We've seen YouTube hosted debates in the past. Politicians use Twitter and social media all the time to promote their campaigns or ballot fights. But Monday night marked a new digital landmark when President Obama held the first all-digital interview from the White House.
The video chat was conducted via a Google+ hangout, perhaps the most presitigious 'hangout' Google has hosted so far on their new social media platform.
Over 227,000 people submitted questions, but only five lucky Americans got to chat face-to-face (sort of) with the president. Google (and YouTube) selected questions for Obama from the videos that got the most votes from YouTube users, however the video with the most votes was not included.
That video question was posed by retired LAPD deputy chief of police, Stephen Downing. It won twice as many votes as any other video question in the White House's "Your Interview with the President" competition.
The president and Google were apparently not interested in tackling marijuana legalization issues.
Downing, a board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), said this about the site ignoring his question:
"It's worse than silly that YouTube and Google would waste the time of the president and of the American people discussing things like midnight snacks and playing tennis when there is a much more pressing question on the minds of the people who took the time to participate in voting on submissions. A majority of Americans now support legalizing marijuana to de-fund cartels and gangs, lower incarceration and arrest rates and save scarce public resources, all while generating new much-needed tax revenue. The time to discuss this issue is now. We're tired of this serious public policy crisis being pushed aside or laughed off."
Here's Downing's question:
"Mr. President, my name is Stephen Downing, and I'm a retired deputy chief of police from the Los Angeles Police Department," Downing says in the video. "From my 20 years of experience I have come to see our country’s drug policies as a failure and a complete waste of criminal justice resources. According to the Gallup Poll, the number of Americans who support legalizing and regulating marijuana now outnumbers those who support continuing prohibition. What do you say to this growing voter constituency that wants more changes to drug policy than you have delivered in your first term?"
It's too bad the president wasn't up to answering.
Fortunately the questions were not all fun and games.
When the President took a question on his administration’s use of drones in the Middle East conflicts, he downplayed a report in The New York Times on the use of drones in Iraq.
The president's defense of the US military's use of drones was also his first official acknowledgement that the program even existed - breaking news on a social media platform.
Recent anti-piracy legislation was also discussed during the Google+ hangout. Obama was asked a YouTube question about the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. The president discussed the case against Megaupload CEO Kim Dotcom as an example of how his administration was tackling piracy and IP violations. The administration had come out previously against SOPA.
“I think that it’s going to be possible for us to make sure that we’re protecting intellectual property that creates a lot of jobs in this country,” said Obama. “It’s one of the United States’ biggest exports, but also do it in a way that it doesn’t affect the fundamental integrity of the internet as an open, transparent system.”
It's unfortunate that YouTube and the president ignored the question from Downing about the War on Drugs - an issue clearly near and dear to the hearts of many Americans.
Nevertheless, at least some important questions were asked. The forum provided a unique opportunity to harness available technology to make politics and our political leaders more personal. Whether it was a victory for democracy or a savvy PR stunt on the part of Google and the administration is an open question.
Here's the full video of the hangout:
