YouTube hit the news this week with an uproar about their service hosting videos containing homophobic slurs. In this article, Link published on Monday 6/10, the CEO of YouTube says she is “personally sorry” for the videos being on the platform, but refused to take them down.
With June being the official Pride month for the LGBTQ community, and the recent publicity surrounding the murders of several transgender women, the refusal to recognize and remove the abusive videos strikes a poignant chord for the community. According to the article, YouTube said last week it would begin “banning videos containing Nazi ideology, as well as those ‘denying well documented violent events’, such as the Holocaust or the Sandy Hook massacre.”
First, not every video containing the above is “bad”. Erasing history doesn’t stop it and refusing to show the effects of the “Nazi ideology” only reinforces the idea it’s okay. Are they also going to stop showing what happened on 9/11? That event had a significant impact on America, and the rest of the world, and precipitated the “war on terror.” This does not mean I support the idea of supremacy of any one person over another - it means I support the idea of learning from the history of our country, and our world. You cannot prevent this from happening again if you don’t know it happened in the first place and acting like it didn’t happen is a slap in the face to the millions of people who not only died, but had their entire history erased.
Second, hate is hate is hate. As the parent of a transgender child, I spend every day of my life in abject terror for my child’s safety. I have stopped sleeping because I have so many nightmares I wake up vomiting in fear. I spend significant amounts of time researching and preparing to answer questions about medical procedures to help my child live their authentic self, and ensuring my child knows they are loved and supported. I find it absolutely ludicrous it’s okay to gay bash in a video on a public forum such as YouTube, but actual history is erased. How is pretending the Holocaust didn’t happen going to help teach our children the consequences of blind faith without question, and acceptance of differences? This move by YouTube tells me, as a parent, my kids are not safe on their platform. This tells me people who are different in any way from classic white American man is not safe on their platform.
I would really like to boycott YouTube, but since they are owned by Google, and Google runs the internet this isn't a viable option. What CAN be done though, is to write our legislative teams and ask for more information. Ask for stronger protections on hate speech. Demand respect for individuality. Be more than our history.
