YouTube to Curb Videos With ‘Offensive Viewpoints’

ashley.rae | August 28, 2017
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(Image source: Rego Korosi/flickr)

On Thursday, Google began suppressing YouTube videos that express “offensive viewpoints.”

Bloomberg reports that Google, which owns YouTube, announced its plan to crack down on “offensive” content in a blog post in June. While the title of the blog post asserts the crackdown will be on videos related to “terrorism,” it will also be targeting videos that promote “inflammatory religious or supremacist content," but do not outright violate YouTube's rules.

As a result of the new policy, videos that are deemed to promote “extremely offensive viewpoints” will be harder for find, have a warning before viewing, be unable to be monetized, and users will be unable to comment on the videos.

According to Kent Walker, who serves as Google’s general counsel, this kind of censorship “strikes the right balance between free expression and access to information without promoting extremely offensive viewpoints.”

While the intended target for the new policing effort may appear to primarily be for videos related to terrorism, what qualifies as an offensive viewpoint is broader and more subjective.  One of the videos that has reportedly been subject to the new crackdown on offensive viewpoints is one discussing racial IQ differences.

Viewing the video prompts users with the following warning: “The following content has been identified by the YouTube community as inappropriate or offensive to some audiences.” Upon viewing the video, a caution warning appears where there traditionally is the option to share videos, like them, or comment on them alerting viewers that the features have been disabled:

Although there have been user reports that the “verify controversy” option is nothing new, disabling the ability to comment on videos or merely share them appears to be part of Google’s newest crackdown.

The YouTube help section showcasing a video with “limited features” includes a mock video dated Aug. 24. The page explains, “Some borderline videos, such as those containing inflammatory religious or supremacist content without a direct call to violence or a primary purpose of inciting hatred, may not cross these lines for removal. Following user reports, if our review teams determine that a video is borderline under our policies, it may have some features disabled.”

It is unclear how far Google’s crackdown on “offensive” views will go. For example, while discussing IQ racial differences may be considered offensive to most, Google has also set a precedent in cracking down on dissent by firing its employee for merely stating there are differences between men and women.

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