YouTube to take discriminatory and hateful videos and channels offline

YouTube will take videos and channels that discriminate or incite hatred offline. That has been announced by the video site. The stricter rules should prevent malicious videos from appearing on the video site.

This includes videos of Holocaust deniers, but also videos of people who claim that a certain race, gender or sexuality is superior, YouTube reports. The policy will take effect from Wednesday, but it may take a while before all the videos that YouTube wants to take offline have actually disappeared from the servers.

The Google subsidiary has already taken steps against such videos. For example, the makers can no longer earn money thanks to advertisements and YouTube is trying to limit the spread by limiting the number of likes and comments.

In addition, YouTube is taking action against videos that push the boundaries of what is allowed, such as videos that claim to have a miraculous cure for a disease or that argue that the earth is flat. Fewer users will get recommendations from such videos. A pilot of this has already been running in the United States, but is now in more countries.

YouTube was discredited this week, because it refused to act to Steven Crowder. According to Vox video maker Carlos Maza, he incites hatred against him in his videos, partly because of his origin and sexuality. Maza unsuccessfully invoked YouTube’s own anti-harassment rules.

Update, 21:28: YouTube has decided to remove ads from Crowder’s channel.