> The argument for the mosquito emoji, made by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was firmly rooted in public health. The proposal states, “For many parts of the world, the mosquito is more than a nuisance — it is also a danger. Mosquitoes are the world’s deadliest animal ​— outpacing sharks, snakes and all others by a wide margin.” A mosquito emoji will allow people to easily communicate about the deadly insect to populations of varying languages and literacy levels. This usefulness serves as a kind of inversion of the ways in which other serious or controversial issues are mitigated. Why try to cover up or deny the existence of “real” guns, which are as rampant (at least in the US) as other “object” emoji?

This highlights a YouTube policy that I found very disturbing. YouTube judged that graphic violence, defined somehow, was unacceptable and couldn't be shown on their platform. In particular, they didn't allow the posting of beheading videos featuring South American gangs beheading people who they thought deserved it. The reasoning was that allowing people to watch those videos served the gangs' purposes by inspiring fear.

But, YouTube made a special exception to their policy to allow beheading videos of ISIS beheading people who they thought deserved it. The reasoning was that allowing people to watch those videos carried the message "look how bad things are in Syria", a message that Google endorsed.

I can't for the life of me understand why the reason any particular person uploaded a video to YouTube should determine what I get out of the video. In my eyes, if YouTube was full of videos of gangs beheading informers, cops, and guys who slept with the boss's daughter, uploaded by the gangs themselves, that would be newsworthy and probably draw a lot of attention to the message "look how bad things are in South America". It's not like ISIS was ashamed of the beheading videos they filmed and released for propaganda purposes.

Unfortunately, I can't provide a link to substantiate my characterization of Google's policies; my source is an English-language interview between a former YouTube executive and a Chinese consultancy, which I was asked to help transcribe.