YouTube is allowing right-wing creators with millions of subscribers to misgender and deadname trans people on its platform — and monetizing that content through advertising.  YouTube has claimed for years to be committed to protecting trans people from hate speech and harassment on the platform while resisting advocates’ calls to explicitly prohibit intentionally deadnaming or misgendering trans people — forms of harassment that involve using a trans person's former name or incorrect pronouns.  Media Matters reviewed the YouTube channels of popular right-wing pundits including The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, and Candace Owens and found that they have repeatedly misgendered and deadnamed high-profile trans people, including minors. What’s more, their content misidentifying trans people was frequently monetized, meaning that YouTube and the creators likely profited from this bigotry. Though YouTube has temporarily suspended or demonetized accounts in the past for violating its hate speech and harassment policies by promoting bigotry against LGBTQ people, the platform’s lack of explicit rules around misgendering and deadnaming has left YouTube rife with monetized anti-trans vitriol.
    • kamenLady.@lemmy.worldEnglish
      142·
      10 months ago

      The sad thing is that there’s a market for hate in the first place and it’s obviously very profitable. Therefore, enough demand exists.

  • deweydecibel@lemmy.worldEnglish
    528·
    10 months ago

    Oh yeah, if there was ever any reason to take their “advertising helps keep YouTube free” shit and tell them to blow it out their ass, it’s the sheer amount of hateful garbage that they let those ads run on.

    Just think of all the right wing bullshit and “anti-woke” content creators there are nowadays popping out bullshit. Look at all the YouTubers that have just gone full mask off because they found it’s actually profitable.

    Go search for X-Men, and look how many videos have come out in the last week that are nothing but commentary on the news about the non-binary character. Appreciate that that level of content is being produced with every headline. Think about the money being made there, by both youtube, and those content creators.

    This is a hate machine that YouTube is directly funding. And until they stop that, they can take their whining about ad blockers and fuck right off.

    • FunkPhenomenon@lemmy.zipEnglish
      84·
      10 months ago

      havent seen ads on YT in years. it’s rather trivial to filter that via browser addons - or just use a 3rd party client like FreeTube

      • dai@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        10 months ago

        Mentioning clients LibreTube or PipePipe on android tick the boxes for me. Piped.video let me import my subs and gives me my subscription feed back, same login on LibreTube keeps things cross-platform which is nice

        After paying for YTP Family for a number of years, their recent price increase was too much to warrant. I was happy paying ~$25 for multiple people but increasing to ~$35 was a massive jump.

  • thehatfox@lemmy.worldEnglish
    281·
    10 months ago

    Not only does YouTube allow content like this to be monetised, they are often also actively promoting it. Alt-right videos regularly pop up in YouTube recommendations, even for users who never watch any political content.

    All that matters is engagement, and apparently that kind of content is very effective in keeping people watching. Regardless of the broader consequences.

    • gmtom@lemmy.worldEnglish
      112·
      10 months ago

      Yep I get recommended Anti-trans videos in completely unrelated searches. Like this absolutely vile Blair white one comes up whenever I search for ASMR now. Even though it shows naked trans people and I’ve reported it dozens of times.

    • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      10 months ago

      Don’t know if they’re alt-right or what, but I’ve been seeing this on both YT and a little bit on DeviantArt. It’s all conserva-toon (or whenever they are, I ain’t looking them up because I don’t care).

      On DeviantArt, it’s my fault because some of the posts I’ve favorited and people I follow have done some slightly political things sometimes.

  • rayyy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    194·
    10 months ago

    YouTube and right-wing creators are profiting from anti-trans vitriol

  • p3e7@lemm.eeEnglish
    103·
    10 months ago

    The Sweet Baby Inc. situation is taking this to another level currently. Maybe it’s my bubble, but it seems everyone is talking about it.

    • shani66@ani.socialEnglish
      5·
      10 months ago

      If you care one bit about artistic expression you’ll find yourself in a really weird place on YouTube. Sure i think sbi is basically worthless, and their track record is apparently pretty mid on top of that, but this isn’t the bizarre conspiracy people are trying to make it out to be.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    10 months ago

    Just like the Press profits from just about all inane political statements out there and the subsequent responses…