To the satisfaction of many who wondered, the revolution inauguration was indeed televised captioned.

Many accolades follow, and rightly so. The NAD gave a nod. Various other captioning advocates (such as slinkerwink over at DailyKos, etc) thank the captioning team that apparently, as Washington Post reports, worked against all odds:

One member of the White House new-media team came to work on Tuesday, right after the swearing-in ceremony, only to discover that it was impossible to know which programs could be updated, or even which computers could be used for which purposes. The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, found computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software. Laptops were scarce, assigned to only a few people in the West Wing. The team was left struggling to put closed captions on online videos.

Even conservatives over at RedState commend the Obama team in this regard.

But I am going to put a damper into this celebration. Notice that YouTube seems to have emerged as a de facto provider of important communication infrastructure to the government. Which would be perfectly fine, except that it appears that YouTube got a special dispensation from the federal privacy rules.

Are we witnessing a phenomenon that is the reverse of trademark genericide? One may use “to xerox” to mean “to copy”, or “kleenex” to mean “a tissue”. We are all familiar with that. But in today’s age, it seems that whenever “online video” is mentioned, “YouTube” is understood. While this is a great compliment to YouTube, is it good when the government does it?

How does this sit with the many Obama supporters that are proponents of Net Neutrality?

P.S. In a somewhat ironic (albeit unclear in what way exactly) twist on the subject of YouTube and accessibility to the Deaf community, YouTube now mutes some videos. I just thought I’d add that in there.

As the news unfold in Gaza, there are protests in Second Life and a Twitter press-conference (hat tip: Joshua Fouts via BoingBoing).

All that is in our power is to wish our best to our friends at Gaza/Sderot project, who are now wondering:

How can we fulfill our mission in such circumstances? We are currently seeking means to go further. Please do not hesitate to write us, communicate with our characters and our crews. Despite the big noise of weapons, our voices can be listened to.

And we’d just like to add that your voice is an important one in the chorus of Global Voices.