Labor’s clean campaign pledge comes unstuck after dirty ad banned by YouTube

Kevin Rudd’s claim that Labor would run a clean campaign lasted less than 48 hours, with YouTube pulling a negative Labor advertisment on the second day. The ad was pulled because it breached YouTube’s terms of service. The ad was endorsed by the highest levels of Labor’s campaign, with Labor’s own campaign director tweeting a link to the video, before it was taken down. Labor made a concerted effort to publicise the video, only to have it removed. Dirty politics like this is clearly the reason Labor imported three US political operatives with experience in running negative online campaigns. YouTube remove videos when they breach their terms of service, when they’re offensive, contain illegal material, or contain copyrighted content. But having a political advertisement removed is unprecedented in Australia. Even YouTube can’t trust Labor to do the right thing. August 7, 2013