Somalia Suffers, Myanmar Murders, America Shrugs

Before I get into tonight�s story, I would like to talk about YouTube for a second. There is a lot of anger within the community of creators that make up YouTube because of the company�s hypocrisy in demonetizing videos. Following the Las Vegas massacre, Casey Neistat, a prominent creator on the platform with millions of subscribers (including myself), made a video detailing a fundraiser that he was creating to benefit the victims of the attack. In addition to the funds he collected from his audience, he pledged to donate all of the money generated through the video�s ad revenue.

            YouTube demonetized the video and when Neistat and others questioned the move, the company defended itself by citing a policy stating that any videos related to terrorism are to be demonetized. That rebuttal turned out to be false because Jimmy Kimmel�s monologue (uploaded on the same day) that focused entirely on the shooting remained monetized and it became #1 on trending. Immediately, the outrage spread across the platform as YouTubers like Philip DeFranco and H3H3 Productions published scathing criticisms directed towards the site. Casey Neistat remained silent for a few days until another one of his videos was demonetized for no apparent reason.

            YouTube is unique because, unlike other entertainment providers, it has a community of creators. That is something that Netflix, Hulu, and cable TV does not have. That uniqueness has generated millions of dollars for the company and in return it has turned its back on the people that made the platform a success. If YouTube continues to ignore its community, an alternative platform for creators will eventually become viable and a lot of creators will abandon the site which will major effects on its revenue and may lead to its collapse.

      Tonight�s main story is about American centrism. It�s no secret that Americans are self-centered and greedy. TIME once called my generation the �Me me me generation� when discussing millennials� obsession with social media and the narcissism it creates. That self-centered attitude has leaked into our news media where almost everything we hear is about the United States, specifically its president. There is evidence of this in the average American�s overall lack of care and knowledge about world events. 75% of Americans cannot find Israel on a map and seven in ten Americans do not know where North Korea is located.

            Unfortunately, the media felt that Donald Trump was more important to talk about than the 300 civilians that were killed in Somalia during a terrorist attack on Saturday. This is because our President is better for ratings than a massacre in a country that most people watching could not find on a map. Al-Shabaab has plagued Somalia and eastern Africa for years and there has been little help from the western world. Why? Because there is no oil or any other asset that the US needs to secure in that region. If the US government did care about the situation in Somalia, Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab would be gone by now. The most that our military has done to combat terrorism in that region was conducting a drone strike in 2014.

        This is not the first time that American centrism has cost lives in eastern Africa. The Rwandan genocide in 1994 led to the murders of over 800,000 Tutsis at the hands of the Hutu majority. The UN remained on the sideline during the genocide and only sent 5,000 peacekeepers to the country, many of whom did not arrive until months after the atrocities had concluded. In 2004, it was uncovered that President Clinton was aware of the situation in Rwanda weeks before the killings began but decided to bury the information. If that classified information warned of a possibility of genocide in the Middle East or Europe, it would not have been buried and there would have been immediate action to secure the region and protect US assets. We know for a fact that did happen because of what happened in Bosnia at roughly the same time. While the US did not get involved militarily until 1995, diplomacy, economic sanctions, and universal condemnation were directed at the Serbs.

     There is another ethnic cleansing occurring right now in Myanmar against the Rohingya Muslims who have been exiled and killed while the government has remained indifferent despite international pressure. There have been accounts of executions and whole villages being burned to the ground by the military and the UN still has not decided to impose sanctions on the country. However, they have determined that the government is not meeting its obligations to protect its citizens. It only took them months to figure that out. It took me a few minutes of reading to come to same conclusion. Prime Minister Aung San Suu Kyi still has a Nobel Peace Prize. The least we could do is revoke that title for symbolic purposes, but it has not happened. What will it take? That�s all for this week.