R-Stonze.Com Launches Today

Stakk Money Ent. CEO R-Stonze launched his official website today. This project was well in the works and planned for before hand months ago. Different situations were presented on the table months after its planning, but I'm happy to say that it finally launched today.

Get to take a closer look at R-Stonze, get the latest music and stay in depth via www.rstonze.com  Watch his latest videos, read interviews and more. There is also a section on this site for his clothing line "Essence Of Royalty" which launched late 2013. The winter collection is the current line of clothing being made as of now, but the spring and summer line is underway.

Bits: On YouTube, ‘Lyrics Videos’ Mark a New Genre

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Bits Blog: Facebook Is Betting Longer Videos Are Better

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Bits Blog: Facebook Is Betting Longer Videos Are Better

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Gadgetwise Blog: Q&A: Rescuing Lost Videos From YouTube

I have some old videos that I posted to YouTube years ago. I no longer have the original files on my computer, but is it possible to get copies from YouTube itself?

While YouTube frowns upon downloading other people’s video clips and does not provide its own built-in tools to do so, you can get copies of the videos you have uploaded from your own YouTube account. That is, of course, if the videos are still posted on the YouTube site and have not been removed.

Start by logging into your YouTube account. Once you have signed in, click on your YouTube user name in the top right corner of the browser window. In the menu that appears, choose Video Manager. On the left side of the Video Manager screen, click Uploads and select a clip to download. On the Edit button next to the thumbnail, click the arrow and choose Download MP4 from the menu.

YouTube allows you to download up to two of your videos an hour, so it may take some time to get copies of everything if you have uploaded a lot of clips over the years. The site has other restrictions for downloading videos from your account: you may not be able to download clips you had posted if those videos use copyrighted content or other restricted material.

Google Won’t Rethink Anti-Islam Video’s Status

Google said it had already determined that the video did not violate its terms of service regarding hate speech. In this case, the video stays up because it is against the Islam religion but not Muslim people.

The company also said Friday that it had blocked access to the video in India and Indonesia because it violated local laws.

These actions came after Google temporarily blocked the video on Wednesday in Egypt and Libya of its own volition — not because it violated laws or YouTube’s terms of service — an extraordinary measure that it said it took in response to the delicacy of the situation. The video is accessible in the rest of the world, even as protests spread to nearly 20 countries, from North Africa to Indonesia.

Google said its decisions were consistent with a 2007 policy for controversial content in which the company would take into account not just laws and its own policies, but cultural norms.

“One type of content, while legal everywhere, may be almost universally unacceptable in one region, yet viewed as perfectly fine in another,” Rachel Whetstone, senior vice president for communications and public policy at Google, wrote in the 2007 policy. “We are passionate about our users, so we try to take into account local cultures and needs.”

YouTube said it was continuously monitoring the circumstances in other countries.

The controversy over the video has raised questions about the role of Google in governing free expression by determining which content is acceptable to show online and which is not.

The company does not police videos uploaded to the site because of the sheer volume involved; 72 hours of videos are uploaded each minute. It reviews videos only if users flag them as inappropriate or if it receives a valid court order or government request to remove them for violating the law.

That was the case in India and Indonesia, which have laws restricting content that provokes enmity.

Also, Google removes illegal content only in the 45 countries in which it has local Web sites, which include Egypt, Indonesia and India but not Libya, Pakistan or Afghanistan.

“We’ve restricted access to it in countries where it is illegal such as India and Indonesia as well as in Libya and Egypt given the very sensitive situations in these two countries,” YouTube said Friday in a statement.

“At Google we have a bias in favor of people’s right to free expression in everything we do,” Ms. Whetstone wrote in Google’s 2007 policy. “But we also recognize that freedom of expression can’t be — and shouldn’t be — without some limits. The difficulty is in deciding where those boundaries are drawn. For a company like Google with services in more than 100 countries — all with different national laws and cultural norms — it’s a challenge we face many times every day.”

Meanwhile, a Facebook spokeswoman confirmed that the company had restricted access to a link to the film in Pakistan, at the request of its government.

Kevin Bankston, director of the free expression project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit group that focuses on digital civil liberties, said that Google, as a private company, could decide what was appropriate on its sites and what was not. But he added, “Considering the power that many of these platforms have, it’s important for them to be as clear and transparent as possible about those decisions.”

Somini Sengupta contributed reporting.

Google Won’t Rethink Anti-Islam Video’s Status

Google said it had already determined that the video did not violate its terms of service regarding hate speech, because it was against the Muslim religion but not Muslim people.

The company also said Friday that it had blocked access to the video in India and Indonesia because it violated local laws.

These actions came after Google temporarily blocked the video on Wednesday in Egypt and Libya of its own volition — not because it violated laws or YouTube’s terms of service — an extraordinary measure that it said it took in response to the delicacy of the situation. The video is accessible in the rest of the world, even as protests spread to nearly 20 countries, from North Africa to Indonesia.

Google said its decisions were consistent with a 2007 policy for controversial content in which the company would take into account not just laws and its own policies, but cultural norms.

