The Silicon Valley Thought Police are again hard at work, making sure that that pesky First Amendment doesn’t mean anything on their platforms. Google-owned YouTube has issued a second “hard strike” against conservative comedian Steven Crowder for allegedly running afoul of the platform’s harassment and cyber-bullying policies in a video that supported police action in the shooting of Ma’ Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio.
The second “hard strike” means that Crowder isn’t allowed to post any new content, including his popular Internet show Louder With Crowder for a full two weeks. A third strike would mean that Crowder would be permanently removed from the platform that made him famous.
Crowder’s ancillary channel, “Crowder Bits,” which features short clips from his show, was also hit with a hard strike, its first, and has been similarly punished for one week.
The suspension on posting new material comes as a result of Crowder’s video from April 21 entitled, “WAKE UP! Columbus Police shooting of #MaKhiaBryant was JUSTIFIED!” in which Crowder and his crew argue that the shooting of Bryant was justified since Bryant was threatening to stab another girl with a knife.
YouTube explained the “hard strike”: “YouTube creators share their opinions on a wide array of different topics. However, there’s a line between passionate debate and malicious harassment. Content containing targeted harassment, including, but not limited to, stalking, threats, bullying, and intimidation is not allowed on YouTube.
In an e-mail to Crowder’s attorney, Bill Richmond, YouTube clarified: “In particular, this video violated the policy that prohibits ‘content reveling in or mocking the death or serious injury of an identifiable individual.’”
Crowder’s team denies that the video did anything of the sort.
“The video they’re referring to didn’t revel in the death or serious injury of an identifiable individual. It seems YouTube is unhappy the studio crew agreed the shooting of a teenager who was trying to stab another was justified. White, black, Hispanic, or identifying as a transgender alien, if you’re trying to stab someone else and get shot by an officer, sorry, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles,” states Crowder’s website.
Crowder’s team then hinted that YouTube itself is engaging in targeted harassment.
“This seems like an excuse to issue just another strike. A second strike. Three strikes and the channel is gone.”
Crowder responded to the new suspension on a platform that has not banned him yet — Twitter. In a tweet, Crowder shared a video that points out YouTube’s rather obvious hypocrisy on the subjects of harassment and cyber-bullying.
“Why no live show today, you ask? Ah. Well, YouTube hit our channel with a second hard strike, saying we violated their harassment guidelines. Which is interesting when you consider all the harassment YouTube allows when it comes from the left…”
The clip features leftist comedians Bill Maher, Jimmy Kimmel, and Trevor Noah engaging in the same type of behavior that Crowder does from the Right — only in far more vulgar ways than Crowder generally does. Noah even exclaimed in one clip that he wanted to “punch” teenager Nick Sandman from the Covington Catholic School “in the face.” All of those videos remain up on YouTube as of this writing.
But apparently those videos don’t qualify as cyber-bullying by YouTube’s standards.
The new strike is the second in less than six weeks for Crowder, who has frequent run-ins with YouTube’s censors. In late March, a video entitled “HUGE: Nevada Voter Mysteries DEEPEN” was removed for allegedly violating YouTube’s “spam, deceptive practices and spam policy.”
Previously, Crowder was targeted by YouTube in 2019 for allegedly harassing Vox personality and former Media Matters employee Carlos Maza. Crowder’s page was demonetized at the time, although a few months later, YouTube again monetized Crowder’s channel months later after determining that Crowder had indeed followed the platform’s community guidelines at the time.
Crowder is also currently suing Facebook, alleging that the social-media giant engaged in “unfair competition, fraud, false advertising and antitrust” violations when it removed Crowder’s live-stream of the 2020 election from its platform.
Admittedly, Crowder sometimes pushes the envelope when it comes to YouTube’s ever-changing community guidelines, but what occasionally does from the right side of the political spectrum is a nightly occurrence for left-wingers such as Jimmy Kimmel, Steven Colbert, Trevor Noah, and Bill Maher. This targeted harassment of Crowder by YouTube serves to further prove that Silicon Valley has a liberal political ax to grind, and it’s not afraid to wield that ax when someone on the Right is being too effective for their liking.
