a scam.
The system Youtube uses to select questions is highly flawed and allows the weakest questions to float to the top while the questions that politicians need to be asked languish.
Then, Youtube selected the most puffballs out of all the top puffballs.
Events like this are good publicity for Youtube, but they harm the U.S. We need politicians to be challenged on their ideas, not just asked who they think will win the Superbowl. Those who don't think politicians should be challenged would perhaps do better in more authoritarian countries.
For a clear example of how much of a scam this was, compare the question Grove asked about a specific bill to my question about that same bill.
Ok, first I must state that all points in this particular comment are my opinion and my opinion ALONE. They are NOT ment as a direct or indirect threat to ANY goverment or official. Second I must state that I am not blinded by ANY statements or comments written or spoken by ANY officials, Nor am I comfortable under the "heat" of ANY blanket statements or comments. Yes that first part WAS a blanket statment. It was stated that way on purpose. Now, I am a 30 year old female who currently resides in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. I am hiding behind no masks other then the fact that my name is not that which is used for this post. Simply because I do not see the need to create a new youtube account just to address this. I am sure the government(s)could find me if they chose to. And now, for my opinions. I watched the ENTIRE youtube video of Obama being interviewed by youtube. I did not know this would be up so I did not join the original posts. It would not have mattered anyway. In my oppinion, ALL of Obama's answers and statements within this interview were "blankets". Nothing was DIRECTLY answered nor agreed apon. This is the way that many of the governments have been since the beginning of mass government designations. I do not vote and yes that makes my opinions moot in many circles. To be blunt, I don't care about any of these "circles". I have only ever even begun to vote ONCE and that was when a female ran for president. I only voted in the primaries. I never officialy voted because said female dropped out and because I later learned more of her views. I can not state what I think the governments should be like. But I don't agree with ANY current governmental policies. Obama, in my humble oppinion is simply a puppet on strings anyway. He answers only what he is told to answer in ways that he is told to answer. Who are the ones to pull the strings? I won't answer that. Do I think anything was actualy addressed by Obama? NO. Do I think the United States Government is actualy doing anything that directly helps or indirectly helps the "little man"? NO. Do I follow several of the things I speak of through any and all means that I can? YES. Do I wish for Government Overthrow? NO. Do I wish for Government Reform? True Government Reform? YES. These are the opinions and ideas of a simple 30 year old female who was born and raised in "the good ol' USA"....and they are NOT positive.
Youtube is pro-government and anti-freedom of speech. Proof? They purposely removed "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward", a very important 2011 documentary by the Humanitarian Peter Joseph. Why? Because it challenges our current social system. It has already reached over 1 million views in less then a week, and "WAS" on the list, but now it doesn't show when obviously it should be at the top. There is nothing in this movie that is offensive or vulgar, it is a perfectly viable argument for our future. YouTube is in the pocket of it's partners and backers, and is therefore serves their purposes, not the purposes of the people.
Posting my comment, which I've documented and will release to numerous Facebook groups related to the group, will be a test of whether or not YouTube support the freedom of speech. It's not about whether you agree with the movie or not, it's about allowing it the same rights as any others.
But I'm not a US citizen, so the way I see this is that it is a good way of "interacting" between the government and the people.
Oh, by the way if this interview happened in Indonesia, people might want to ask trivial questions such as his favorite food...and he would answer "bakso, sate, krupuk..". Fortunately it didn't.
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