Surely there's a difference between moderation of content and moderation of comments?

Anyway, I don't see why they can't allow YouTube to moderate the comments. Surely they do that already?

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/

In that URL, I wonder who chooses the little phrase that selects the petition. In this one it's 'please-go'. I assume it's because 'resign' is already used up. I notice that the 'resign' petition folder was used in 2006 (515 votes to get Blair to resign).

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Resign/

So it seems to me that Brown is 100 times more popular than Blair.

And checking other variations,

"/Resignation/" folder is another 'Blair to resign' with 53 votes.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/resignTony/

Blair to resign with 456 votes

Also 'ResignBrown' was rejected as overlapping, with

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/gordan-brown/

(47 votes for Gordon to go).

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Resign-Now-Brown/

Another one asking Brown to go.

And the saddest one of all

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NOT-resign/

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to NOT-resign"..... 4 votes.

"Anyway, I don't see why they can't allow YouTube to moderate the comments. Surely they do that already?"

You Tube do not moderate comments in the same way that they do not moderate content. Only if You Tube are advised that a video or a comment are in breach of the law will they act, in order to protect themselves. The position of You Tube is that they provide a 'public noticeboard' and have no editorial control over it - hence they cannot be blamed for anything that appears on it. This is sensible from the point of view of their own protection from legal action.

A few moments spent reading You Tube comments will convince you that there is no moderation. Most comment threads degenerate into obscene, racist, sexist, nationalist, puerile bilge; that is why they are such fun to read (but you feel depressed after you've done it).

Seriously, we're run by lying, thieving scum -- who gives a shit what they MeTub or Witter?

The place of government is to serve the citizens it works for -- not farm them for money, fuck the economy and then wittier about it on the internet and try and look "cool".

"Some departments are "friends" with loads of other departments. Number Ten has just the one friend, with a link through to Peter Mandelson and the Department for Enterprise (BERR)."

By far the funniest paragraph I've read all day.

It might be a face that would frighten the French, but he's so busy kissing their arses they have yet to see it!

Crash Gordon is doing digital all the time !! He's sticking two fingers up at us and we have to like it *and* lump it !!

I confess to feeling (very) vaguely sorry for Brown with regard to the Youtube stuff. Brown isn't really the problem, per se, it's the yappy little 12 year olds charged with 'getting the message across' that seem to think forcing the guy to grin inanely at apparently random intervals is the way to "connect" and get down wiv da kidz innit.

Brown presumably relies on other to do their jobs properly to spec, and in this he really is failed badly. Did no one in that room review the footage and think "nah, just doesn't work- plan b". Plan b perhaps being to let Gordon Brown be himself - after all, Brown is a rather miserable 50 odd year old in a suit with a somewhat droning voice, there's not much you can do about that, so why not just let him do his thing? After all, he ended up as PM by doing it, so it can't be all bad, and it certainly looks far, far better than the psycho twitching they intended to pass as 'friendly'.

They pulled this crap before, just before Brown took over from Blair. They shipped him off to Africa for a few photo-ops at orphanages and coached him in the same idiot grinning routine. Did anyone really buy that either?

Blears is wrong; it's not failing to get their message across that's the problem, it's obsessing with the message in the first place, the same for 'reaching' teenagers. Govern well and people will respect you, remember, and vote for you. NuLab have done sweet FA worth recalling in 10 years, but try to persuade us they did really good with cheap, talentless stunts like this. In fact, that's all Nu Labour are.

I don't care whether the guy in charge is 40, 50 or 60 as long as he does a good job. Sadly, with Brown, we'll probably never know as the obession with managing every public statement and appearance to create the 'right' impression obscures who he really is and any small achievements he may actually have.

Blears says that the public don't believe what they're told by the government. After 12 years of stunts ike this, is it any wonder?

sound like a good word for what the pm speaks....

youtube is small clips ripped from TV and films that have been around for decades.

What's new about it?

Was he supposed to film a kitten playing on the piano?