When YouTube CEO Chad Hurley told a Congressional committee that his company "advances democracy," perhaps this was the sort of thing he had in mind.

An opposition Venezuelan television station whose broadcast license has not been renewed by the government is now turning to YouTube to get its message out after its transmitter was taken over by a state-run channel. Hugo Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution" has no time for media groups that criticize his government; Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) is now off the air, and another channel, Globovision, could be next, according to CNN.

RCTV journalists and producers have not been arrested or stopped from working, but their main link to the public has been removed. Rather than giving up, the station has turned to YouTube, where it now has its own channel for the show El Observador. A Colombian channel is also broadcasting RCTV content into Venezuela.

El Observador clips have been seen 175,000 times since May 28, and the channel is currently the most-subscribed channel of the week.

While putting the station's shows on YouTube is an excellent idea, YouTube still lacks anything near the reach of over-the-air broadcasts. But the use of the site to avoid censorship is growing, and it's not hard to imagine a day in the near future when the site (or sites like it) becomes as essential as local TV stations.

As that happens, YouTube will come into even more conflicts with governments that have an interest in controlling what their citizens see, It's already happening—Thailand's king, for instance, has a thing for iPods but isn't too keen on YouTube. Will Hugo Chavez show more tolerance?

Update:

Some readers are concerned that Chavez is getting a bad rap here; RCTV has been accused of supported the earlier coup against him and of calling for the overthrow of the current government. It's a complicated situation, but the fact remains that RCTV was a main opposition outlet and that its replacement is a state-run channel. Given Chavez's long history of attacks on the press and his current ability to rule by decree, he doesn't look like a man interested in a robust and critical press, though he has not instituted mass arrests or official censorship of journalists. Chavez's concern for government stability and threats against the state are a recent development, too; Chavez participated in a coup attempt of his own back in 1992.