Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
YouTube is different than Fox or any other broadcast media.
YouTube is an open content platform, where individuals unaffiliated with YouTube create the content.
That's very different from being an employee of a broadcast company, where you represent the company.
The whole point of YouTube is to be an open, mostly free speech platform, where people can upload videos. This includes outrageous, controversial, and offensive videos. I think it's important to have such a system be as censorship-free as possible.
Once you start asserting very broad "hate speech" standards for deleting videos, you really open up an incredibly slippery slope where everyone can make some claim of being offended.
YouTube does make somewhat of an attempt to take down harassment videos -- where people are creating videos to harass or demean other individuals. However, this definitely doesn't qualify for that, as Maza is an intentionally controversial pubic figure.
I do understand certain advertisers not wanting their commercials appearing on videos like Crowder's, but that's an easy fix. They could easily give advertisers a way to opt out of appearing in such videos. They may already do this, I don't know. I would be totally fine if they created a more restricted category for monetization for channels like Crowder's, where only advertisers who are okay with outspoken conservative political content are displayed. In fact, some advertisers would love such an audience.
YouTube really shouldn't be acting as the arbiter of what is acceptable speech. They should take care to make sure videos on their platform aren't directly hurting anyone, or breaking the law, and that should be it.
By the way, Maza's initial main complaint was NOT that he felt Crowder's language was inappropriate. It was that Crowder was "harassing" him through his channel, which is laughable. Go back and look at the initial tweets.