YouTube is finally investigating right-wing pundit Steven Crowder after a series of videos containing homophobic and racist comments towards a gay journalist.
Carlos Maza brought the harassment to light on a Twitter thread this week (31 May). Maza hosts Strikethrough for Vox, a show about media, politics and technology.
However, these videos provoked a number of responses from Crowder. These videos contain violations of YouTube’s anti-cyberbullying policies. Crowder repeatedly referred to Maza as an ‘anchor baby, a lispy queer, [and] a Mexican’, among other insults.
Maza claims these ‘rebuttal’ videos cause a flood of homophobic and racist abuse on Instagram and Twitter. He also said told Crowder’s fans have doxxed him multiple times, leaving his phone unusable with the amount of abuse.
He said one time his phone flooded with messages saying ‘debate Steven crowder’. He told Verge: ‘I just started blocking numbers. But my phone was basically unusable because it kept blowing up.
‘Even when I’m writing scripts now, it’s almost like looking over m shoulder thinking, “Is there a way to write this that will allow me to not get blowback for this?
‘This is how I used to act in high school when I was brutally harassed for being gay. I’m still constantly looking over my shoulder.’
This is a direct violation of YouTube’s community guidelines. Content ‘deliberately posted in order to humiliate someone, make hurtful and negative personal comments/videos about another person, or incite others to harass or threaten individuals on or off YouTube’ is banned.
Maza flagged the videos multiple times to YouTube but received little response. Once Maza’s Tweet thread went viral, the company decided to act.
It was also with the help of left-wing YouTuber Shaun. He pretended to have a problem with YouTube’s premium product YouTube TV. When he received their help desk’s attention, he flagged the thread to the team.
Crowder published a video in response to the thread. He claims Vox is attempting to have his channel terminated. Also, he says the series is a political comedy and disavowed the doxxing of Maza by his viewers.
Crowder also sells and advertises tops that say ‘Socialism is for f*gs’ on his YouTube channel. While he claims the word stands for ‘figs’, it features an image of Che Guevara with a limp wrist – an offensive gay stereotype.
