YouTube bans 'malicious insults and veiled threats'
YouTube bans 'malicious insults and
veiled threats'
·
December
11, 2019
The video-sharing platform will
also ban "implied threats of violence" as part of
its new harassment policy.
A row
erupted in June after a prominent video-maker said he had been the target of
abuse by another YouTube star.
At the
time, YouTube said its rules had not been broken. But it has now deleted many
of the videos in question.
"Even
if a single video doesn't cross the line, with our new harassment policy we can
take a pattern of behaviour into account for enforcement," Neal Mohan,
chief product officer at YouTube, told the BBC.
As a
result of the policy change, the Google-owned business also considered taking
down clips of President Trump calling Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren
"Pocahontas" to taunt her over her claim that she has distant
Native-American heritage.
But it
decided that the president's intention was to curry favour with voters rather
than attack his opponent on race and so the videos could remain online.
What was the row about?
At the
centre of the dispute was journalist Carlos Maza, who presented videos for the
Vox channel.
Mr Maza
said he had been the subject of persistent abuse from rival video-maker Steven
Crowder, who presents a talk show on YouTube.
Mr Crowder
had about four million subscribers at the time, while Vox had about six million
followers.
Mr Maza
created a video compilation of all the times Mr Crowder had made fun of his
sexual orientation and ethnicity.
In the
clips, Mr Crowder imitated Mr Maza's accent and called him, among other things,
a "lispy queer", a "gay Vox sprite" and a "gay
Mexican".
Mr Crowder
said the language he had used to mock Maza was "friendly ribbing".
But the
videos led many of Mr Crowder's viewers to harass Mr Maza on social media.
YouTube
said it had conducted an "in-depth review" and found "the videos
as posted don't violate our policies".
However,
it later restricted Mr Crowder's ability to earn advertising revenue due to
"continued egregious actions".
And on
Wednesday, it intends to delete several of Mr Crowder's videos that fall foul
of the updated harassment policy.
What does the updated policy say?
Prior to the change, YouTube had already
banned videos that:
§ contained explicit threats of violence
§ bullied somebody about their appearance
§ revealed somebody's personal information
§ encouraged viewers to harass an
individual
But the
new policy also bans:
§ "veiled" or implied threats of
violence, such as saying "you better watch out"
§ simulated violence towards an individual
§ malicious insults based on protected
attributes such as race, gender expression or sexual orientation
YouTube
said the new policy would apply to "everyone" including politicians
and popular YouTube stars as well as the general public.
Video-makers
who consistently break the rules will have their ability to earn advertising
revenue restricted, and may have videos deleted or their channel closed.
The
company said there would be some exemptions from the new policy, including
insults used in "scripted satire, stand-up comedy, or music".
Mr Mohan
told the BBC that individual complaints would have to be judged on a
case-by-case basis, with the context of each video being taken into account.
However,
the new guidelines do say: "This is not a free pass to harass someone and
claim, 'I was joking.'"
Mr Mohan
said YouTube had consulted with think tanks, video-makers, Google employees and
other third parties to help inform its policy.
He told
the BBC he did not think the new rules would restrict YouTubers' freedom of
expression.
"We
don't want YouTube to be a place where public discourse is getting stifled as a
result of people having the fear of being harassed on our platform," he
told the BBC.
"My
view is that, on balance, having a strong framework around which we are
protecting individuals from being harassed is important to ensure that our
platform remains one where there can be robust debate."
Comments
Post a Comment