Update on our continued review–we have suspended this channel’s monetization. We came to this decision because a pattern of egregious actions has harmed the broader community and is against our YouTube Partner Program policies.
This, the latest from YouTube after first saying there was nothing at all they could do about Steven Crowder’s ongoing harassment of Carlos Maza, is reflective of some things Jack Dorsey said awhile back about the companies he runs.
In a galling Rolling Stone interview early this year, Dorsey remained detached and a bit coldly dismissive about nazis on Twitter, but became much more animated when discussing the need for things to run smoothly when it came to Square because “you’re dealing with people’s money” and that’s “extremely emotional”.
YouTube, apparently, agrees, thinking that as long as they prevent Crowder from directly profiting off of YouTube, everything is fine. Of course, he will continue to profit indirectly, YouTube itself will profit from his continued presence, and any other hateful people recommended off of Crowder’s channel will continue profiting as well.
Money, it seems, is emotional. So they will halt (some of) the flow of money to Crowder, but not the flow of money to themselves, or other likely harassers. The harassment, itself, however, carries no emotional weight for them.
Demonetizing harassers literally is the least YouTube can do besides doing nothing. It only vaguely harms Crowder, and requires nothing from YouTube itself. It’s certainly nowhere near best practices.
Harassment occurring on your platform should result in deplatforming the harasser. Harassment occurring off your platform should result in deplatforming the harasser. Good community codes of conduct, like most of the ones I’ve been considering for Write House, make that clear.