We Will All Be Banned

“TechCrunch uses the word ‘hate’ so many times—and so without any obvious meaning, that it strikes me as likely a form of attempted Pavlovian conditioning.”

Last week, YouTube caved to an online mob led by Vox journalist-cum-activist Carlos Maza to demonetize conservative shock jock Steven Crowder’s channel. Maza had disingenuously claimed that Crowder was harassing him in a homophobic and racist manner, when, in fact, Crowder was primarily criticizing Maza’s ideas, albeit in a nasty style that involved mocking Maza’s mannerisms and using epithets that Maza accurately applies to himself and has slanderously used against Crowder in the past. Crowder’s fans certainly seem to have harassed Maza, but Crowder has never incited or encouraged this and, in fact, frequently speaks out against it. One might think that an outspokenly political public figure who goes by “gaywonk” and is empowered by a major media organization would be able to take puerile ridicule on the Internet without throwing a tantrum and demanding his enemies be purged. But one would be mistaken.

Maza’s campaign went into overdrive when YouTube originally decided not to punish Crowder, finding that his content, while clearly hurtful, did not violate its policies. At that time, Katie Herzog wrote in The Stranger, “Crowder is a comic, doing exactly what comics do: Mocking a public figure. There’s nothing illegal about that, and if YouTube does reverse its decision and start to ban everyone who mocks people for their sexuality or race, they’re going to have to ban a whole lot of queer people of color who enjoy making fun of straight white dudes next. That’s not a precedent I’d like to see set.” But that is exactly what happened next. YouTube flip-flopped to appease the Vox mob with sweeping reforms aimed at removing “hateful content.”

This effectively amounted to a purge of independent content creators. Some of the most high-profile cases unsurprisingly share Crowder’s politics, but bizarrely and unfortunately, many do not. Many are not even political, but are simply collateral damage, including historical footage, independent reporters covering actual white supremacy, and a channel that makes “relaxing sounds.” These are people whose livelihoods depend on the revenue they receive from their YouTube channels, not to mention the investment already committed and the skills already honed towards the only realistically viable way of growing an audience and monetizing video content online. In some cases, they are entire businesses with low level staff on the payroll.