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Facing immense pressure, YouTube has said it will reexamine its harassment policies and update them<\/a>.<\/p>\n The company said it will do so in \u201cconsultation with experts, creators, journalists and those who have, themselves, been victims of harassment.\u201d<\/p>\n The Google-owned social video platform came under fresh criticism for not doing enough to curb harassment and abusive language, and failing to protect LGBTQ users in its community.<\/p>\n Last week, a Vox journalist named Carlos Maza shared a viral Twitter thread<\/a> about how he had been at the receiving end of harassment and homophobic slurs at the hands of Stephen Crowder, a popular right-wing YouTube commentator with almost 4 million subscribers\u00a0and approximately 27 million monthly views.<\/p>\n Across several videos, which collectively have millions of views, Crowder has made several derogatory remarks about Maza\u2019s sexuality and ethnicity, including calling him a \u201clispy queer,\u201d a \u201ctoken Vox gay atheist sprite,\u201d and a \u201cgay Latino from Vox,\u201d among other epithets.<\/p>\n YouTube initially responded that Crowder\u2019s language did not violate its Community Guidelines<\/a>, although it acknowldged it was \u201cclearly hurtful.\u201d<\/p>\n Later, the social platform tried to unsuccessfully curb the backlash by removing ads from Crowder\u2019s videos \u2014 a process known as demonetization.<\/p>\n In the case of Crowder\u2019s channel, a thorough review over the weekend found that individually, the flagged videos did not violate our Community Guidelines. However, in the subsequent days, we saw the widespread harm to the YouTube community resulting from the ongoing pattern of egregious behavior, took a deeper look, and made the decision to suspend monetization.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But evidently, it wasn\u2019t enough. Google employees took to Twitter<\/a> to criticize the company\u2019s\u00a0actions using the hashtag #NoPrideInYT<\/a>, saying YouTube is captilazing on Pride as a marketing campaign, and that \u201cit\u2019s clear they have no issue making policy decisions that harm LGBTQ people.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite YouTube capitalizing on Pride as a marketing campaign, it\u2019s clear they have no issue making policy decisions that harm LGBTQ people like @gaywonk<\/a>. We have #NoPrideInYT<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/onD1cARt98<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Googlers Against Hate (@EthicalGooglers) June 5, 2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n YouTube\u2018s confused response to the debacle has clearly not found favors with anyone, which is most likely why it\u2019s reconsidering its response.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are determined to evolve our policies, and continue to hold our creators and ourselves to a higher standard,\u201d YouTube said in its statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s decision to take a second look at its policies comes just after rolling out new measures<\/a> to tackle hate speech on the platform.\u00a0It said it will ban videos that promote the superiority of any group as a justification for discrimination against others based on their \u201cage, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status.\u201d<\/p>\n It also said it would expand efforts announced in January to reduce the spread of what it calls \u201cborderline content and harmful misinformation,\u201d alongside including \u201cmore videos from authoritative sources (like top news channels) in the \u2018watch next\u2019 panel.\u201d<\/p>\n YouTube\u2018s track record with queer creators hasn\u2019t been great. In 2017, the site apologized for erroneously restricting videos that contain LGBTQ content<\/a> after public backlash. Last year, some LBGTQ creators called out YouTube<\/a> for adding homophobic ads to their content, resulting in the company posting another \u201csorry\u201d note \u2014<\/p>\n But we\u2019ve also had issues where we let the LGBTQ community down\u2013inappropriate ads and concerns about how we\u2019re enforcing our monetization policy. We\u2019re sorry and we want to do better. 2\/4<\/p>\n\n
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