Like spitting in our face. YouTube claims to support the LGBTQ community during Pride, but then approves of hate speech and targeted harassment of LGBTQ people.
Steven Crowder continually harasses Carlos Maza on YouTube, calling him a “lispy queer” and encouraging violence against the gay Vox journalist through dehumanizing hate speech. Carlos Maza, has been doxxed, harassed repeatedly by Crowder and his followers, and attacked in numerous videos. Normally, targeted harassment and hate speech would be banned from a service. YouTube, after all, has (only recently) started banning users for white supremacist content, and demonetizes dangerous anti-vax videos. However, YouTube has a long history of demonetizing LGBTQ content as well, and hiding it from the rest of YouTube. The service will gladly suggest hate speech videos from Ben Shapiro or Steven Crowder, but will hide LGBTQ content.
https://twitter.com/gaywonk/status/1134264395717103617
Naturally, LGBTQ YouTubers, and, really, anyone who’s even mildly decent, has a problem with this. Targeted harassment is never okay, and hate speech is unacceptable anywhere. However, once again, YouTube has sided with LGBTQ harassers spreading hate speech, rather than LGBTQ people. Unlike most other social networks, working to stem the hate speech and harassment on their platforms, YouTube is enabling it. YouTube empowers racist homophobes like Steven Crowder.
The man using anti-gay slurs in his videos and merchandise is allowed to stay on YouTube. The rest of us have been shown the door.
YouTube’s Pro-Harassment and Pro-Hate Speech, Anti-LGBTQ
A slur in his merch and hate speech in his videos, but YouTube allows Steven Crowder to stay.
YouTube’s hate speech guidelines explicitly cover hate speech against people based on sexual orientation. So how does calling someone a “lispy queer” and “gay Mexican,” while selling and advertising homophobic merch that reads, “Socialism is for fags” not count as hate speech? Steven Crowder has nearly four million subscribers on YouTube. Rather than put a stop to hate speech and harassment that has already lead to real-world harassment, YouTube has decided to side with those 3.8 million bigots.
YouTube also has rules against harassment and cyberbullying. Encouraging your viewers to harass someone to the point that he’s doxxed and is receiving harassment through the mail and even through his phone number is clearly harassment and cyberbullying. Can we hold Steven Crowder directly accountable for those actions? Yes. This is what hate speech does. This is what hate speech is for. It dehumanizes someone and encourages violence. Even if Crowder did not explicitly tell his fans to harass Carlos Maza, his hate speech lead to that. There’s a direct connection between hate speech and violence, and Crowder is knowingly exploiting that. He wants his followers to harass and attack Carlos Maza for being gay and Latino. Because Crowder has such a large group of followers, YouTube is allowing it.
YouTube’s “Statement”
YouTube only responded to Carlos Maza’s complaint with four tweets on Twitter. The tweets didn’t cover any details. In fact, it was so short, here’s a transcript of YouTube’s complete statement.
“Thanks again for taking the time to share all of this information with us. We take allegations of harassment very seriously–we know this is important and impacts a lot of people.”
“Our teams spent the last few days conducting an in-depth review of the videos flagged to us, and while we found language that was clearly hurtful, the videos as posted don’t violate our policies. We’ve included more info below to explain this decision:”
“As an open platform, it’s crucial for us to allow everyone–from creators to journalists to late-night TV hosts–to express their opinions w/in the scope of our policies. Opinions can be deeply offensive, but if they don’t violate our policies, they’ll remain on our site.”
“Even if a video remains on our site, it doesn’t mean we endorse/support that viewpoint. There are other aspects of the channel that we’re still evaluating– we’ll be in touch with any further updates.”
YouTube later responded that they would demonitize Steven Crowder’s videos, but only because he was linking to his merchandise, which included an anti-gay slur. Once he removed those links, he could continue to receive money through YouTube for calling a man a “lispy queer” and sneering at the “gay Mexican.”
YouTube was okay with all that. Casual racism and homophobia are YouTube staples.
Vox’s Response
https://twitter.com/backlon/status/1136136260056043525
“This just confirms what a lot of people in this space have suspected for a while: which is that YouTube’s anti-harassment policies are bullshit. They’re fake policies meant to trick advertisers into believing YouTube actually cares about policing what happens on its platform.”
– Carlos Maza
Vox’s full statement condemning YouTube’s defense of hate speech is longer than YouTube’s defense of their vile position.
“At Vox Media, we have embraced partnering with other organizations to bring our work to as broad an audience as possible. We believe in the advantages of a free and open web that allows people to find their voices online. We share this belief with YouTube, and have spent years creating incredible work on the platform and growing loyal, engaged audiences across the YouTube community.”
“But the platform and the system now appears to be broken in some ways that we can’t tolerate. By refusing to take a stand on hate speech, they allow the worst of their communities to hide behind cries of “free speech” and “fake news” all while increasingly targeting people with the most offensive and odious harassment. They encourage their fans to follow suit and we now see our reporters and creators consistently targeted by the worst abuse online, with no remedy or ability to protect themselves.”
“YouTube knows this is a problem – it’s developed anti-harassment policies to hold its creators accountable and remove them from the platform when they are in violation. Yet YouTube is not enforcing the policies and are not removing known and identified users who employ hate speech tactics. By tacitly looking the other way, it encourages this behavior and contributes to a society more divided and more radicalized.”
“YouTube must do better and must enforce their own policies and remove creators who promote hate.”
Ultimately, LGBTQ People Matter Little to YouTube
YouTube has the anti-hate speech and anti-harassment rules that should stop behavior like this. They just don’t care enough about LGBTQ people to do anything about it. It’s clear their motivation is to retain a popular YouTuber, even if he is popular for hate speech. He’s profitable. YouTube doesn’t care about profiting off of harassment or hate speech, as long as that harassment and hate speech is directed at people they couldn’t care less about: LGBTQ people.
Happy Pride.
Sources:
- Josh Constine, TechCrunch
- Cara Curtis, The Next Web
- AJ Dellinger, Engadget
- Nick Duffy, Pink News
- Nick Statt, The Verge