| If you want one clear sign that Perry's campaign could never run for higher office, here it is: their online team is not ready for prime time. From NBC-DFW's Omar Villafranca, "Perry's YouTube Channel Shut Down"Late Wednesday night, videos normally found on the "Liberal Bill" YouTube channel were not working. When users tried to click on the videos, a message popped up saying, "This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement." [...] White's campaign said the incident was an example of Perry ignoring the rules. "It's no surprise that Rick Perry's illegal activity caught up to him" said Katy Bacon, White's campaign spokeswoman. "Perry was hoping to 'Tweeter' his way to victory, but late Wednesday night encountered the biggest "Fail Whale" of them all as his YouTube channel full of false, negative attacks was shut down in the critical days before the election."
Here's a look at the videos, from what I could gather, that violated copyright provisions. Thanks to friends for helping me compile this list: - Bill White's Chicago Way -- The video originally featured Sufjan Stevens' Chicago, but the campaign was forced to remove that. Their Facebook link to the video still discusses the Sufjan Stevens song in the background -- only now when you try to play it, it doesn't work. Their since re-uploaded the video with different music.
- Bill White's Friends -- The original link was removed by Warner Bros. You can see the dead version of the video on the Texas Tribune post about the video.
- The Campaign About Nothing -- The video was a spoof using Seinfeld. A Google search for the video takes you straight to the Liberal Bill website -- where access is now denied because, once again, the video had to get taken down.
- Bill White, Liar Liar -- The dead version of the video was on the Texas Tribune site, as well.
- Do It -- A parody video got pulled down -- as you can see from Perry's Facebook page.
- Bill White's -- Yes We Can -- Featured the Black Eyed Peas Yes We Can, and this ad was even featured today on the Encyclopedia Britannica blog. Appropriately enough, the video has since been pulled down for violation of copyright laws.
There were a lot more, but you get the point. Learn more about YouTube's copyright policies here. The Rick Perry campaign, since their YouTube account was pulled down tomorrow evening, has since moved many of the videos from their "Liberal Bill" channel over to the campaign's official channel -- but the damage has been done. The SEO loss of losing an entire YouTube channel is pretty phenomenal; every link from every e-mail, every website posting, every Facebook update, every tweet, every newspaper story that embedded one of the videos -- all of that is now lost.Will it have a major impact on the election, one way or another? Probably not. The race will be won by field in the final days, not a YouTube channel. But it is another clear and extraordinary example of how poorly Rick Perry's campaign has executed its online strategy -- whether it is astroturfing on Twitter or having over 103,000 fewer fans on Facebook than Bill White. In the end, I guess there are some laws that even Rick Perry can't break. Elsewhere in the News: |
