YouTube is the quintessential site for making your friends, family or even strangers look foolish. You upload videos in which they’re featured and all of a sudden they are famous, shamed, embarrassed and potentially shopping for lawyers. Wish you could blur their faces without having to be a schooled in video editing? YouTube just gave you the tool.
YouTube blurs faces for the masses
Today, YouTube made uploading videos without potential repercussions considerably easier. The Google/Alphabet property has rolled out the ability to blur out faces directly in its interface.
“While the use cases for this tool are vast, we built this feature with visual anonymity in mind,” said Amanda Conway, YouTube’s Privacy Lead in a statement. “We wanted to give you a simple way to blur things like people, contact information or financial data without having to remove and re-upload your content.”
While YouTube introduced a similar feature for people’s faces in 2012, it didn’t allow for blurring of everything in your video be it: a business’ facade, a telephone number, a license plate or a nip-slip.
Just draw a square
Thanks to YouTube’s software engineers, you need only “draw” a square around the area you wish to blur and you’re home free. If a blurred face exits and enters the screen they will return blurred based on a bit of genius we often take for granted in today’s world.
If you wish to continuously blur a stationary object, simply click “Lock” and you’re good.
Let the software work for you. Why not? They have people for that.
Ridiculousness
It’s rare that I’ve heard about the musical guests on Saturday Night Live these days, much less heard their “music.” While the Lorne Michaels’ creation began just a few years after my birth and I still appreciate it’s format…”Who are these people?” Well, that often comes to mind.
That’s not the case with MTV’s “Ridiculousness,” which essentially curates white people hurting themselves out of a boredom with a camera phone. While I prefer to see their faces, I can live without them if people begin to use YouTube’s newest offering.
To blur or not to blur? That is the question…that most YouTube viewers don’t ask, but now they have the option.
