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LGBT Video-Makers Sue YouTube Claiming Discrimination (bbc.com) 176

Posted by BeauHD from the legal-action dept.
AmiMoJo shares a report from the BBC: A group of YouTube video-makers is suing it and parent company Google, claiming both discriminate against LGBT-themed videos and their creators. The group claims YouTube restricts advertising on LGBT videos and limits their reach and discoverability. But YouTube said sexual orientation and gender identity played no role in deciding whether videos could earn ad revenue or appear in search results. A group is hoping a jury will hear its case in California.

The legal action makes a wide range of claims, including that YouTube:
- Removes advertising from videos featuring "trigger words" such as "gay" or "lesbian"
- Often labels LGBT-themed videos as "sensitive" or "mature" and restricts them from appearing in search results or recommendations
- Does not do enough to filter harassment and hate speech in the comments section "Our policies have no notion of sexual orientation or gender identity and our systems do not restrict or demonetize videos based on these factors or the inclusion of terms like 'gay' or 'transgender,'" spokesman Alex Joseph said. "In addition, we have strong policies prohibiting hate speech and we quickly remove content that violates our policies and terminate accounts that do so repeatedly."
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LGBT Video-Makers Sue YouTube Claiming Discrimination More

LGBT Video-Makers Sue YouTube Claiming Discrimination

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  • Rhyme or reason (Score:5, Informative)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Thursday August 15, 2019 @07:34PM (#59091930)

    There is barely any rhyme or reason as to what YouTube demonetizes these days. A science channel I watch had a video demonetized that was describing how nuclear decay works. A legal channel had a video demonetized that was about what rights you have when owning a house under an HOA. A tech channel was demonetized for a copyright match on radio static.

    Their algorithms are horrifically broken.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Pretty much so. Basically, they seem to be running in circles, screaming random things.

    • Either way, they are a private, for profit entity, and they should be allowed to demonetize channels however they see fit on their platform. That leaves them vulnerable to new entrants in the marketplace, and someone will happily build a platform to monetize videos from the LGBT creators, science videos relating to nuclear decay and any other creator who Youtube feels is worthy of demonetization.

      Ceasing to be neutral is a market gap that others will fill.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Not necessarily. There needs to be enough mass that somebody thinks they can get rich of it (unfortunate, but true).

      • Either way, they are a private, for profit entity, and they should be allowed to demonetize channels however they see fit on their platform. That leaves them vulnerable to new entrants in the marketplace, and someone will happily build a platform to monetize videos from the LGBT creators, science videos relating to nuclear decay and any other creator who Youtube feels is worthy of demonetization.

        Ceasing to be neutral is a market gap that others will fill.

        In the very long run that's true. However Youtube has over a decade worth of content, it would be hard for a competitor to catch up. Now if a mass movement to clone Youtube by having everyone who has uploaded content to youtube also upload it to this new platform then Youtube might change their ways / go belly up. All the new platform would have to do is promise no demonitization and no censorship.

        • No one wants to compete with YT because it loses massive amounts of money.

        • You do business with the public, you have to respect the rules. No discrimination based on sex, gender, sexuality, gender identity, skin colour, social status, etc. Don't like the rules, move to Somalia - they don't have much in the way of government. Or Mali.

          • I already know that you're all about controlling what people can do, say, and think, while you compete in the oppression Olympics, but first of all, this isn't Canada (slashdot makes no bones about being a US centric site) and this is far more complicated than you're making it out to be.

            First off, this isn't about what YouTube wants, it's about what it's advertisers want. Advertisers are customers, they can choose to buy from whoever they want for any reason they want. Say hypothetically you didn't want to

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Advertisers are customers, they can choose to buy from whoever they want for any reason they want.

              No. If advertisers make a conscious decision to exclude people based on their sexual orientation, that's discrimination against a protected class and is illegal.

              Similarly YouTube should not even offer the ability for advertisers to discriminate that way, since it's illegal and that would be aiding and abetting.

              This is well established. We have had landlords trying to exclude tenants based on race and religion, and it's been found to be illegal in court multiple times.

              Google at the time said that they had no way to police this

              "We built this discriminatory platform a

              • No. If advertisers make a conscious decision to exclude people based on their sexual orientation, that's discrimination against a protected class and is illegal.

                Similarly YouTube should not even offer the ability for advertisers to discriminate that way, since it's illegal and that would be aiding and abetting.

                This is well established. We have had landlords trying to exclude tenants based on race and religion, and it's been found to be illegal in court multiple times.

                No, you're missing the point: If sponsors see their ads appear with content that they disagree with, they can refuse to buy ad space from Google outright, and instead advertise elsewhere.

                Furthermore, I'm not disagreeing that Google can have a platform that isn't compliant with the law. What I'm saying is that people like BarBar are trying, willingly or not, to prevent us from having nice things. First they attack the sponsors for funding content they don't like, then they attack YouTube for not funding cont

              • No. If advertisers make a conscious decision to exclude people based on their sexual orientation, that's discrimination against a protected class and is illegal.

                Similarly YouTube should not even offer the ability for advertisers to discriminate that way, since it's illegal and that would be aiding and abetting.

                Err....well, you're saying Ad folks should no longer be able to try to get the best bang for their buck and be able to target their ad dollars in the most efficient way to generate most bang for th

                • Err....well, you're saying Ad folks should no longer be able to try to get the best bang for their buck and be able to target their ad dollars in the most efficient way to generate most bang for their advertising dollar?

