etricities.com

It’s been 71 days since the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, causing the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Since then, we’ve used our platforms to make sure that people can watch and participate in real time, access all the latest information on the crisis and response and share concerns through various programs and initiatives.

Now we’re teaming up with PBS NewsHour to take you to BP headquarters in Houston for an exclusive interview with Bob Dudley, President and CEO of BP’s Gulf Coast Restoration Organization. In a live session moderated by the PBS NewsHour’s Ray Suarez, Mr. Dudley will respond directly to your questions.



Now is your chance to ask BP questions on accountability, the clean-up plan, recovery efforts in the Gulf Region, environmental impact, the status of the relief well drilling, the role of the U.S. government, the future of offshore drilling and of BP as a company.

Using Google Moderator on youtube.com/citizentube, submit your questions and vote the best ones to the top. Then join us for the live interview tomorrow, Thursday, July 1, at 3:30 pm ET/12:30 pm PT on CitizenTube. Portions of the interview will also be aired Thursday evening on the PBS NewsHour and available on YouTube.

Early on, we partnered with NewsHour to bring you a live stream of the oil gushing into the waters of the Gulf. On June 15, we streamed President Obama’s Oval Office address on the oil spill crisis on CitizenTube. After the President’s speech, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs answered questions submitted by YouTube users, who cast nearly 200,000 votes to select the top questions from 7,000+ submitted.

We hope that these various opportunities to engage and participate in a current event help you and fellow citizens stay more informed and have your voice heard.

Olivia Ma, YouTube News Manager, and Ginny Hunt, Google Public Sector Manager

A year ago this weekend, Tehran erupted in protest at the disputed results of Iran’s tenth presidential election. In the severe government crackdown that followed, documented on cameras and uploaded by citizens to YouTube, no moment has been seen more than the death of Neda Agha Soltan, a young musician whose brutal killing by a sniper became the rallying cry for Iran’s opposition Green Movement. The anonymous videos of her death even won a prestigious George Polk award for journalism last year.

Today on the YouTube homepage, we're featuring a documentary from director Antony Thomas and HBO, entitled "For Neda". The film highlights how citizen reporting has become so important to human rights that even world leaders are paying attention to it. For example, as you’ll see in “For Neda,” President Obama talks about watching the video of Neda’s death, calling it “heartbreaking” and “unjust.”



We’re also taking this opportunity to begin a series of blog posts in partnership with WITNESS, an international human rights organization that supports people using video to document and expose human rights violations, to explore these issues.

How has video become such an important part of human rights advocacy worldwide? At its heart, human rights video is about making something visible that was not visible before. Seeing human rights abuses with our own eyes is very different than reading about the same abuses in a story or a blog post or a Tweet. In the past, we mainly saw these kinds of images in the nightly news or in documentaries -- and even then only occasionally. But now that camera usage and access to the Internet is much more widespread (including in many developing countries), we encounter human rights images much more directly. For example, Burma, Tibet and Iran are places where it’s difficult for local or international media to report, so when mass protests were met with violent force, it falls on ordinary people to try to get images out.

Human rights video is about more than capturing images of abuse as they happen, however. Direct testimony from victims or local activists can provide powerful and compelling evidence of human rights violations. Testimonies like that of "Mary," a Zimbabwean political activist who was abducted, raped and beaten in a secret torture center after the disputed 2008 presidential elections in Zimbabwe, have unique power to help us see what those who have suffered human rights abuses see, to feel what they feel, and to hear what they want to happen.

Videos alone aren’t usually enough; in order to make an impact, activists organize around the content. Sometimes organization is required simply to ensure the content finds an audience: in Iran, it was a networked web of activists who organized proxy servers and emailed footage to a diaspora outside of the country to ensure the videos got around the government's block of YouTube. Other times, coordinated campaigns ensure that citizens are called to action in courts, public squares or parliaments, as has happened in Brazil, Kenya, India or in the International Criminal Court. This isn't a phenomenon confined to developing countries or repressive regimes; it’s also happening in the U.S. Testimony as part of a campaign against elder abuse across the U.S. has helped expose stories that would otherwise go untold, and to pass legislation that improves the lives of millions of citizens. In our next post, we'll talk more specifically about what you can do to make sure videos you've uploaded or care about can have maximum impact for human rights.

