YouTube is tightening its policies in an effort to limit the spread of “violent extremist content,” the Google-owned video sharing platform announced on its official blog on Tuesday.
Its hate speech policy now specifically prohibits videos “alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status,” such as those glorifying Nazi ideology.
Soon thereafter, the hashtag #VoxAdPocalypse began trending on Twitter.
Here’s why.
On the same day as its broader announcement, YouTube took to Twitter to publicly declare it had suspended monetization for conservative commentator and comedic television show host Steven Crowder’s channel, alleging a “pattern of egregious actions has harmed the broader community and is against our YouTube Partner Program policies.”
YouTube announced its decision in a thread started by Carlos Maza, a Vox host who had reported Crowder’s content. Maza alleges that Crowder harassed him for two years based on Maza’s sexual orientation and ethnicity.
In a four-part tweet the day before, YouTube explained its decision to permit Crowder’s videos despite their “clearly hurtful” language because they did not violate the platform’s policies, adding in the final tweet that they were still in the process of evaluating “other aspects” of the channel.
Further confusing matters, YouTube today tweeted to Maza that monetization of Crowder’s channel could be reinstated if he removed links to T-shirts Maza said were emblazoned with “Socialism Is For Fags” and were sold to “millions of loyal customers.”
