Pentagon made up concerns about soldiers' bandwidth

By Nick Farrell
The Inquirer
May. 19, 2007

THE PENTAGON'S CLAIM that its overseas soldiers were sapping too much bandwidth has been contested by the founders of Youtube.
Military bigwigs banned Youtube claiming soldiers were blocking its network by watching raucous clips of people falling over and cats mugging children.

But Youtube founder, chief executive Chad Hurley, said the Pentagon only thought it would be a bandwidth issue it could not be certain.

He pointed out that the US military created the Internet so it should know a bit more about the problem than that.

Hurley, chief technology officer Steve Chen and Youtube spokeswoman Julie Supan said that the company is trying to work with the Pentagon in hopes the military will reverse course or at least partially repeal the ban.

They were especially puzzled by the block because it came just days after the military launched its own channel on the web site offering what it calls a "boots-on-the-ground" perspective of scenes of combat, they said.

More here.