UPDATED 05/5/19 4:39 p.m. ET: Youtube has decided to remove ads from Steven Crowder's page until he “addresses all of the issues with his channel." Among the problems the company pointed to were links to an online store where he sells merchandise featuring homophobic slogans. Carlos Maza pointed out that the demonitization is not permanent, and can be restored if Crowder complies with YouTube's requests.
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YouTube is under fire for seemingly abstaining from enforcing its harassment policy against a popular conservative personality.
Gizmodo points out that Vox journalist Carlos Maza has been the target of right-wing Steven Crowder's homophobic, racist comments for years, as the latter has degraded the former in multiple videos.
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In a thread on Twitter, Maza posted a compilation video which features Crowder calling him names like "Mr. Lispy Queer," "Mexican gay Latino," and "angry little queer."
The Vox journalist believes Crowder's videos have violated the streaming platform's harassment and cyberbullying guidelines, yet nothing has been done to resolve the issue.
YouTube responded to the Vox journalist's tweets, saying, "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."
YouTube's policy mandates users to abstain from uploading such as:
- Content that is deliberately posted in order to humiliate someone
- Content that makes hurtful and negative personal comments/videos about another person
The Google Press Team told Gizmodo that "the main point of these [Crowder's] videos was not to harass or threaten, but rather respond to the opinion," which led them to consider them as debate content. In addition, the conservative also instructed his viewers to abstain from harassing Maza. Because of this, the platform will not take down the content.
On a related note, The New York Times reports that YouTube will begin removing channels and videos that contain extreme views. "It’s our responsibility to protect that, and prevent our platform from being used to incite hatred, harassment, discrimination and violence," the company said. It also said that creators who consistently teeter on the edge of violating the policy but don't violate it will be removed from the advertising program, which helps them generate revenue.