The Washington Post - 17.02.2020

B2 eZ sU the washington post.friday, february 21 , 2020

ed revenue of $160.7 billion in

2019.

feinberg said using key data

points — in Parker’s case her

name, her station’s name and

words like “shooting” or “killing”

— would enable YouTube to re-

move not only existing videos but

also to stop or flag potentially

offensive videos for review before

they are posted.

“YouTube tries to say, ‘We’re

just a bulletin board,’ ” feinberg

said. “No, you’re not. Because of

the algorithm, you’re the paper,

the pen and the pad.”

Parker said he has been strug-

gling with YouTube for years,

including when he launched a

foundation called for Alison to

help underprivileged children.

Anonymous posters began creat-

ing videos saying the foundation

was a scam, featuring footage of

his daughter’s d eath. “The cruelty

that’s out there is just staggering,”

Parker said.

As with Pozner and Sandy

Hook, the hoaxers spurred Parker

to “go down the rabbit hole” in

trying to persuade YouTube to

remove such content. “But it’s n ot

like you can just call Google to

complain,” Parker said. “There’s

no customer service number.”

He enlisted Pozner’s help. “He

would flag stuff and nothing

would happen,” Parker said.

“Google’s terms of services say,

‘We don’t allow any graphic con-

tent.’ All of it is bulls---. If parents

really knew that Google was do-

ing this, they wouldn’t let their

kids watch YouTube.”

[email protected]

consumers about the type of con-

tent that’s on their platform, and

how consistently they review that

content,” said Spencer myers, a

Georgetown law student involved

in the complaint. “Those decep-

tions violate the fTC Act” prohib-

iting deceptive trade practices.

YouTube said that in one quar-

ter of 2019, it removed 1.3 million

videos for violating policies on

violent or graphic content. But it

makes exceptions for material

with educational, news, scientific

or artistic value, such as news

coverage of the Parker case with

footage included. If a video is not

suitable for all viewers, warnings

and age restrictions are applied,

YouTube said in a statement.

YouTube also said it had updat-

ed its harassment policy in 2017,

after hearing from victims’ fami-

lies, to remove hoax claims, and

in 2019 it assigned “protected

group status” to victims of violent

events or their families. The plat-

form said it quickly removed con-

tent when flagged by users,

though Andy Parker and Pozner

disagreed.

Some advocates say YouTube

can solve the problem of inappro-

priate content with the right algo-

rithms. “I have a patent that can

fix this problem very easily,” said

Eric feinberg, vice president of

the Coalition for a Safer Web, who

said he has presented his solu-

tions to YouTube. “There’s no

incentive for them to do it” be-

cause of the site’s massive profit-

ability, feinberg said. Google

does not report YouTube’s annual

earnings, but Google itself report-

illegal because it defames, harass-

es or otherwise infringes on a

victim’s civil rights.”

Experts said websites are

largely protected from liability

for the content that they host

under Section 230 of the Commu-

nications Decency Act. But

“Google and YouTube are en-

gaged in essentially lying to their

my opinion, their platform, as a

differentiator, actively protects

and promotes hate speech and

disinformation.”

He said his group’s goal “isn’t a

matter of removing offensive con-

tent.”

“What is offensive is subjec-

tive,” he said. “It is a matter of

removing content that is already

successive team. By the time the

new team understands the issues,

they move on and we essentially

have to start over.”

Pozner said: “facebook has

been more responsive. They have

evolved their terms of service to

include the banning of hate

speech. Twitter has not only been

the most unresponsive to date, in

technology and human review.

... We will continue to stay vigi-
lant and improve our policy en-
forcement.”
The fTC has taken action
against Google and YouTube re-
cently, fining Google $170 million
in September to resolve claims
that it illegally collected data
about children younger than 13
who watched toy videos and tele-
vision shows on YouTube.
Lenny Pozner has become a
reluctant expert on how YouTube
works, and how to get things
removed. His 6-year-old son
Noah was killed in the shootings
at Sandy Hook Elementary
School in Newtown, Conn., in
2012. Soon, he faced intense ha-
rassment from people who be-
lieved the slayings of 20 children
and six teachers were a hoax,
including repeated publication of
his home address, death threats
and a book claiming that no one
died at Sandy Hook. He formed
the HoNr Network, with hun-
dreds of volunteers, to help
change policy and remove harm-
ful content from the Internet.
“We have had tens of thou-
sands of pieces of content re-
moved,” Pozner said. “Unfortu-
nately, our success with YouTube
has been largely dependent on
the dedication of individual [You-
Tube] staff members,” who manu-
ally remove videos one at a time.
“A s with all of these mega-[corpo-
rations], staff turnover is high,
which means that we are con-
stantly forced to reeducate each

video from B1

Complaint argues YouTube is violating its terms of service

sarah l. Voisin/the Washington post

Alison parker’s fiance, Chris Hurst, straightens the tie of her father, Andy parker, before a rally against

gun violence in september 201 5. Alison parker was killed that year while conducting a live tv interview.

last 19 seconds show the first flag

after it had been raised.

