Today is a day that ends in y, so the outrage mob is in full-swing once again. The latest victim of cancel-culture is comedian Steven Crowder, a polemicist whose unfiltered style has made him the target of a deplatforming campaign.
Left-wing Vox journalist Carlos Maza, a frequent target of Crowder’s mockery, is trying to get YouTube to ban the conservative comedian from their platform, where he has amassed nearly 4 million subscribers.
After Maza created a video calling for the removal of right-of-center perspectives from news coverage (he specifically praised "gatekeeping" as a function of journalism), Crowder shot back with a scathing takedown in which he kept referring to him as "gay Latino" or some variation. Maza shot back with a lengthy clip of samples of Crowder calling him a number of other names, including "lispy" and "queer." He called on YouTube to ban Crowder, and later began discussing the need to keep advertisers off his videos on the platform. (Note that most of Crowder's content is subscription-based.)
Since I started working at Vox, Steven Crowder has been making video after video "debunking" Strikethrough. Every single video has included repeated, overt attacks on my sexual orientation and ethnicity. Here's a sample: pic.twitter.com/UReCcQ2Elj
— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) May 31, 2019
Anyway, if you want to help, I guess you can go to this dude's videos and flag them? But @YouTube isn't going to do anything, because YouTube does not give a fuck about queer creators. It cares about "engagement," and homophobic/racist harassment is VERY "engaging."
— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) May 31, 2019
Maza has described Crowder’s mockery as “dehumanizing,” and thousands of his supporters are calling for censorship. Yet Crowder is a comedian and frequently speaks in hyperbolic and inflammatory language — that’s the point of comedy. It’s supposed to be offensive and provocative.
Maza and his mob apparently can’t take a joke. They have appealed to YouTube’s “hate speech” policy to try to get Crowder removed, which bans “content promoting violence or hatred against individuals or groups.”
This continues a disturbing trend of left-wing journalists (who of all people should understand the importance of free speech) treating mockery and derision as if it were an actual incitement to violence. Sure, Crowder’s words are going to offend some people; it's part of his comedic style. He refers to his co-hosts as "half-Asian lawyer Bill Richmond" and "quarter-black Garrett."
Crowder's follow-up video to Maza's complaint was a tongue-in-cheek apology for years of deliberately offensive comments, all of which he took the occasion to repeat in the space of 21 minutes. It quickly went viral, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
Is it hurtful to some people when you make fun of their taking offense? Sure. But none of this is a reason to deplatform Crowder. Millions of people have voted with their viewership, and it isn’t the place of outrage mobs or cowardly Big Tech companies to decide what we’re allowed to watch or what ideas are acceptable.
At first, YouTube made the right call and refused to cave to the mob:
(3/4) As an open platform, it’s crucial for us to allow everyone–from creators to journalists to late-night TV hosts–to express their opinions w/in the scope of our policies. Opinions can be deeply offensive, but if they don’t violate our policies, they’ll remain on our site.
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) June 4, 2019
UPDATE: Alas, it was not to last. YouTube caved under fire from left-wing activists who accused the company of “validating targeted harassment.” Maza himself called their basic defense of free speech a “batshit policy that gives bigots free license.” He called on all gay and transgender YouTube employees to resign in protest and is trying to get gay content creators to boycott the site as well. Maza and his illiberal cohorts hope (surely in vain) to browbeat YouTube further into submission.