YouTube is helping to enable citizen journalists everywhere with its face-blurring option. Uploaders of potentially controversial video can now pixelate certain faces to prevent legal action being taken against them by offended parties unwittingly featured in their video content, much like television news shows would obscure the faces of people who had not given the producers explicit permission to broadcast their image.
As the image above demonstrates, YouTube had_µ__guerrilla_µ__journalists in mind when they came up with this idea and would hope that it will be useful to those who want to "share sensitive protest footage without exposing the faces of the activists involved, or share the winning point in your 8-year-old's basketball game without broadcasting the children's faces to the world," according to the Official YouTube Blog.
Considering how YouTube wants users to see it as more than a site for funny videos and nyan cat, the move might give users, who are based in places of conflict or political upheaval, to broadcast and upload videos without getting anyone in trouble.
[via the Official YouTube Blog]