As online spaces become more and more important for sharing and accessing information, we believe that access to the Internet itself is becoming a key factor in human rights in the 21st century. To make that a reality, governments, businesses, activists and citizens need to take a collective stand to ensure that video can shine a light into the darkest corners of human society, providing paths to justice to those who need it most. Both at WITNESS and at YouTube we're committed to helping build a global movement for human rights video that does just that.

Steve Grove, Head of News & Politics, YouTube, and Sameer Padania for WITNESS

[Cross-posted from the Google Public Policy Blog]

It’s not every day that you get to ask your country’s leader questions about issues you care about. But that’s exactly what Canadians did this afternoon when Prime Minister Stephen Harper sat down with YouTube.

Roughly 170,000 votes were cast through Google Moderator for nearly 1,800 questions -- giving voice to thousands of Canadians. And don’t think that these were softball questions. Canadians asked their Prime Minister questions on a wide variety of important topics: from the deficit to Canada’s role in Afgahistan, from child care to protecting pensions. We tried to select questions that represented the most popular topics and would solicit conversation. (We also minimized duplicate questions so we could cover a range of issues.) Neither the Prime Minister nor his office knew in advance which questions he’d be asked.

You can see the Prime Minister respond to your questions in this video:



Prime Minister Harper is the second world leader to answer your questions in a YouTube Interview. It’s your appetite for political discussion on YouTube that creates these opportunities to access public leaders in this format, and we look forward to conducting more YouTube Interviews soon.

Posted by Jacob Glick, Google Canada Policy Counsel

From its beginning, YouTube has been a place where citizens come to have political conversations, and Canada has been no exception. From interviews with Cabinet Ministers to campaign discussions to in-depth news reports, Canadians have used the site to engage with their elected officials in ways previously not possible. Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself has shared videos on his Prime Minister channel, including his CTV interview at the Olympics, his performance with Yo-Yo Ma, and several Parliamentary speeches.

Now you can speak directly with Canadian Prime Minister Harper in an exclusive YouTube interview. Tomorrow, March 11, we'll be streaming the Prime Minister’s response to the Speech from the Throne at approximately 10:45 a.m. EST. It’s a major policy speech for the Prime Minister about his vision for the future of Canada. You can watch it at youtube.com/talkcanada, and submit your follow-up questions for him in video or text - and vote on your favourites.

Prime Minister Harper will then answer a selection of your top-voted questions in a YouTube interview this Tuesday, March 16 at 7pm EST. If you're wondering how it will work, take a look at our recent interview with U.S. President Barack Obama.

Take this chance to submit and vote for questions you want to be answered - in English or French. We prefer video questions (short and precise) if possible. This is your chance to ask the Prime Minister about the Speech from the Throne or the recent federal Jobs and Growth budget. We look forward to your questions.

Posted by Patrick Pichette, Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, Google
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Les citoyens, dont les Canadiens, ont fréquenté YouTube dès ses tout premiers débuts afin d’y parler politique. Il suffit de penser aux entrevues avec des ministres, aux campagnes de toutes sortes et aux reportages fouillés. Le premier ministre Stephen Harper a lui-même publié des vidéos sur le canal du premier ministre, notamment son entrevue avec CTV aux Jeux olympiques, sa performance avec Yo-Yo Ma et plusieurs discours parlementaires.

Vous pourrez vous adresser directement au premier ministre dans le cadre d'une entrevue exclusive sur YouTube. Demain, le 11 mars vers 10h45 (HNE), nous diffuserons en continu la réponse du premier ministre au discours du Trône. Vous pourrez le regarder sur youtube.com/talkcanada et poser des questions en format vidéo ou texte ainsi que voter pour vos questions préférées.

Ensuite, dans une entrevue YouTube le mardi 16 mars à 19 h (HNE), le premier ministre répondra à des questions sélectionnées parmi celles ayant accumulé le plus de votes. Pour vous faire une idée du processus, allez jeter un coup d’œil à notre entrevue récente avec le président américain Barack Obama.

Profitez de cette formidable occasion pour poser vos questions et voter pour celles qui, selon vous, devraient être sélectionnées, et en anglais et en français. On préfère que vos questions soient soumises en format vidéo, courtes et précises, si possible. Ne ratez surtout pas cette chance de demander des précisions au premier ministre au sujet du discours du Trône ou du budget de 2010. On a hâte de recevoir vos questions.

