• YouTube announced new bullying and harassment policies that will prohibit implied threats and malicious insults based on a person’s sexuality, race, or gender expression.
• Under the new policy, channels who show a pattern of harassing behavior by continuously making remarks that come close to violating the harassment policy could also receive consequences.
• These changes come several months after a public controversy where former Vox host Carlos Maza accused conservative commentator Steven Crowder of harassing him on his channel. While Crowder did repeatedly call Maza names like “lispy queer,” YouTube said this was not a violation of their policy.
• Many were not happy with YouTube’s new policy, resulting in #YouTubeIsOverParty trending on Twitter. Some creators say they have already been impacted by the guidelines.

YouTube’s New Policy

YouTube announced new policy changes that will prohibit implied threats and malicious insults based on a person’s sexuality, race, or gender expression.

In a Wednesday blog post, the company announced that it was tightening the rules in regards to its bullying and harassment guidelines. These rules come after months of review with creators, experts from bullying organizations, free speech proponents, and advisers along all sides of the political spectrum.

“Harassment hurts our community by making people less inclined to share their opinions and engage with each other,” YouTube’s post said. “We heard this time and again from creators, including those who met with us during the development of this policy update.”

The company’s first major change aims to take “a stronger stance against threats and personal attacks.” YouTube’s guidelines previously said videos with explicit threats in them would have actions taken against them, and its new policy extends that to include videos with veiled or implied threats.

“This includes content simulating violence toward an individual or language suggesting physical violence may occur,” the post explains.  

On top of threatening someone, this will also cover demeaning language that YouTube feels crosses the line. This will include “content that maliciously insults someone based on protected attributes such as their race, gender expression, or sexual orientation.”

YouTube also addressed consequences for a “pattern of harassing behavior.” The company’s post says that creators found that harassment sometimes stemmed from remarks repeatedly made over the course of a series of videos or comments. Even though these individual videos or comments may not directly violate YouTube’s policy on their own, the company still has a plan to combat this. 

“Channels that repeatedly brush up against our harassment policy will be suspended from [YouTube Partner Program], eliminating their ability to make money on YouTube,” YouTube said. The platform added that this content could be removed, and channels could receive strikes or be terminated. 

YouTube clarified that these changes would also apply to the platform’s comment section, not just the videos posted. The company believes this will result in the number of comments removed from the site increasing, noting that 16 million were removed in their third quarter. 

YouTube also outlined newer tools that have recently been added that give creators some control over their comment section.

“When we’re not sure a comment violates our policies, but it seems potentially inappropriate, we give creators the option to review it before it’s posted on their channel,” YouTube said.

In the early stages of the roll-out, YouTube saw a 75% reduction in user flags on comments. Most creators now have this setting, but can opt-out of it if they would like. They can also ignore the held comments. 

“We expect there will continue to be healthy debates over some of the decisions and we have an appeals process in place if creators believe we’ve made the wrong call on a video,” the company said of this new update. 

Why Did YouTube Change Its Policy?

Many believe these changes were prompted by the controversy between Carlos Maza, who hosted a series for Vox, and Steven Crowder, who hosts a series called Louder with Crowder on YouTube. Back in May, Maza tweeted a thread calling Crowder out for repeatedly calling him names on his show. Crowder repeatedly referred to Maza as “Mr. Gay Vox,” a “lispy queer,” and “gay Latino from Vox” in a mocking tone. 

Crowder defended himself, saying this should not count as bullying, as he made these comments while providing criticism of Maza’s series. YouTube ended up responding to Maza saying that his comments, while potentially offensive, did not violate their policy.

Maza continued to call YouTube out for this decision. He said this “gives bigots free license” and accused the site of using its gay creators. Many criticized YouTube’s response, which came in June as the company celebrated pride month. Some found it hypocritical for the company to be publically celebrating the LGBTQ community while also allowing comments some perceived as homophobic to stay on their site.

Because of all this backlash, YouTube ended up suspending Crowder’s revenue. This decision was also met with outrage.

Maza and Crowder React

Maza tweeted a thread about the new policy on Wednesday morning. He claims that the real problem is whether or not YouTube will enforce it on all creators, which he thinks is unlikely. 

“YouTube loves to manage PR crises by rolling out vague content policies they don’t actually enforce,” he wrote. “These policies only work if YouTube is willing to take down its most popular rule-breakers. And there’s no reason, so far, to believe that it is.”

Before YouTube made their official announcement, Crowder posted a video titled “Urgent. The YouTube ‘Purge’ Is Coming.” The video was uploaded Tuesday and is based largely on murmurs about what was to come. He said the policies could silence and negatively impact his channel and others like it. 

“Obviously my heart goes out to any future conservative or any future independent voices that are affected because people got their feelings hurt,” he said. 

Policy Gets Negative Feedback

Other creators also shared their reactions, with some saying they were already being impacted by the new changes. Ian Carter, known online as iDubbbz, tweeted a screenshot of an email from YouTube saying his video “Content Cop: Leafy” was taken down for violating guidelines.

He uses vulgar and antagonistic language in the video, and jokes about bullying being okay. Many, however, don’t think the video should have been removed as it was meant to call out someone else’s bad behavior. 

Another creator, Gokanaru said his video critiquing h3h3 productions was removed. 

Some online were frustrated with this, noting that their videos should not be taken down while someone like Onision, who has been accused of predatory behavior and grooming, still has videos online. 

#YouTubeIsOverParty was a trending topic on Twitter by late Wednesday morning. Many used the hashtag to say that the policy could negatively impact creativity on the platform and that YouTube should not try to make this seem like this was a policy that creators asked for.  

Even though the trending topic gained a lot of traction, YouTuber Taylor Harris said that as far as the use of the site goes, YouTube will likely be unimpacted. 

See what others are saying: (Axios) (Tech Crunch) (Vox)