“One type of content, while legal everywhere, may be almost universally unacceptable in one region, yet viewed as perfectly fine in another,” Rachel Whetstone, senior vice president for communications and public policy at Google, wrote in the 2007 policy. “We are passionate about our users, so we try to take into account local cultures and needs.”

YouTube said it was continuously monitoring the circumstances in other countries.

The controversy over the video has raised questions about the role of Google in governing free expression by determining which content is acceptable to show online and which is not.

The company does not police videos uploaded to the site because of the sheer volume involved; 72 hours of videos are uploaded each minute. It reviews videos only if users flag them as inappropriate or if it receives a valid court order or government request to remove them for violating the law.

That was the case in India and Indonesia, which have laws restricting content that provokes enmity.

Also, Google removes illegal content only in the 45 countries in which it has local Web sites, which include Egypt, Indonesia and India but not Libya, Pakistan or Afghanistan.

“We’ve restricted access to it in countries where it is illegal such as India and Indonesia as well as in Libya and Egypt given the very sensitive situations in these two countries,” YouTube said Friday in a statement.

“At Google we have a bias in favor of people’s right to free expression in everything we do,” Ms. Whetstone wrote in Google’s 2007 policy. “But we also recognize that freedom of expression can’t be — and shouldn’t be — without some limits. The difficulty is in deciding where those boundaries are drawn. For a company like Google with services in more than 100 countries — all with different national laws and cultural norms — it’s a challenge we face many times every day.”

Meanwhile, a Facebook spokeswoman confirmed that the company had restricted access to a link to the film in Pakistan, at the request of its government.

Kevin Bankston, director of the free expression project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit group that focuses on digital civil liberties, said that Google, as a private company, could decide what was appropriate on its sites and what was not. But he added, “Considering the power that many of these platforms have, it’s important for them to be as clear and transparent as possible about those decisions.”

Somini Sengupta contributed reporting.

Media Decoder Blog: YouTube Offers a Way to Blur Faces, Protecting Identities in Videos

To help protect dissidents using video to tell their stories in countries with repressive government regimes, YouTube made available a new tool on Wednesday allowing people to obscure faces within videos uploaded onto its platform.

Protecting the identity of activists using social media has become a growing concern among human rights groups as authoritarian governments in some countries, including Syria, have been turning to citizen-generated videos of protests and other user-generated content on social media sites to identify and jail dissidents.

“Visual anonymity in video allows people to share personal footage more widely and to speak out when they otherwise may not,” Amanda Conway, a YouTube policy associate, wrote in a statement about the new tool. She pointed out that “human rights footage, in particular, opens up new risks to the people posting videos and to those filmed.”

Sam Gregory, program director for Witness.org, the leading human rights video advocacy and training organization, praised the move. Witness.org recently began collaborating with YouTube on a new human rights channel.

Mr. Gregory has been trying to raise awareness among dissidents and operators of social media sites about the importance of anonymity for activists when speaking out can put them at risk of retaliation.

In recent years, Mr. Gregory said, government officials in places like Myanmar, Iran and Syria have used videos of protests to identify dissidents. “There have been clear attempts to use citizen-shot footage to target people and punish them for speaking out against the regime,” Mr. Gregory said.

But Mr. Gregory said the tool would help more people than the activists involved in protests. He said that it would also protect the identity of people who want to use video to speak out about subjects like sexual assault and abuse.

YouTube said that the technology could be used for happier situations, too. Its statement points out that it could be used before sharing “the winning point in your 8-year-old’s basketball game” so that the child’s face would not be broadcast to the world.

Media Decoder Blog: YouTube Offers a Way to Blur Faces, Protecting Identities in Videos

To help protect dissidents using video to tell their stories in countries with repressive government regimes, YouTube made available a new tool on Wednesday allowing people to obscure faces within videos uploaded onto its platform.

Protecting the identity of activists using social media has become a growing concern among human rights groups as authoritarian governments in some countries, including Syria, have been turning to citizen-generated videos of protests and other user-generated content on social media sites to identify and jail dissidents.

“Visual anonymity in video allows people to share personal footage more widely and to speak out when they otherwise may not,” Amanda Conway, a YouTube policy associate, wrote in a statement about the new tool. She pointed out that “human rights footage, in particular, opens up new risks to the people posting videos and to those filmed.”

Sam Gregory, program director for Witness.org, the leading human rights video advocacy and training organization, praised the move. Witness.org recently began collaborating with YouTube on a new human rights channel.

Mr. Gregory has been trying to raise awareness among dissidents and operators of social media sites about the importance of anonymity for activists when speaking out can put them at risk of retaliation.

In recent years, Mr. Gregory said, government officials in places like Myanmar, Iran and Syria have used videos of protests to identify dissidents. “There have been clear attempts to use citizen-shot footage to target people and punish them for speaking out against the regime,” Mr. Gregory said.

But Mr. Gregory said the tool would help more people than the activists involved in protests. He said that it would also protect the identity of people who want to use video to speak out about subjects like sexual assault and abuse.

YouTube said that the technology could be used for happier situations, too. Its statement points out that it could be used before sharing “the winning point in your 8-year-old’s basketball game” so that the child’s face would not be broadcast to the world.