YouTube to ban ‘hateful’ videos with ‘supremacist’ content
YouTube has updated its hate speech policies and will now ban videos “with supremacist content,” as well clips promoting certain conspiracy theories.
The company, a subsidiary of Google, announced the clampdown on “hateful content” in a blog post on Wednesday. The company had already restricted commenting and sharing features on similar videos in 2017, but the new ban goes one step further.
“Today, we’re taking another step in our hate speech policy by specifically prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion,” read the blog post.
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© Reuters / Dado Ruvic
YouTube’s insistence that it will ban all forms of “supremacist” videos stands in contrast to a similar policy change at Facebook, which decided to exclusively ban “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” content, seemingly ignoring similar content from, for example, Black separatist or radical Zionism movements.
Nevertheless, YouTube presented “videos that promote or glorify Nazi ideology” as an example that would break its new rules.
In addition to these changes, YouTube said it will reduce the spread of content that does not outright violate its policies, but “comes right up to the line.”
The company said that this “borderline” content, including flat-earth conspiracy videos and phony science videos, will be dropped from viewers’ recommendations and replaced with videos “from authoritative sources,” a move that will surely rankle free-speech advocates and those who already accuse the site of bias.
“Finally, we will remove content denying that well-documented violent events, like the Holocaust or the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, took place,” the post continued. YouTube was one of several tech giants that booted Infowars’ Alex Jones from their sites last August, much to the dismay of conservatives and free-speech activists.
Jones had previously suggested that the schoolchildren shot dead in the 2012 Sandy Hook tragedy were “crisis actors” hired to further the gun-control agenda.
Original: https://www.rt.com/news/461155-youtube-bans-hate-videos/
What about conspiracy theories and questioning videos in regards to more controversial topics, such as 9/11. While most people pretty much accept that Sandy Hook happened...quite a few people thought there were quite a number of questionable things in regards to the incidents on 9/11. Despite the large number of questions in regards to that, they've pretty much ignored the people calling for more public investigations into it. Would a video that talked about the conspiracy theories be removed from recommendations in favor of more "official" narratives?
What about videos about aliens? Or any number of strange ideas people have? A ton of people believe in aliens and a few crazy conspiracies.
There are cases where the "official" narrative has been proven to be false after quite a few years. Are they going to remove videos about "conspiracies" in regards to people being gassed in certain countries that after years are proven to be true?
What about historical cases like Agent Orange and even PTSD. Would they ensure videos that were against the official narrative were not at the top of the list today?
Hell, there are still historical cases where the official narrative is known to be bullshit.
They are treading in very dangerous waters. They should have kept going with trying to do the minimal amount of censorship as they could. Though I understand why they did what they did in regards to racist content and crazy conspiracies. It's just a very dangerous decision.
Whatever happened to just staying away from things you don't agree with? Carloz Maza is able to get Youtube to silence Crowder because Crowder criticized him repeatedly (I don't really even like Crowder because I find him annoying.) Carlos will claim it is bullying but if disagreeing with someone = bullying, well, we may as well turn off the internet right now :P
Making fun of someone's lisp, nationality and sexuality for years is not "disagreeing". Though I think he was trying to be funny most of the time. He wasn't trying to be an ass necessarily, he just is.
Also, the changes to YouTube were in the works for a while. Similar changes were done on Facebook as well. It's not the first move by sites to go more anti-bigotry recently either. Carloz Maza just happened to be bitching around the same time as the changes went into effect. The changes in regards to policing links in videos was implemented like a week ago, before the other changes, and perhaps before the incident.
While it's technically possible that they freaked out over someone bitching about abuse...it happens all the time. Them actually changing their entire TOS over one user is unlikely, unless it makes a huge public incident. They probably didn't even have to change their TOS to demonetize or even ban Crowder though. If you go through a few of the vids where he made fun of Carloz Maza, you can see at least a few really go over the line. That's up to interpretation though, which is why he wasn't demonetized at first, not because they had to change the rules. They didn't ban him though, they simply demonetized him, which is similar to how flagging works here in a way, so he got off lucky. There are even journalists that have been demonetized under the new system.
the most common defense is "YouTube is a private company and can do whatever they want!" and well yeah, that is true. I guess the Libertarian in me wants them to allow market forces to dictate the outcome on its own. I mean honestly, if Crowder is silenced, i don't think there is really any chance his 4 million followers are going to start watching The Young Turks as an alternative :P
They are a private company that can choose whatever they wish to ban
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YouTube is not the only one.
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It was about time...