YouTube Says Bullying Someone For Being Gay And Latino Is Just “Opinion”

“Opinions can be deeply offensive, but if they don’t violate our policies, they’ll remain on our site,” YouTube said.

YouTube has decided not to take action against a right-wing personality accused of harassing Vox host Carlos Maza in a number of videos posted to the platform.

In a series of tweets to Maza on Tuesday, YouTube said its teams took a closer look at his complaints and determined that while some of the language in the videos posted by Steven Crowder was "clearly hurtful," it did not violate the platform's policies.

"Our teams spent the last few days conducting an in-depth review of the videos flagged to us, and while we found language that was clearly hurtful, the videos as posted don’t violate our policies," YouTube said in a series of posts on Twitter.

The company added that it is crucial for the platform to allow everyone to express their opinions within "the scope of our policies."

"Opinions can be deeply offensive, but if they don’t violate our policies, they’ll remain on our site," YouTube tweeted.

Maza blasted the platform last week in a viral Twitter thread describing the harassment he has been experiencing from Crowder and his followers. The commentator has published a number of videos mocking Maza, calling him a “lispy queer” and making other racist and anti-gay comments.

Maza, who hosts the Vox show Strikethrough, said he and Vox have directly reached out to YouTube for the past two years “and have gotten no action at all from them.”

On Monday, Crowder posted a video titled "I'm Sorry" in which he repeated and apologized for a slew of comments and insults he's made against various public figures, companies, and groups of people.

In response to YouTube's tweets Tuesday night, Maza wrote, "I don't know what to say."

I don’t know what to say. @YouTube has decided not to punish Crowder, after he spent two years harassing me for being gay and Latino. I don't know what to say. https://t.co/EFvWCNvPms

YouTube's harassment and cyberbullying policy states that content that "makes hurtful and negative personal comments/videos about another person" is not allowed on the platform and will be removed.

A spokesperson for the company said in an email to BuzzFeed News that in the videos flagged to YouTube, Crowder was not instructing viewers to harass Maza and that "the main point of these videos was not to harass or threaten, but rather to respond to the opinion," and that none of Maza's personal information was given out in the videos.

The spokesperson added that when a person is a public figure, YouTube considers whether videos containing hurtful language are primarily criticizing the figure's opinions and work or are "maliciously targeting" them.

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