VW film: A YouTube U-Turn

Posted by jamess — 20 July 2011 at 12:01pm - Comments
Still from our film challenging Volkswagen's environmental record
by. Credit: Greenpeace
Still from our film challenging Volkswagen's environmental record

We still have to turn VW away from the Dark Side, but we’ve scored a small victory for internet freedom along the way.

A few days into our campaign while our Volkswagen film was the most shared ‘ad’ in the world, YouTube suspended it after a complaint from Lucasfilm.

We thought it strange that our film would be taken down three days into our campaign, while dozens of other parodies of the same Volkswagen advert – including one by the BBC – remained untouched.

Greenpeace International filed a counter notification via YouTube's website, protesting the censorship of the film and explaining that as a parody of VW’s commercial, any “references and clips from Star Wars were transformed for the purposes of commentary and criticism” (here's the full statement).

Well it seems now that reason has prevailed, and our YouTube video is back up – after more than two weeks being suspended.

Thanks to you – the thousands of people who baulked at the removal of our video highlighting how VW’s policies threatening our planet – that temporary suspension didn’t stop our message getting out there. You downloaded a copy of the film from our website and uploaded it everywhere – around 450 copies at the latest check.

We can’t thank you enough. There are always people (and forces) trying to stifle and neutralise our campaigns. That’s what happens when you challenge power. But thanks to all of you, our Volkswagen campaign continues full steam ahead, and is rapidly approaching a quarter of a million people calling on VW to change.

The Force is with you, Jedi.

Stay tuned, we have some big announcements in the days ahead.

If you haven't watched Episode I yet, enjoy below:

Follow Greenpeace UK