Thursday, June 08, 2023

YouTube demonetizes Candace Owens’ anti-trans videos, citing hateful conduct

2023/06/08
Candace Owens speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference at The Rosen Shingle Creek on Feb. 25, 2022, in Orlando, Florida. - Joe Raedle/Getty Images North America/TNS

YouTube announced it has demonetized multiple videos on the channel of conservative commentator Candace Owens, citing violations of its policies concerning hateful and derogatory content.

The company specified these violations stem from instances of misgendering or deadnaming, although those actions are not stated publicly as part of their policy, reports NBC News.

In a statement Monday, Owens said YouTube extended “an option to delete every video that I’ve ever done pertaining to gender, in which I have accurately gendered someone.” She referred to “accurately gendering” as using the pronouns assigned at birth instead of those preferred by trans people.

In a podcast episode titled “I Have An Announcement to Make,” Owens shared YouTube’s decision to classify her misgendering remarks as “hateful conduct.”

The company blocked ads on “several videos on Candace Owen’s channel for violating our monetization policies, including those against hateful and derogatory content,” Google spokesperson Michael Aciman said.

According to the company’sguidelines on hateful content, YouTube is allowed to restrict ads from running on content which “promotes discrimination, disparages, or humiliates an individual or group of people.”

Aciman said the policy could lead to action against content that “may include deliberate deadnaming or misgendering of transgender individuals,” which is considered an attack on the LGBTQ+ community.

The decision seems to be a shift for the company, which reportedly stated in 2022 that it does not consider purposeful misgendering as a violation of its rules, according to Axios.

Conservatives like Owens have commonly used deliberate misgendering as way to harass transgender people.

The action stands at the center of a continuing cultural debate online of what constitutes free speech versus hate speech.

© New York Daily News




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