Posté par Patrick Pichette, Vice-président senior et chef de la direction financière, Google

If you're reading this, then you're probably on the Internet -- via your laptop, your mobile phone or other handheld device, or maybe even through your television. But in 2010, millions of Americans still do not have access to the wealth of information made available on the Web. Even though the Internet was invented in the U.S. over 20 years ago, many Americans lag behind in both access to the Internet and speed of connections, which is why the Federal Communications Commission (or the FCC, the federal agency that oversees the U.S. communications industry) is launching its much-anticipated National Broadband Plan next Tuesday, to lay out its strategy for connecting all Americans to fast, affordable high-speed Internet.

After this plan is announced, you have the opportunity to interview FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, in the second of a series of in-person YouTube interviews with government leaders. (Our first, with United States President Barack Obama, took place last month.) Go to CitizenTube today to submit your video or text question via Google Moderator, and vote on your favorites; we'll bring a selection of the top-voted questions to Chairman Genachowski in our interview next Tuesday, March 16. The deadline for submission is Sunday night March 14 at 11:59 p.m. PT.

To help structure our conversation with the Chairman, we've broken the interview down into seven topics. To learn more about what the FCC is doing in each area, click on the links next to each topic below. Then submit your question on CitizenTube under one of the topic headings.

• Access and Affordability
• Mobile and Wireless
• Security and Privacy
• Digital Economy
• Internet in Schools
• Open Internet / Network Neutrality
• Others (learn more at Broadband.gov)

Access to the Internet has transformed almost every aspect of our economy and society. This is your chance to press the FCC on how the National Broadband Plan will work, and ask your questions about improving the Internet in America. We're looking forward to seeing your questions and hearing what the Chairman has to say.

Steve Grove, Head of News and Politics, recently watched "The Internet in 1969".

On Sunday, despite as many as 100 bomb blasts throughout the country, according to news reports, Iraqi citizens flocked to the polls in higher-than-expected numbers to vote in the first nationwide parliamentary election since 2005. Amidst 38 confirmed casualties, Iraqi citizens from 18 different provinces inside Iraq -- as well as 16 other countries around the world -- cast their ballots to determine who will fill the Prime Minister's office and 325 seats in the nation's parliament.

What is it like to be an Iraqi citizen during this important and volatile time in the nation's history? We partnered with Al Jazeera English to find out, by collecting opinions directly from Iraqi voters on video in our "Iraqi Voices" project. The footage is still coming in as the votes are counted, but you can go to Al-Jazeera's YouTube Channel to see the playlist of content uploaded to YouTube so far. (If you'd like to put things in perspective, you can compare these clips to the ones we collected from American voters during the 2008 election in our Video Your Vote platform with PBS.)

One Iraqi got to the polls at 5 a.m. only to find out that his name was not on the list:

For over seven hours yesterday, the nation's top leaders gathered in Washington for a unique conversation on the future of health care reform. Moderated by President Obama, the health care summit revealed disparate views on current legislation, with Democrats arguing for comprehensive reform and Republicans pressing for a more incremental approach (or for starting over entirely). We streamed the entire summit on CitizenTube, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader John Boehner, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid all agreed to answer some of your top-voted questions from our Google Moderator platform during the event. (We also offered the opportunity to Senator Mitch McConnnell, the Senate Minority Leader, but he was unable to participate due to a scheduling conflict.)

Though it's doubtful many of you were able to tune in to the entire meeting, the fact that it was broadcast online was an important aspect of the discussion. It spoke to one of the top concerns that YouTube users posed to President Obama in our YouTube Interview earlier this month, when they demanded that health care proceedings become more transparent.

We selected three top-voted questions and the two top-voted ideas that you submitted during the summit, and the lawmakers replied with the YouTube videos that we've embedded below, as well as posted on the YouTube homepage. (We didn't ask the top-voted question regarding putting legistlation online, as all the legislation is currently available on the Internet.) Seeing each lawmaker answer the same five questions affords an interesting perspective on where both parties stand with respect to the issues that matter most to the citizens who participated.

