YouTube, long known for its videos of explosive car crashes, idiotic frat boys doing idiotic frat boy things, and shallow attempts at viral marketing, has another role: whistleblowing. That is, the ability of an individual, deep inside an organization to “blow the whistle”, or alert the authorities, to company misconduct.
Earlier this year, Michael De Kort, a military contractor and then former employee of Lockheed Martin wanted to go public with flaws in a $24 billion dollar project called DeepWater, by the Coast Guard in the United States, and did so via YouTube. His 10 minute video. Unfortunately, his pleas were ignored by his superiors, members of Congress and mainstream media.
Until now.
However, as reported by Media Post, his case was recently scrutinized by journalists from the Washington Post and the New York Times, and have independently confirmed his allegations. Furthermore, they have gone on to reveal other deeply flawed issues with this program, involving poorly construction, engine failure and much more.
Although YouTube has been the providence for all kinds of immature and juvenile videos, it is great to see that someone had the imagination to use it for something else constructive altogether. Although there’s no way to know if Mr. De Kort could have approached the New York Times and Washington Post separtely, clearly having the video brought the kind of attention and eyeballs — for free, and without any extra connections — that would have been difficult to do otherwise. There are several copies of his original video up on YouTube, and one of them has been “seen” over 115,000 times.
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