YouTube Wants Meeting With U.S. Military on Web Ban

YouTube is chafing at being one of 13 Web sites now off limits on the computer networks used by U.S. military personnel.
by Ben Charny

The military blocked those Web sites, citing the need to protect military secrecy and to throttle Internet traffic on the military's computer networks.

YouTube, the world's most popular Internet video site, owned by Google is among the newly banned sites, and is looking forward to meeting with the Department of Defense on this issue, a spokeswoman said.

She added that a "vast" majority of YouTube videos posted by soldiers or their families and friends are personal messages…

BlackPlanet.com, a social networking site popular among African-Americans, is also now banned, but shouldn't be, said Ben Sun, chief executive officer of Community Connect, the company operating the Internet site.

Sun said his site does get a "significant" amount of traffic from the DOD's network of computers, but certainly not to the degree of YouTube, or the 11 other sites now off limits.

The Pentagon also no longer allows its computer networks to access MySpace, popular photo-sharing site Photobucket, videos sites Metacafe and IFilm, plus MTV and several other music sites.

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