YouTube is one of the many resources on the Internet that has significantly impacted citizen participation. The 2012 Campaign Advertisement video that I used for the last blog post serves to illustrate my point in the post very well. With YouTube, hundreds of millions of people are given access to the beliefs and views of people around the world in video form. Videos provide the most personal form of communication on the Internet because you are able to see the person moving, talking, and interacting visually instead of just reading what they said or seeing a picture of them. Videos on the Internet combines language and images to get a full, interactive project that demonstrates the individuality of the people who upload those videos.

This campaign advertisement for Trump for president in 2012 allows the person who uploaded it to effectively demonstrate his views, and gives the millions of YouTube users the ability to reflect on this person's views. 

2012 Campaign Political Advertisements

On the democratic side of things, here is President Obama's declaration that he will be running for president in 2012. There are no possible democratic candidates that come close to even rivaling President Obama's popularity, and the current president is the favorite to be the winner of the Democratic Primaries.



This video on YouTube isn't necessarily a campaign advertisement, but it was the closest to one that I could find for President Obama. It's a very direct and clear declaration that he will be running, and even though it could be improved in many ways, this video serves as a fairly good advertisement for the president's campaign in 2012.

Here is a video for Donald Trump's 2012 Presidential Campaign made by a YouTube user.



Although some aspects of the video are amateurish, it is a very good campaign advertisement, and, with a few modifications, could be a real campaign ad on television or spread throughout the web. It is a ferocious and ambitious advertisement, and it does a good job of getting the point across that maybe we need an extreme Republican in office.

Ecommerce Taxation

Ecommerce taxation is a very difficult issue to resolve in the United States, and is a hotly debated issue in many states, including, currently, California. Taxes are a necessity for the state governments and for the federal governments in order to fund highways, public schools, government jobs, programs and numerous other things, but, as we are venturing deeper and deeper into this electronic, Internet-based world, several big issues are arising, including the issue of taxation. Taxes are difficult to assign because many of the things bought online are bought in different states or even in different countries, yet they are bought from a computer in the United States. Governments lose money because they don't know how or what to tax of the items bought online. An opinion article in the Mercury News by Jessica Melugin titled "An alternative to California proposal to tax e-commerce" describes a possible solution to this issue:

An origin-based tax regime, based on the vendor's principal place of business instead of the buyer's location, will address the problems of the current system and avoid the drawbacks of California's plan. This keeps politicians accountable to those they tax. Low-tax states will likely enjoy job creation as businesses locate there. An origin-based regime will free all retailers from the accounting burden of reporting to multiple jurisdictions. Buyers will vote with their wallets, "choosing" the tax rate when making decisions about where to shop online and will benefit from downward pressure on sales taxes. Finally, brick-and-mortar retailers would have the "even playing field" they seek.

This seems like the best possible solution to this seemingly-unsolvable dilemma because states will no longer simply lose the tax revenues that they would normally receive through purchases in stores. In addition, I see little that is objectionable in this solution, so I predict that it has a chance of being implemented fairly easily.

Censorship Close to Home

A week or so ago, overt government censorship was put into effect with regards to a video on the San Francisco Chronicle website. The article in the Examiner entitled "White House, San Francisco Chronicle clash over anti-Obama protest video" by Dennis Bodzash, explains how a video of Obama protesters posted to the website of the Chronicle by Carla Marinucci was censored: 

Last week,San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci was covering an Obama speech as a pool reporter. However, outside the speech itself, Marinucci saw some people protesting the Obama Administration, specifically its dealings with Bradley Manning, the soldier accused to sending secret government documents to Wikileaks. Seeing the unexpected story arise right in front of her, Marinucci pulled out her tiny video recorder, typically used for taking video of speeches, turned it on the protestors, and posted the video on the Chronicle website..

In the act of taking video of the protestors, the White House declared that Marinucci violated pool rules for that event and that only the speech itself was to be reported upon. However,Chronicle editor Ward Bushee defended his reporter, saying that she was covering a legitimate news event in itself and that recording the sudden appearance of protestors were not part of the pooling agreement, which specified the speech.

 In my opinion, even though I am a supporter of the Obama administration, I do not think this censorship was justified. I side with the opinion and the argument of the Chronicle, that Marinucci's video was separate from her  pool reporter coverage, and was simply a news story on the side that just happened to be at the same time and place as the Obama speech. In addition, I think the Internet is a vast and uncontrollable place, and the U.S. government must be very careful in limiting what is on the Internet, because the Internet is a symbol of the freedom that is available in America. I believe that very few things should be censored by the government that is posted on the Internet because anything published on the Internet is an extension of the views and the experiences of the people, and should not be censored.

MSNBC Keeping the Public Informed

Going on to the MSNBC website today, I found one of the biggest news stories of the day in politics in various places and in various forms on the site. MSNBC as a news source on the whole did a good job of covering President Obama's own Roast of Donald Trump, by providing a video clip of Obama's jests directed toward the possible presidential candidate at the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner. MSNBC's video clip of part of Obama's speech is very funny and is the funniest I have seen the president. The video clip is great, but the article covering Obama's jokes about Trump is good also. The article, entitled "Obama mocks Trump and self at gala dinner" explains how the president took Trump's attacks at him and flipped them into comedy, as much of the democratic party has been viewing Trump's remarks already. The article gives a better overall coverage of the dinner than the video, which discussed some of Obama's other remarks about the Republican party, including this one: 

He said he'd heard that Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota was running for president, adding, "which is weird, because I hear she was born in Canada."

This dinner last night was an important issue because it was Obama's first retaliation after weeks of Trump criticizing and taking shots at Obama, yet, Fox News failed to cover the article, demonstrating better news coverage on the part of MSNBC.

After a week when Obama released his long-form Hawaii birth certificate, he said Trump could now focus on the serious issues, from whether the moon landing actually happened to "where are Biggie and Tupac?"

"No one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than 'the Donald,'" Obama said, referring to Trump's claims the same day that he was responsible for solving the issue.