Penang Watch

Kiss on the tube !2007/06/16(NST)

You have been Tube-d
Arman Ahmad

The latest attraction on YouTube is that of a local actress filmed in a kissing scene.
KUALA LUMPUR, Sat:

YouTube was initially a website frequently associated with funny, amateur home videos. These days, it has taken a new role altogether.

Instead of being just an entertainment site, it has become an improvised source for raw news, independent and uncontrollable much like the blogs that became popular a few years ago.

It is no different here. It is no surprise then that web information specialist alexa.com now ranks YouTube as the fifth most popular website in Malaysia after popular search engine Google, which comes in at fourth place.

If you do a search by keying in the word "Malaysia", you will get thousands of videos on the United States-based website.

From the Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor raids to Big- foot clips purported to be made in the jungles of Johor, there is a wide variety of things that can be viewed.

Equally popular are videos of our parliament sessions.

When members of parliament Datuk Mohd Said Yusof and Datuk Bung Moktar Radin made a sexist comment against a female parliamentarian, the video was posted on YouTube the following day.

Since then, it has been viewed a whopping 59,949 times by YouTube users.

Other popular parliament videos include Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz’s clashes with the opposition. One of these videos was viewed 19,599 times.

YouTube first began to gain prominence during the nude squat incident in which a woman was forced to do nude squats while in police custody.

When people read about the nude squat video in the newspapers, they wanted to see and evaluate its authenticity for themselves.

Many of them found it on YouTube.

One version of the video, posted more than a year ago, has been viewed more than 61,882 times.

"It is a powerful communication tool to reach out to Malaysians," said UiTM lecturer for journalism Siti Zabedah Mohd Shariff.

She said the site was also good from a democratic point of view.

She also said that video websites like YouTube had a phenomenal effect much like television and the Internet.

Unlike the news, which came on at a certain time, the videos could be seen at any time, Siti Zabedah said.

Perhaps the most prolific use of YouTube by Malaysians was seen during the Ijok by-election.

Malaysians logged on to YouTube to watch a clip which showed Parti Keadilan Rakyat candidate Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim’s famous little tongue slip.

He had said, "Undilah Barisan Nasional", imploring the crowd to vote not for his party but for the Barisan Nasional.

The site was abuzz with videos filmed from the field by dozens of amateur cameramen.

Some were simple videos while others were edited to resemble propaganda films.

But, of course, it’s not just politics that has the crowds "tube-ing".

Most recently, when a local actress with "Pan Asian looks" was filmed in a passionate kissing scene, many turned to YouTube to find out who she was as the local papers had withheld her identity

One version of the video received 14,000 hits while there were at least half a dozen similar posts with different search tags.

Limkokwing student Alia Azlam, 21, was one of those who surfed the site.

"I know who she is now," she said, adding that she logged on to YouTube after reading about the video in a local newspaper.

"I think it’s good (that there are websites like YouTube). They don’t censor stuff. It shows the reality."