YouTube claims Crowder’s videos attacking Vox journalist Carlos Maza
YouTube has responded to harassment allegations from Vox reporter Carlos Maza, who claimed outspoken conservative streamer Steven Crowder had broken the site’s Terms of Service with videos mocking Maza’s ethnicity and sexuality.
On Friday, Maza posted a Twitter thread containing clips of Crowder hurling slurs at Maza like «lispy queer» and screenshots of his fans harassing his mobile phone number. The thread went viral, gaining more than 70,000 likes and 3,000 comments.
Since Maza posted the thread, Crowder has posted three videos in response. In the first he apologized for his «strong language» but defended himself as a «comedian.» In his second, he insincerely apologizes for his past «jokes» and defended selling «Socialism is for F*gs» t-shirts to his fans. In the third, he brought on YouTuber Tim Pool to claim that Crowder was the victim and a «big media company,» namely Vox, is trying to violate his right to free speech.
YouTube’s Terms of Service prohibit «content that makes hurtful and negative personal comments/videos about another person.» After five days, representatives from YouTube finally responded to Maza, saying «Our teams spent the last few days conducting an in-depth review of the videos flagged to us, and while we found language that was clearly hurtful, the videos as posted don’t violate our policies.
