June 6, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The Google-owned video giant YouTube cut off all revenue from the channel of conservative commentator and comedian Steven Crowder Wednesday, in response to calls from the left-wing news outlet Vox to ban Crowder entirely.
On May 30, Vox personality Carlos Maza published an obscenity-laden Twitter thread complaining that Crowder regularly mocks and fact-checks his videos, in the process making jokes about Maza’s voice, mannerisms, ethnicity, and homosexuality. He claimed that YouTube tolerating Crowder proved the platform “does not give a f*** about queer creators.”
On June 5, YouTube announced that while “individually” the flagged Crowder videos were not in violation, “in the subsequent days, we saw the widespread harm to the YouTube community resulting from the ongoing pattern of egregious behavior, took a deeper look, and made the decision to suspend monetization. In order to be considered for reinstatement, all relevant issues with the channel need to be addressed, including any videos that violate our policies, as well as things like offensive merchandise.”
“They completely…didn’t just demonetize our videos, [they] booted us from the Partner Program,” Crowder confirmed Wednesday evening, “and they didn’t really give us reasoning.” After several communications between YouTube and Crowder’s attorney Bill Richmond, the platform identified a handful of past videos that Crowder says have not only been online without issue for years, but YouTube itself had previously confirmed were within its guidelines.
YouTube also singled out a shirt Crowder sold displaying the face of Communist revolutionary and far-left campus icon Che Guevara with the message “Socialism is for Figs,” which critics attacked for the similarity to an anti-homosexual slur. Removing links to the shirt would be one of the conditions for restoring monetization, YouTube confirmed.
YouTube also announced it will be removing “thousands” of “extreme” videos pushing “hate,” the New York Times reports, of which Crowder said, “at least a few hundred are ours. They didn’t make a delineation between white supremacists and jokes. They didn’t make a difference between Nazis and this program. That’s important to keep in mind because a lot of people reading this are going, ‘it’s great to purge white supremacist videos.’ Well, that’s why figs is trending, because this is considered amongst them.”
In response to Maza’s specific grievances, Crowder explained that he doesn’t hate anyone, but jokes about aspects of Maza that Maza himself has made light of in his own work (his Twitter handle is @GayWonk). As for the threats and harassment Maza claims to receive from conservatives, Crowder added, “I know you couldn’t understand the kind of pressure that we have here. You wouldn’t make it a day on the ISIS kill list, let alone the ultra-premium frequent flier mileage that I’ve accrued.”
Crowder explained that the move meant little for his program’s financial situation, which relies primarily on his Mug Club subscription service and sponsors such as the gun company Walther. Maza responded with outrage that YouTube didn’t ban Crowder outright:
Demonetizing �� doesn't �� work. ��
Abusers use it as proof they're being “discriminated” against. Then they make millions off of selling merch, doing speaking gigs, and getting their followers to support them on Patreon.
The ad revenue isn't the problem. It's the platform.
— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) June 5, 2019
The problem isn't Crowder and the problem isn't monetization.
The problem is that @YouTube allows monsters and bullies to become superstars, break YouTube's rules, build an army of loyal, radicalized followers, and then make millions selling them merch that sustains their work.
— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) June 5, 2019
“We’re not really beholden to the YouTube advertisers, and that is why Carlos Maza is so upset,” Crowder said. “This is what people need to understand, this isn’t Carlos Maza, this is absolutely Vox, a billion-dollar company that is going after a voice that is more effective than them at dealing with their misinformation.”
“They aren’t happy because, they expressly outlined it, they want everyone who disagrees with them to be removed,” he continued. “You would think ‘hey, Louder With Crowder, those guys have been demonetized. All I ever wanted was for them to be destitute because I claim they’re the bullies but I wanna make sure that no one there, including low-level employees have no ability to make a living.’ But you know what? That’s not what they want. They want to make sure that no one is allowed to express an opinion at all.”
Crowder warned that while his show personally is safe (for the time being), YouTube’s crackdown on “offensive” humor will have dire ramifications for smaller voices without alternate revenue sources.
Many conservatives spoke out against YouTube, spreading the hashtag #VoxAdpocalypse and highlighting samples of the violent left-wing content YouTube hasn’t demonetized:
This aged terribly. #VoxAdpocalypse https://t.co/rGf9xbHpjz
— PragerU (@prageru) June 6, 2019
This is nuts. YouTube needs to explain why @scrowder is banned, but @iamsambee (“Ivanka is a feckless c***.”) & @JimCarrey (“look at my pretty picture of Gov. Kay Ivey being murdered in the womb”) aren’t. No coherent standard explains it. Here’s an idea: DON’T BLACKLIST ANYBODY. https://t.co/F6ez8XHzXS
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 6, 2019
Hey @YouTube , does Colbert’s video skit of me getting shot violate your standards also or are you only specifically demonetizing conservatives? https://t.co/Kq1J7QybKC https://t.co/WjxyX8PPhB
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) June 5, 2019
Others noted that Maza himself is no stranger to actual harassment:
Carlos Maza of Vox has called for the physical assault of people in order to humiliate them. He then is outraged that someone makes fun of him online resulting in his humiliation.
Maza insinuates then that an authority or 'principal' like figure needs to enforce rules pic.twitter.com/2cgAnSdw0V
— Tim Pool (@Timcast) June 1, 2019
This is only the latest case of apparent anti-conservative discrimination at YouTube. Previous targets include Dennis Prager’s PragerU educational videos, the pro-life group Live Action, Christian author Dr. Michael Brown, and a recent interview between Catholic evangelist Patrick Coffin and LifeSiteNews co-founder and editor-in-chief John-Henry Westen.