The Great Silencing: YouTube Caves to a Left-Wing Censorship Mob
Whether you’re the biggest Steven Crowder fan on the planet or you find his videos juvenile and unfunny, what happened to him (and thousands of other YouTube creators) last week should chill you to the bone. The platform upon which Crowder, an online comedian and political commentator, makes his living has decided to de-monetize him. Not because they took a careful, thorough look at his content on their own, but because they couldn’t take the heat generated by a left-wing mob intent on censorship.
That mob was ignited by Vox writer Carlos Maza, a “lisping queer” (in Crowder’s estimation) who decided he’d had enough of being mocked and laughed at by the conservative and his audience. As part of something called the Vox Adpocalypse, Maza went on a Twitter storm against Crowder, demanding that his enemy be censored and de-platformed for making fun of his homosexuality.
And, after taking a reasonable stance for a day or so, YouTube ultimately gave in. They didn’t throw Crowder off their platform, but they de-monetized his videos. In other words, someone will still be making money off of Louder with Crowder; it just won’t be the guy whose name is in the title.
Now here’s what’s really smarmy about Maza and his buddies at Vox. Only a couple of days after this successful mob attack on their ideological enemies, they walked off the job. That’s right, at the same time that they were trying to steal the livelihoods of those they disagree with, they were trying to milk Vox for more money. And now they’re on strike, having proven their worth to the left-wing site by eradicating conservatives from YouTube. Well, conservatives and anyone else unlucky enough to get caught up in this censorship roundup (that group already includes historical Nazi documentaries and even progressives who talk negatively about white supremacy).
Oh, and there’s this: Maza isn’t even satisfied.
“Demonetizing doesn’t work,” he whined on Twitter. “Abusers use it as proof they’re being ‘discriminated’ against. Then they make millions off of selling merch, doing speaking gigs, and getting their followers to support them on Patreon. The ad revenue isn’t the problem. It’s the platform.”
In other words, things won’t be right with the world until a guy like Steven Crowder actually has no place to reach viewers. All because he made fun of Maza’s lisp and his homosexual, socialist agenda.
YouTube ought to be ashamed of itself for caving in to this madness, but we’re not even slightly surprised. We are at the beginning of a sinister threat to free speech, and the major tech companies who control our most visible online spaces are going right along with it. It’s only going to get uglier from here.