“The lab personnel in 1945

would have had no way of know-

ing in what order the footage

occurred without direct input of

the cameraman or his superiors,”

Austin wrote.

But Genaust was killed in

action two weeks later.

The Anacostia lab was the last

place the original was seen, Aus-

tin said.

meanwhile, copies of footage

have been extensively used and

reprinted over the years for its

graphic depiction of the battle in

which about 6 ,800 Americans

and 20,000 Japanese were killed.

In 2016, a fresh marine Corps

review of the flag-raising images

got underway, and television

filmmakers asked the Archives

for high-resolution digital scans

of Genaust’s footage.

The Archives set out to find

the original. Twelve versions of

the footage w ere located and s ent

to Austin’s lab to determine

which one had been in Genaust’s

camera, she wrote.

She analyzed them all.

None had the special “edge

code” on the f ilm s trip that w ould

have indicated the original.

With a feeling of “sinking

dread,” she realized that the Ar-

chives didn’t have it. “I was like,

‘oh, no. We don’t have the origi-

nal.’ ”

The earliest copy dated only to

1951, she said.

“The whereabouts of

Genaust’s original camera foot-

age is still a mystery,” she wrote

in the history book. It “may be

lost entirely, it may still be in

another repository, or it may be

hidden in one of the many loca-

tions it traveled to in the course

of its multiple uses.”

Lost, too, is the cameraman

who shot the film.

Genaust’s body was never re-

covered and is probably still

somewhere on Iwo Jima.

[email protected]

 From retropolis, a blog about the

past, rediscovered, at

washingtonpost.com/retropolis

oped, Austin wrote.

There, the footage could be

edited, cut and spliced for multi-

ple purposes.

Genaust’s film arrived, Austin

said. The f ootage of the flags was

spliced together — but in the

wrong order.

The first 35 seconds show the

second flag-raising scene. The

dead bodies.

Nine days after the battle be-

gan, Lt. Herbert B. Schlosberg, a

marine photographic officer, was

ordered to take the footage shot

by Genaust and others from Iwo

Jima to the Navy Photographic

Science Laboratory, at what is

now Joint Base Anacostia-Bol-

ling in Washington, to be devel-

tures on 16mm color film with a

Bell & Howell camera, according

to Austin.

In addition to the flag-raising,

he filmed the grisly combat on

the island — U.S. ships and

artillery blasting Japanese posi-

tions, marines throwing explo-

sive charges into caves, and a

blasted landscape littered with

falls, S.D., had already been

wounded in action on Saipan and

had been filming the Iwo Jima

battle since its start on feb. 19.

The in-camera roll of film

appears to have gotten lost in a

trans-ocean, cross-country bu-

reaucratic and technical mix-up,

Austin wrote.

Genaust shot his moving pic-

“Investigating Iwo,” published
last year by the marine Corps
History Division.
It can be crucial evidence.
“A ny t ime you m ake a copy of a
film... y ou lose about 15 percent
of the resolution,” she said in an
interview. “You’re losing defini-
tion. It’s not as crisp.”
How the original vanished re-
mains a mystery.
The story of the Iwo Jima
flag-raising, and the historic
photo and motion picture film
that resulted, have been marked
by confusion since the begin-
ning.
There were actually two flag-
raisings on mount Suribachi that
day.
The first flag raised was
deemed too small and was short-
ly replaced by a larger flag. The
raising of the second one was
captured by rosenthal, an Asso-
ciated Press photographer, and
became famous. (Both flags are
on display at the National muse-
um of the marine Corps, in
Triangle, Va.)
further confusion came when
officials tried to identify the ma-
rines in the rosenthal picture,
most of whom h ave their b acks to
the camera. Three times, the
identifications have been
changed — the latest as recently
as october.
After new investigation, the
marines said Cpl. Harold “Pie”
Keller was i n the p icture, and Pfc.
rene Gagnon was not.
four years ago, the marines
made another correction, saying
that Pvt. Harold H. Schultz was
in the photo, and Navy Pharma-
cist’s mate 2nd Class John Brad-
ley was not.
In 1947, the marines said that
Cpl. Harlon Block was in the
picture and that Sgt. Henry Han-
sen was not.
Genaust’s f ilm h as been a noth-
er mystery. He captured the first
flag after it had been raised and
filmed the second as it was going
up.
A marine Corps cameraman,
38-year-old Genaust of Sioux

retropolis from B1

retropolis

Marine’s original footage of the iconic Iwo Jima flag-raising has disappeared

bob Campbell/U.s. marine Corps

sgt. Bill Genaust, left, a nd Joe rosenthal capture the U.s. Marines present at the second flag-raising on iwo Jima on Feb. 23, 1945.

Genaust’s c lip of the two flag-raisings was later used to prove to doubters that rosenthal’s famous photograph of the event was not staged.

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