BYU NewsNet - BYU YouTube ban reconsidered

Following the release of a new video channel by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, BYU is reconsidering the school’s ban on YouTube.

“There is a review taking place because the amount of educational information and material on YouTube is increasing,” said university spokeswoman Carri Jenkins. “This certainly includes material coming from the Church.”

The Church’s “Mormon Channel” on the LDS.org home page offers photos, audio feeds and videos — including a link to the official church YouTube channel “Mormon Message.”

According to a report by ABC 4 News, videos posted on the church channel have been viewed more than 2.9 million times since the site was introduced. An Easter video from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland ranked number one on the non-commercial YouTube list.

BYU limited access to some Internet sites, including YouTube, in fall 2006 in an effort to be more consistent with its mission statement. The offensive material that can be found on YouTube qualifies it to be blocked from campus.

“It has never been about whether or not students could access YouTube; it’s about the university providing the access on campus,” Jenkins said.

Dale Cressman, a professor in the Department of Communications, said the department would make extensive use of YouTube.

“The ban has been a frustration and an unintended impediment to better learning,” said Cressman. “Without the on campus ban, our students’ learning portfolios could include online examples of their video work. This would greatly enhance our ability to assess student learning. In addition, there have been many, many times when I wanted to share with my students either a historical piece of video or a contemporary item and have been hindered.”

Jenkins said if the ban is lifted, the university would expect students to continue to be prudent and careful about what they view on and off campus.

BYU does allow some video-sharing sites on campus such as Google Video. Google uses a different internal filtering system that is more thorough in catching offensive content. Google has acquired YouTube, so there is hope among some that someday those filtering systems will be applied to YouTube.

The limitation has impacted many students. Students, single and married, living in on-campus housing are subject to the Internet restrictions.

Most students understand why YouTube was banned but say that the restriction is inconvenient.

“If the Church has embraced YouTube as a way to share the gospel, it’s time for BYU to remove the ban,” said Jeremy Pettersson, a junior from Springville, studying marriage, family and human development.

Pettersson, who lives in Wymount and works in the Office of Information Technology, said he can view the Church’s YouTube channel at work but would like to be able to share those videos with his wife when he goes home.

“I really hope they lift the ban,” Stephanie Hunt, a junior from Hattiesburg, Miss., majoring in public relations, said. “As communications students we use social media for many of our papers and most of our projects, and it would be really nice to be able to use YouTube without having to mess with encoding or linking the videos.”