Video sharing platform YouTube has announced that it will ban videos that "maliciously insult someone" and "implied threats of violence" as part of its new harassment policy.
YouTube has updated its harassment policy and will now ban videos that maliciously insult a person based on "protected attributes" such as race, gender identity or sexuality, as well as those that contain implied threats of violence.
YouTube's introduction of its new harassment policy follows a controversy in June after a prominent video maker claimed that he had been the target of abuse by another YouTube star. While the company maintained at the time that no rules have been violated, it has since deleted many of the videos in question.
Neal Mohan, chief product officer at YouTube, said: "Even if a single video doesn't cross the line, with our new harassment policy we can take a pattern of behavior into account for enforcement."
The controversy
Journalist Carlos Maza, who presented videos for the Vox channel, said he had been persistently the subject of abuse by Steven Crowder, who presents a talk show on YouTube. Vox had about six million subscribers while Crowder had around four million at the time.
To prove his point, Maza created a video compilation of all the times Crowder insulted his sexual orientation and ethnicity. In those clips, Crowder mimicked Maza's accent and called him various names, including a "lispy queer", a "gay Vox sprite" and a "gay Mexican".
While Crowder claimed that the language he had used to mock Maza was "friendly ribbing," sine if his viewers went on to harass Maza on social media.
YouTube said the new policy would be applicable to "everyone" including politicians and popular YouTube stars as well as the general public and that video makers who consistently violate the rules will have their ability to earn advertising revenue restricted, and may have videos deleted or their channel shut down.
