The LGBTQ Community Receives An Apology From YouTube CEO

Right after a recent event where YouTube did not consider homophobic remarks as a violation of its policies, which raised strong objections from the LGBTQ community, Susan Wojcicki – The company's CEO had to give an apology to the community.

On Monday, at a conference in Scottsdale, Susan mentioned that the final decision of YouTube was hurtful to this community, but the company did not intend to make that happen, and they were truly sorry for what they have done.

Prior to this event, a conservative pundit named Steven Crowder had made some racist and homophobic comments on Carlos Maza, a writer of Vox. Steven called Carlos “gay Mexican” and “lipsy queer.” YouTube failed to take strict actions against this behavior of Crowder.

Regarding the complaints of Maza, Google's video-sharing platform responded that much as Steven had some inappropriate comments about the LGBTQ community, the video content did not violate any terms of their policies.

This very decision led to a mass outcry from YouTube critics and creators, as well as Google's employees. They even signed a petition against it.

Trying to apology and defense the company’s decision, Wojcicki stated that she was personally sorry for all the inconvenience caused. Much as the company wanted to support the community, they still had to stick to their policies. If the company took this particular video down, there would be many more videos that also need to be taken down as well.

Crowder's channel on YouTube is left untouched, but the company did remove the advertisement from it, as reported.

In March, HRC (Human Rights Campaign) Foundation – an LGBTQ civil rights advocacy group in the US – decided to suspend Google from its own CEI (Corporate Equality Index) in 2019, given the fact that it failed to remove a conversation therapy app from PlayStore.

YouTube is considering re-evaluating its harassment policies.