YouTube may end up revising its anti-harassment policies amid an ongoing controversy involving a right-wing commentator who posted homophobic videos targeting a reporter.
"In the coming months, we will be taking a hard look at our harassment policies with an aim to update them," the Google-owned platform said in a blog post.
Two days ago, YouTube sparked online outrage from the LGBTQ community and journalists after it declined to suspend conservative commentator Steven Crowder's YouTube channel despite the fact that he repeatedly harassed Vox reporter Carlos Maza in his videos.
Since I started working at Vox, Steven Crowder has been making video after video "debunking" Strikethrough. Every single video has included repeated, overt attacks on my sexual orientation and ethnicity. Here's a sample: pic.twitter.com/UReCcQ2Elj — Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) May 31, 2019
Maza has been urging YouTube to take action and enforce the platform's rules against online harassment. However, the video-sharing site said that "while we found language (in Crowder's channel) that was clearly hurtful, the videos as posted don't violate our policies."
Later, YouTube abruptly decided to suspend Crowder's ability to monetize videos on his channel—underscoring a seemingly arbitrary enforcement of the platform's rules. "Today has generated a lot of questions and confusion," YouTube admitted on Wednesday.
The controversy comes as YouTube has been struggling to balance fighting online abuse with maintaining free speech. In the past, it's tried to bury videos containing hate speech and racism by making them harder to find on the site. But on Tuesday, it decided to delete any videos promoting Neo-Nazism and racial supremacy, which will result in the takedown of thousands of channels.
In revising its anti-harassment policy, YouTube says it'll consult with experts, video creators, journalists, and victims of online harassment. But the platform also wants to protect free speech even when the content may be offensive, pointing to politically charged rants and edgy stand-up comedy routines as examples.
Cynics may roll their eyes at this. After all, YouTube generates millions in advertising dollars. Crowder himself has more than 3.8 million subscribers. The Trump administration, meanwhile, is considering action against Silicon Valley companies it believes has been unfairly censorsing political conservatives.
However, YouTube says: "We enforce our policies here rigorously and regardless of the creator in question." The platform indicated that the videos from Crowder weren't banned because the content itself was addressing a larger topic and not simply focused on demeaning Maza.
"In the case of Crowder's channel, a thorough review over the weekend found that individually, the flagged videos did not violate our Community Guidelines," the platform said. "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."
Still, no matter what YouTube does to revise its anti-harassment policy, it'll probably outrage someone. "Not everyone will agree with the calls we make—some will say we haven't done enough; others will say we've gone too far," it said in the blog post.