If this doesn’t wake people up to realize that the landscape for freedom of speech is dying on YouTube, then the #VoxAdpocalypse sure as hell will!
This is probably the most spontaneous event to transpire on the platform yet. I’ll try and give you a brief summary of what went down as I’m sure there’s plenty of people reporting on this already. Essentially, a writer by the name of Carlos Maza made a Twitter thread complaining that he did not like the comments that conservative comedian Steven Crowder made on his videos. So, Carlos demanded that YouTube de-platform Steven with the wait weight of Vox behind. A big corporation attacking an individual content creator.
At first, YouTube sided with Crowder, saying that despite what Crowder has said in his videos, they did not violate their policy. That should have been the end of it. With late night liberal shows currently saying and mocking people to an even greater degree than Crowder, it only makes sense that they’d follow their own rules and apply it to everyone. So if they can get away with it, then so can Crowder. However this wasn’t enough for Carlos.
.@TeamYouTube made the right decision. If they banned us, they'd have to ban.. pic.twitter.com/hyNK3PhhHU
— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) June 5, 2019
He continued on his crusade to completely remove Crowder, making claims that YouTube is supporting “hateful” people for money and after days of this, YouTube unfortunately bowed down to Vox and instead decided to go full blown Thanos mode. They demonetized Crowder. Unfortunately, they didn’t stop there. They snapped their fingers to try and bring peace, but instead upset the balance. Now, after implementing a new algorithm, it’s now demonetizing every channel that it deems extremism, spreads hate speech and false information etc.
Of course, if there’s a video that denies the Holocaust and calls it a lie, despite there being well documented evidence, it should be removed. However, what’s really frightening here is how YouTube obliged to the request of a corporation so swiftly, despite Crowder never breaking any policy and was only exercising his freedom of speech. This should have never reached this level. This is an attack on the individuals and one that we need to win if we are to maintain an environment in which people can share their viewpoints freely. Freedom of speech is a tough pill to swallow when you know that there will be those that will take advantage of it to spill their hateful agenda, but it’s either that or a one-sided political spectrum that controls what we should be thinking. It’s not healthy.
The website that prides itself of being diverse, has shown to be very much against people with a different viewpoints. And if you pay CLOSE attention, it’s mostly conservative channel that are receiving the bulk of the snap. Sure, there may be unintended casualties caught in the crossfire, but the intent is clear.
This marks a dark point for creator on the platform, as yet another waves of uncertainty hits their means of livelihood.
