YouTube is swinging the ban hammer hard today as the company looks to delete thousands of videos and channels in an effort to stem all hateful content. YouTube outlined it’s reasoning in a blog post along with a three pronged approach.
Here are the three ways that YouTube will attempt to “tackle hate”:
Removal of hateful and supremacist content from YouTube – Content that is inherently discriminatory on the basis of age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status is prohibited. As is content denying “well-documented violent events” such as mass shootings or the Holocaust.
Reducing borderline content and harmful misinformation by raising up authoritative voices – YouTube is brimming with content that’s highly questionable, but doesn’t quite violate their community guidelines—like flat-earthers or other conspiracy theorists. So to curb the popularity of these videos, YouTube will instead recommend videos from more “authoritative sources” such as established news channels in its “next watch” panel.
Continuing to reward trusted creators and enforce our monetization policies – Channels that “repeatedly brush up against” YouTube’s hate speech policies are subject to monetization restrictions. They will no longer be able to run ads or use SuperChat, which allows channel subscribers to purchase extra chat features. This change is of particular interest since SuperChat previously creators to circumvent community guidelines in order to monetize hateful content.
There are business and political reasons for outright banning channels. Social media companies are facing immense pressure from governments to moderate hate speech. Facebook itself took a similar action by attempting to ban white nationalism after the New Zealand shooting. YouTube also wants to remind advertiser friendly and prevent hateful channels from ruining YouTube’s ad revenue.
The move to further restrict hateful content will likely also rile up conservatives who continue to believe that big tech companies unfairly discriminate against them. Senate Republicans held hearings in April that once again brought up the charge that tech companies are biased against conservative thought. While the evidence of political bias is probably anecdotal at best, most Americans believe social media censors political thought anyway.
YouTube says that it will begin enforcing the new policies today with full ramp up to continue gradually over the next few months.