Here are the questions and ideas that each leader answered. We'll leave the full list up on CitizenTube for the next few days:

1. What is the explicit reasoning behind mandating the purchase of healthcare services?
- Chris, University of Florida

2. Do you believe that healthcare is a right, or that health insurance is a right?
- Brian, Student

3. Thompson Reuters had performed a study in which they concluded that 40% of healthcare waste was from unnecessary care. Unnecessary care is primarily a result of a fear of being sued, aka malpractice. What is being done to address malpractice?
- JatPat, Chicago, IL

4. Why not quit artificially limiting the market? Stop tying health insurance to employers and increase the market dramatically. Allow insurance providers to sell across state lines and increase it even more. The larger the market the lower the price.
- crodgers1981, Lincoln, NE

5. All people voting on these bills should be required to personally read the entire bill before being allowed to vote on it. It is ridiculous that these bills are thousands of pages long. Bills should be written in clear language.
- Blinn, Illinois

Here are Speaker Pelosi's answers:



Here are Congressman Boehner's:




And here are Senator Reid's replies:

While some people are calling it the most important political event of the year and others deem it political theater, one thing is clear: today's health care summit, featuring President Obama and top legislators from both bodies of Congress, will be a fascinating look into the inner workings of Washington. Democratic and Republican party leaders will engage in direct dialogue on an issue that has consumed the political landscape for the past year, and we'll be streaming the summit live on CitizenTube (youtube.com/citizentube), so you'll be able to watch the conversation unfold in its entirety.

What's more, top legislators have agreed to address your questions and ideas on health care after the summit, exclusively on YouTube. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader John Boehner, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have all agreed to answer a selection of your top-voted questions about health care, the summit, and current legislation, which you can submit via our Google Moderator platform on CitizenTube during the event. The three lawmakers will upload video responses to your questions, and we'll feature those videos on the YouTube homepage on Friday.

As we announced earlier this week, the White House agreed to answer more of the top questions you submitted for our YouTube Interview with the President on Monday. Today, we hosted a live chat in which three administration officials - Heather Higginbottom from the Domestic Policy Council, Brian Deese of the National Economic Council, and Ben Rhodes of the National Security Council - answered additional questions submitted in response to the President's State of the Union address on January 27. Macon Phillips, the White House New Media Director, moderated the discussion and also took some of your questions in real-time, using our Moderator platform on CitizenTube.

Here's the video of the chat, just posted to the White House YouTube channel.



We appreciate all the feedback we've received this week in response to our interview with the President, and we look forward to incorporating your suggestions into upcoming programs. We'll be announcing more events soon that will allow you to connect with your leaders via YouTube, so stay tuned to CitizenTube for more details.


Steve Grove, Head of News and Politics, recently watched "Presidential YouTube Interview - behind the scenes"

Today, President Obama had his first exclusive interview after his State of the Union speech with you, the YouTube community. The President engaged in a direct conversation about a broad range of issues, from generating jobs to opening up the health care process to investments in nuclear energy.

The best part of the process was that it was driven by you. ​Five days ago, as the President began his State of the Union address, we opened up our Moderator platform on CitizenTube, and over 55,000 of you submitted and voted on both video and text questions. Some of them were hard-hitting, others were emotional, and some were even funny.

You can watch the full interview now:



Only able to ask less than 0.2% of the 11,696 questions submitted, it was hard to choose the final handful. Here's how the selection process worked: we tried to cover a range of issues, minimize duplicate questions, and include both video and text submissions. First, we looked at which topics had the highest participation -- like jobs, foreign policy, health care and government reform -- to determine how many questions to ask in each category. We then took the top 5% of video and text questions and picked questions that reflected what you cared about. None of them were chosen by the White House or seen by the President before the interview.

In some cases, we combined questions, grouping similar ones from different categories like health care and government reform:

"Why are the health care meetings, procedures, etc not on CSPAN as promised?" - Mr. Anderson, Texas

"How do you expect the people of this country to trust you when you have repeatedly broken promises that were made on the campaign trail. Most recently, the promise to have a transparent healthcare debate..." - Warren Hunter, Brooklyn

Sometimes the top overall question in the category was a video question:



To try to get as many question in as possible, we had a section called "Good idea/Bad idea" in which we tried to solicit short responses from the President on ideas you sent in that might not be presented to him in traditional interviews. And in all cases, we tried to select the top questions that would solicit conversation, lead to substantive answers, and hadn't been asked in previous programs we've had with the President.

We had many more questions on hand than we had time to deliver, so we're pleased that the White House has agreed to respond to more of the top-voted questions in their blog soon, at whitehouse.gov.

We hope this interview brings us one step closer to creating better access to your government through YouTube -- and we'd love to hear your feedback and any other ideas you have on YouTube's political programming.

Steve Grove, Head of News & Politics, recently watched, "The YouTube Interview with President Obama"