YouTube Decides Racist and Homophobic Hate Speech Does Not Violate Their Policies
June 5, 2019Vox journalist Carlos Mazahas come out against YouTube’s policies after being consistently targeted from one of their star creators, Steven Crowder.
Crowder is a famed right-wing commentator who has amassed over 3.8 million followers on the platform. He has targeted Maza for several years, calling him a “lispy queer” and a “gay Mexican”. He also sells T-shirts that say “socialism is for f*gs”.
Maza, who stars in many of Vox’s online videos, asked YouTube to review Crowder’s channel.
In response YouTube wrote: “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.
“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.”
Maza shared the response on Twitter, adding: “I don’t know what to say. YouTube has decided not to punish Crowder, after he spent two years harassing me for being gay and Latino.
“To be crystal clear: YouTube has decided that targeted racist and homophobic harassment does not violate its policies against hate speech or harassment.
“That’s an absolutely bats**t policy that gives bigots free license.”
Keep up to date with the latest myGnews