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.
YouTube watched in silence as Steven Crowder repeatedly used racist and homophobic hate speech to harass one man: Vox journalist Carlos Maza. Though he was breaking their clear rules against harassment, because he had a large following of alt-right fascists, YouTube allowed him to stay on the platform. YouTube decided that a large following can allow someone to break even their most important rules. It was one of many times that YouTube stepped outside of their own rules to attack the LGBTQ community. Even their own employees have protested.
https://twitter.com/gaywonk/status/1134264395717103617
Now YouTube announced a new policy, one that would ban such hate speech and harassment. It specifically goes after videos that “maliciously insult” people based on their race, gender, or sexual orientation. However, YouTube’s community knows the promise is hollow. After all, Crowder’s still on YouTube. His 4.26 million YouTube followers mean the alt-right provocateur isn’t going anywhere.
https://twitter.com/gaywonk/status/1136056663927087105
It seems YouTube upholds their rules only if you’re not an alt-right fascist with a large following. If you’re LGBTQ, expect to be banned or demonetized for it, and if you speak out against harassment from far-right abusers, don’t expect it to go anywhere.
YouTube’s New Policy
YouTube’s new policy builds upon their existing unenforced policy against abuse and hate speech. Now, vague or veiled threats against individuals will count as harassment, because, for some reason, saying, “You’d better watch out,” didn’t count as abuse on YouTube prior to this new policy. It also includes simulated or suggested acts of violence, and “malicious insults” against people for their race, gender, or sexual orientation.
YouTube claims their new policies won’t just be for those with under 100,000 followers, but for everyone, from celebrities to politicians. Whether or not that’s true has yet to be seen. In the past, YouTube’s policies were for everyone, but in June, YouTube decided to make exceptions for popular creators, or, at least, for hate speech.
My reaction to YouTube's policy announcement is extreme skepticism:
1. "Malicious insults" were already prohibited under YouTube's anti-hate and anti-harassment policies. YouTube rolls out policies like this to distract reporters from the real story: YouTube's non-enforcement.
— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) December 11, 2019
YouTube claims their new policy will be “rolling out” in 2020. This means they won’t universally apply it immediately. This allows them to issue warnings to prominent YouTubers, while cracking down on smaller creators as part of their rollout. I’ve never heard of a roll out for a policy. Could you imagine if laws were operated like this? “Oh, yes, in this wealthy neighborhood, marijuana will be legal. It’ll ‘roll out’ to the poorer neighborhoods in the city in a few months.” This is absurd. But it’s YouTube’s way of trying to have their cake and eat it too. Now they get to claim they have more strict policies while keeping up with their favorite past time: selectively enforcing policies.
How Hate Spreads
This lack of enforcement means millions of YouTubers see that this kind of hate and harassment is okay. Carlos Maza, the man Crowder harassed for being gay and Latino, is no longer producing videos for Vox. He left his job because of this controversy. That wasn’t because of the hateful videos Crowder was publishing. What’s one hateful voice, anyway? No, this was because of Crowder’s 4+ million followers. They saw Crowder’s hateful messages and carried them, en masse, to Maza. Maza was doxxed, he was harassed online and offline, all because YouTube chose to side with the harassers over the harassed. Those users, including their hateful ringleader, are still on YouTube, waiting to pounce on his next target.
YouTube’s Lack of Enforcement
A slur in his merch and hate speech in his videos, but YouTube allows Steven Crowder to stay.
Despite YouTube admitting that Crowder clearly violated their terms, which would have been reasoning for a ban for any other creator, YouTube took no action. After a backlash from sympathetic YouTube users, YouTube demonetized Crowder’s videos until he removed advertisements for his “Socialism is for fags” T-shirts. He didn’t remove them.
Donald Trump repeatedly uses the racial slur “Pocahontas” to describe Elizabeth Warren. Despite being a racial attack, YouTube allows videos of his campaign rallies on YouTube. Trump has attacked people for their nationality, religion, and disabilities, all against YouTube’s guidelines.
Donald Trump is still welcome on YouTube. In fact, YouTube has stated that, because his racial slur was used in a political manner, it’s okay. Meanwhile, many others have faced punishment simply for being gay.
Why Demonetizing Isn’t Punishment
Demonetization is when YouTube says a video cannot have ads on it. The content creators can’t make money off of their content alone. They use this often against LGBTQ people, despite LGBTQ content not being a violation of any of YouTube’s rules (yes, this is still going on). For small creators, whose who use this as vital supplemental income, this can be devastating. Without that money, they may have to get a second (or in this economy, third) job. But for larger creators, like Crowder or Donald Trump, it’s not about the ads.
Let’s say YouTube demonetizes Donald Trump’s YouTube videos. Do you think he’s going to care? His videos are about spreading his message to get donations for campaigns (although, let’s face it, he’s not looking for small donors anyway). It’s about building support for his presidency. He doesn’t care if YouTube demonetizes him. Let’s look to Steven Crowder. Most of his money comes from Patreon, one-time donations, or from selling merch like T-shirts that read “Socialism is for fags.”
For the people that YouTube refuses to ban because their following is too large, demonetization isn’t a punishment. Only banning would be a punishment for them. However, because of their large followings, YouTube refuses to enforce their rules.
Imagine if they just outright said what they’re doing here. “Sure, Nazis are bad, but there’s so many of them, and our site is helping their numbers grow, so we can’t ban them!”
That’s YouTube’s policy on malicious and hateful content in a nutshell. YouTube’s the safe video platform of the alt-right. It joins the ranks of Breitbart and The Daily Stormer. Well done, Google.
Sources:
- BBC
- Mark Di Stefano, BuzzFeed News
- Daisuke Wakabayashi, NY Times