The Silicon Valley Thought Police have struck again.
On Monday, YouTube, which is owned by Google, issued what it calls a “hard strike” and placed temporary restrictions on conservative comedian Steven Crowder’s channel. In addition, the tech company has indefinitely removed Crowder from its Partner Program, which allows channels to run ads and monetizes creators’ channels.
Crowder’s YouTube channel, which boasts nearly 5.4 million subscribers, remains up for now, but the comedian is prohibited from posting any new videos — including his popular daily program Louder With Crowder — for one week.
Crowder’s new videos can still be seen at his website louderwithcrowder.com. His full show can also be seen at the Blaze TV, although it is protected by a paywall.
In addition, a popular video produced by Crowder and his staff entitled HUGE: Nevada Voter Mysteries DEEPEN was permanently removed from the platform, because, according to YouTube, “it violates our spam, deceptive practices and scams policy.”
The video in question made no claims of mass voter fraud, did not claim that President Donald Trump was the real winner of the 2020 election, or insinuate that fraud was the deciding factor in the 2020 election — all things that, according to YouTube’s own Presidential Election Integrity Policy, were grounds for removal of a video. Instead, it questioned the integrity of Nevada’s voter-registration rolls, showing that several of the addresses of registered voters in Clark County either did not exist or were businesses, parking lots, etc. Notably, the address of former Clinton staffer Christina Gupana appeared to have been changed overnight following the broadcast.
Crowder reacted to the suspension in an Instagram post: “Big Tech, and specifically YouTube, have painted a target on Conservatives’ backs for years, with yours truly being target #1. Today, Google/YouTube just fired a HUGE shot across our bow. They are no longer enforcing ‘community guidelines’ but creating entirely new ones with the express purpose of removing any and all Conservative voices of dissent.”
“For the crime of investigative journalism, we are forbidden from uploading, posting or live-streaming for an entire week on the main channel,” Crowder said. After several media outlets noted that the comedian would circumvent YouTube’s suspension by posting on a separate YouTube channel — Crowder Bits — that channel was suspended as well.
Crowder – who boasts nearly 5.4 million subscribers on YouTube – is currently suing Facebook for interrupting his livestream of the November 4, 2020 general election, vowed that he would fight YouTube’s censorship but didn’t elaborate on just how. “Don’t worry, we’ve got something for them,” the comedian noted cryptically.
YouTube explained its actions in a letter to Crowder’s attorney Bill Richmond:
Unfortunately, in recent months the Steven Crowder channel has incurred two violations identified to date of our Community Guidelines and repeated violations of our monetization policies, including those related to misinformation and incendiary and demeaning content. We have also recently received renewed advertiser criticism about content on the Steven Crowder channel. We have a responsibility to ensure that our community is safe for creators, viewers and advertisers.
Apparently, “safe” is in the eye of the beholder, as YouTube routinely hosts videos such as one entitled GAY GUYS PLAY KINKY VIDEO GAMES, a video which is just as vile as the title suggests.
This isn’t the first time Crowder has run afoul of YouTube’s angry censors. In the spring of 2019, Crowder engaged in a back-and-forth insult contest with the openly gay Vox personality Carlos Maza, who was also once a staffer for the far-left media “watchdog” organization Media Matters.
Maza accused Crowder of making anti-LGBT slurs against him and organized a campaign to have Crowder removed from the platform. After YouTube investigated the matter, it concluded that Crowder had not violated its terms of service. Yet, the platform did remove Crowder from the Partner Program at that time, thus removing the possibility of his making money from YouTube videos. Crowder would go on to regain his Partner Program status in August of 2020.
Give Crowder credit: He’s willing to be a canary in the coal mine for other creators who are more concerned with creating content that viewers want to see, instead of toeing Big Tech’s imaginary and ever-changing line. The Maza incident shows that Crowder ultimately follows YouTube’s guidelines, although he admittedly runs right up against them.
