New Face blurring feature by youtube to protect activists

Video website YouTube which is localized in 43 countries and available in 43 countries on Wednesday, released new face-blurring feature to disguise identities in the video. A way for users to automatically blur the human faces in videos they upload. With this feature Youtube parent Google Inc says that it helps to protect the identities of political dissidents.

During earlier days of youtube, it was more of a repository for some fun videos, home-made cat videos, funny videos and now youtube has become a hot destination for highly produced entertainment and serious news content. Pew Research Center’s Project for excellence in Journalism conducted a survey earlier this week and according to that study : amateur “Citizen Journalism” footage from events such as the 2011 tsunami in Japan were some of the most-watched clips on youtube.

Dozens of videos from the rebellion in Syria has been uploaded to youtube in recent months to publicize their struggle. Unfortunately, the videos have also revealed the identity of rebel fighters 🙁

“Whether you want to share sensitive protest footage without exposing the faces of the activists involved, or share the winning point in your 8-year-old’s basketball game without broadcasting the children’s faces to the world, our face blurring technology is a first step towards providing visual anonymity for video on YouTube,” YouTube said in a blog post Wednesday.

The feature also allows for the original copy of the uploaded video to be deleted. Videos may also be kept private.

“YouTube is proud to be a destination where people worldwide come to share their stories, including activists,” YouTube said.