Two months after the CEO of YouTube offered a public apology to the LGBT community, the company is now facing a federal lawsuit alleging discrimination.
Five LGBT creators are suing YouTube and accusing it of discriminating against their videos about the LGBT topics, such as by restricting their audience and therefore reducing the creators' advertising revenue, while not applying the same standards to videos made by more popular channels, The Washington Post reports. The lawsuit was filed in San Jose, California.
The platform, the lawsuit alleges, has become a "chaotic cesspool" in which LGBT content "is restricted, stigmatized, and demonetized as 'shocking,' 'inappropriate,' 'offensive,' and 'sexually explicit,' while homophobic and racist hatemongers run wild and are free to post vile and obscene content," The Verge reports. As The Verge points out, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki recently denied the idea that YouTube will automatically "automatically demonetize" videos based on "certain words in a title," as LGBT creators have alleged.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
YouTube came under fire earlier this summer after saying that conservative commentator Steven Crowder's videos featuring homophobic slurs against a gay journalist did not violate its policies, although his videos were later demonetized. YouTube in response said it would take a "hard look" at its harassment policies as Wojcicki apologized to the LGBT community while still defending the decision.
Moderators for YouTube recently spoke to The Washington Post and anonymously accused the company of having a "double-standard for different users" and being "more lenient" with popular creators, such as Crowder, who has more than four million subscribers. Describing the Crowder uproar, one moderator said, "YouTube's stance is that nothing is really an issue until there is a headline about it."
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fineSpeed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
