LGBTQ+ YouTubers are suing YouTube for Discrimination

[Lilmonzter 2,864]

They're suing them allegedly for restricting their content!

A group of YouTube creators is suing YouTube for allegedly discriminating against their LGBTQ-focused videos by suppressing recommendations and making it difficult to earn ad revenue.

The lawsuit alleges that YouTube uses “unlawful content regulation, distribution, and monetization practices that stigmatize, restrict, block, demonetize, and financially harm the LGBT Plaintiffs and the greater LGBT Community.” The lawsuit also alleges that both YouTube’s machine learning moderation tools and human reviewers unfairly target channels that have words such as “gay,” “bisexual,” or “transgender” in the title.

“YouTube is engaged in discriminatory, anticompetitive, and unlawful conduct that harms a protected class of persons under California law,” the lawsuit states. It alleges that YouTube’s actions have violated federal and California laws around speech, discrimination, and false advertising. A YouTube spokesperson told The Verge that the company’s policies “have no notion of sexual orientation or gender identity and our systems do not restrict or demonetize videos based on these factors or the inclusion of terms like ‘gay’ or ‘transgender.’”

The complainants — including Amp Somers, Lindsay Amer, Chris Knight, Celso Dulay, Cameron Stiehl, Chrissy Chambers, and Chase Ross — have spoken out about YouTube’s alleged treatment of the LGBTQ creator community in the past. In June 2018, Ross accused YouTube of age-gating and demonetizing his videos simply because he used the term “transgender” in his video titles and metadata. YouTube’s alleged discrimination pushed Ross to publish a lengthy video on the subject.

“I DON’T FEEL LIKE PEOPLE TAKE US SERIOUSLY AND IT NEEDS TO CHANGE.”

“I don’t feel like people take us seriously and it needs to change,” Ross told The Verge at the time. “YouTube really needs to start paying attention to this community ... I don’t feel like I belong on a platform that I and other LGBTQ+ individuals helped build.”

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said just last week that YouTube does “not automatically demonetize LGBTQ content.”

“There’s no policies that say ‘If you put certain words in a title that will be demonetized.’” Wojcicki told vlogger Alfie Deyes. “We work incredibly hard to make sure that when our machines learn something — because a lot of our decisions are made algorithmically — that our machines are fair. There shouldn’t be [any automatic demonetization].”

[ChromeAngel 3,230]

I’ve always wanted to be a YouTube star. Maybe I’ll become an instagram model instead 

[Bloody hooker 6,445]

They actually did start to automatically demonetize and hide some videos that were completely innocent by LGBT YouTubers a few years ago. They probably started to not do it as much against very popular YouTubers, but still do towards smaller ones.

[RAMROD 117,004]

Good. Hope they'll get the higher ground and win it.

[jacs vs looser 5,121]

1 hour ago, Bloody hooker said:

They actually did start to automatically demonetize and hide some videos that were completely innocent by LGBT YouTubers a few years ago. They probably started to not do it as much against very popular YouTubers, but still do towards smaller ones.

Yeah, I remember when that happened: they started flagging a lot of LGBTQ content just for being LGBTQ.

Wasn't there also a story somewhat recently of a guy (a reporter I think) asking youtube to take down content from a youtuber that was using his plataform to instigate homophobic hate against him? As I recall youtube said that it was his freedom of speech and did nothing about it.

Anyways, youtube has a bad track record with the LGBTQ community, hopefully this sets a positive presedent for the platform to change its ways for the better.

[Bt1 5,213]

Unfortunately the reality is that youtube is available in parts of the world where beeing gay remains controversial. That is probably part of the problem. Another is that LGBT content is mass flagged by christian people, so the algorithm interpret the content as beeing problematic. 

[IcePrincess 2,787]

It's private company and they can do whatever they want.. You can go on dailymotion or FB bye.

[SissyFromSpace 20,884]

 

[Supersonic 49,376]

7 minutes ago, Florin said:

Unfortunately the reality is that youtube is available in parts of the world where beeing gay remains controversial. That is probably part of the problem. Another is that LGBT content is mass flagged by christian people, so the algorithm interpret the content as beeing problematic. 

That's not the problem. The problem is that the companies that provide the ad revenue for YouTube are notoriously anti-gay and archconservative (as companies usually are). If they're not willing to have their ads played on LGBT+ content while LGBT+ is exponentially growing on the platform, YouTube is in danger of losing some (miniscule) coins.

[weed 78,884]

16 minutes ago, IcePrincess said:

It's private company and they can do whatever they want.. You can go on dailymotion or FB bye.

silly bitch

[darkchylde 14,857]

18 minutes ago, IcePrincess said:

It's private company and they can do whatever they want.. You can go on dailymotion or FB bye.

private companies actually can't do "whatever they want". that's what laws are for. stop being an ass, let people work for a better world. you'll only benefit from it.

[LaMaisonGaga 23,884]

23 minutes ago, IcePrincess said:

It's private company and they can do whatever they want.. You can go on dailymotion or FB bye.

How does it feel to be a clown? 

[Bt1 5,213]

1 minute ago, Supersonic said:

That's not the problem. The problem is that the companies that provide the ad revenue for YouTube are notoriously anti-gay and archconservative (as companies usually are). If they're not willing to have their ads played on LGBT+ content while LGBT+ is exponentially growing on the platform, YouTube is in danger of losing some (miniscule) coins.

Yea, thats another problem youtube has in general. It isnt LGBT specific. For example, anime channels had the same problems because the algorithm thinks it is mature content. 

[FameHookah 4,840]

That issue affects other channels too, since pewdiepie's scandal years ago..

It sucks, the views and earnings went downhill since (even more so for horror and violent gaming channels)

Even if you got killed on Minecraft and put in the title youtube gets triggered and restricts the video.

But i still dont know WHY clean gay videos are restricted..

 

 

 

[PartySick 172,424]

2 hours ago, jacs vs looser said:

Yeah, I remember when that happened: they started flagging a lot of LGBTQ content just for being LGBTQ.

Wasn't there also a story somewhat recently of a guy (a reporter I think) asking youtube to take down content from a youtuber that was using his plataform to instigate homophobic hate against him? As I recall youtube said that it was his freedom of speech and did nothing about it.

Anyways, youtube has a bad track record with the LGBTQ community, hopefully this sets a positive presedent for the platform to change its ways for the better.

Because they value advertisers above all

They think...

Hate speech = expression = free speech

But...

LGBT+ topics = sex talk = not ad friendly