YouTube's latest fiasco points to a deeper problem for tech
Source: Washington Post
YouTube’s latest fiasco points to a deeper problem for tech
By Molly Roberts
Editorial Writer
June 7 at 4:12 PM
First, YouTube said a streaming star’s repeated homophobic remarks about a Vox writer did not violate the platform’s rules. Then, after a lot of furious people sent a lot of furious tweets prompting a lot of scorn-filled news stories, YouTube determined the remarks did violate its rules, and announced it would strip advertising from the offending videos.
But wait — there was more. The writer, Carlos Maza, protested that the streamer, Steven Crowder, still sold T-shirts declaring that “Socialism Is for F*gs.” (A literal fig leaf took the place of the asterisk.) So YouTube said Crowder would have to quit his hawking. Observers were baffled that the bigotry apparently wouldn’t be an issue if it weren’t branded on Hanes cotton, so YouTube tried again: It wasn’t just the T-shirts Crowder had to get rid of to stop being a rule-breaker. It was all that other awful stuff, too.
Finally, at the end of this days-long debacle, YouTube published a blog post explaining its thought process. The platform’s promise? It would update its rules, of course.
Rules, though, are not worth much unless they serve a principled purpose. And figuring out that purpose could be the most crucial and most complicated challenge for platforms today.
YouTube has policies prohibiting hate speech and harassment, at least in theory. Had YouTube wanted to act against Crowder’s conduct, it could have — citing the rules. And when it didn’t want to act against that conduct, it didn’t — again, citing the rules. This was reminiscent of Infowars founder Alex Jones having been within the rules as he befouled the platforms with hoaxing and hate, until suddenly last summer he found himself banned.
The primary principle guiding YouTube in these cases appears to have been the imperative to avoid making very many people very angry very publicly. Rules were only, well, a fig leaf.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/07/youtube-makes-its-rules-look-worthless/
