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Was YouTube Right to Censor and Allow Plagiarism of Katt Williams
Promoting a Condensed Version Dilutes the Message
I began hearing about the Katt Williams interview with Shannon Sharpe of Club Shay Shay long before I watched it. Social media rumors credited Williams with launching attacks on Rickey Smiley, Cedric the Entertainer, Kevin Hart, and Steve Harvey and catching a few strays like Tyler Perry, P Diddy, and Harvey Weinstein. Williams said he wasn't being messy if he was correcting lies. Maybe not, but he certainly did a good imitation.
I sought the video out yesterday afternoon and watched it throughout the day. The original video was 2 hours and 46 minutes long with almost 20 million views, so I gave it a few minutes and ended up watching the whole thing. When my wife came home, I tried looking it up on YouTube so we could watch it in bed. There it was, and I clicked on it, paying no attention to the length of the video. It turns out it was a condensed version, focusing on what someone determined were the "good parts." Who knows what criteria were used in deciding what…