                  GP totally missed what I'm saying (which I addressed in my previous post) but she is right in that this isn't totally true. This came up earlier this year when facebook was allowing home lenders to target ads towards some demographics (I don't recall if they could target race directly) that could be considered exclusionary towards minorities. DoJ and HUD filed a lawsuit against facebook, considering this to be another form of redlining, so it really depends on why they're targeting, or excluding certain gro

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                  Err....well, you're saying Ad folks should no longer be able to try to get the best bang for their buck and be able to target their ad dollars in the most efficient way to generate most bang for their advertising dollar?

                  This is an age old and accepted practice.

                  It's not acceptable to, say, discriminate against black people because you think it might reduce the rent in your apartments. Clearly this is an old but not accepted practice.

              • If advertisers make a conscious decision to exclude people based on their sexual orientation, that's discrimination against a protected class and is illegal.

                There are certain things it's illegal to exclude people from based on their sexual orientation, and there's things which aren't illegal. In general, if you're doing things for people you may be asked to be inclusive, while if you're doing things to people, nobody is asking for that. Advertising is a deliberate attack on the senses in order to manipulate your mental state, in an attempt to make you do something you don't want to do. Nobody is begging to be included in that.

                You can't refuse to do business wit

          • You do business with the public, you have to respect the rules. No discrimination based on sex, gender, sexuality, gender identity, skin colour, social status, etc. Don't like the rules, move to Somalia - they don't have much in the way of government. Or Mali.

            First they came for the gun channels, but I did not speak out....

            Next they came for the conservative channels, but I did not speak out....

            Next they came for the.......

      • Libertarian neo-con detected. How about those deregulated markets that gave us the last Great Recession .:.

        • Libertarian neo-con detected. How about those deregulated markets that gave us the last Great Recession .:.

          No censorship?

          Not even bot postings?

          What about DDOS?

          What about posts soliciting transactions with counties or entities prohibited by law by sanction?

          What about people posting links to child porn or snuff films?

          No censorship at all?

          Good luck.

      • "vulnerable to new entrants in the marketplace"

        That's why we need Uncle Sam to break up the Big Tech monopolists and smash the Sandhill Road money cartel. When we have real competition again, maybe free market solutions can work. No free market, no free market solutions.

      • "a private, for profit entity, and they should be allowed to demonetize channels"

        Alphabet would have a stronger case if they removed all advertising from "offensive" videos. But they don't. When a video it's demonetized they still run the advertising, and steal the ad revenue from the creator.

        When they actually censor content, that's a freedom of speech issue. The same publisher/platform debate we've been rehashing here for quite a while.

        Demonetization, however, seems closer to racketeering than censorship.

        • You can't steal something that was yours to begin with. Just because they give money to some people doesn't mean they're stealing it from others. Or else all of the videos of the small creators who don't get monetized would be considered stealing also. Or is that the point you were getting at? Are you saying these people are entitled to get paid the money that youtube makes regardless of anything else?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Cederic ( 9623 )

          Alphabet would have a stronger case if they removed all advertising from "offensive" videos. But they don't. When a video it's demonetized they still run the advertising, and steal the ad revenue from the creator.

          I never see adverts on Youtube so I can't check this, but that sounds unlikely. Why have I never heard this from other sources?

    • You must watch Thunderf00t.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by JBMcB ( 73720 )

        I watched his videos on Fukushima fallout and Solar Roadways. Was he demonetized too? The nuclear decay video was from a German guy I think...

    • Rhyme without Reason (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Thursday August 15, 2019 @08:17PM (#59092072) Journal

      Their algorithms are horrifically broken.

      That's certainly true but the way they are broken seems to be somewhat random in that they pick up on some utterly irrelevant thing in the video to make a decision. This seems far more consistent with incompetence than systematic discrimination.

      As for their other complaint about their videos being labelled as "mature" or "sensitive" by their very nature LGBT+ videos are presumably often discussing issues related to sexuality or sexual identity since these are the characteristics by which they define their group identity. Surely any video discussing these types of topics should get these labels whether or not it is from an LGBT+ perspective?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        From TFA:

        In a phone call heard by BBC News, one Google ad representative told the programme's producers that "sexuality content about the gays" broke its advertising rules.

        I put that in the summary but the editor removed it. It's pretty damning as it suggests that merely discussing homosexuality is a red flag, which is likely a violation of various equality and discrimination laws.

        Note that "sexuality" doesn't mean explicitly sexual, it refers to sexual orientation in general. We are talking make-up videos, fashion advice, dating tips etc. Not explicit stuff. That's what the lawsuit is alleging.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I'm curious how you know that the demonetization was due to the word "Nazi," as YouTube to my knowledge don't reveal their specific reasons.

        • I've heard of at least one history video demonetized - the only difference with their other videos is they covered World War 2. It focused on the development of air planes. The next one covering the beginning of the cold war was fine. I'm betting the WW2 video wasn't demonetized because it had a controversial opinion on how effective the P38 was.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Being demonetised does not mean they do not show ads, just means they keep all the money. So obfuscation to allow highly profitable mass theft of income from content. It is hardly surprising many content creators put a polite sales plug in their content for their sponsors. The system is not broken, not broken in the least, it is working 100% as intended, serve ads and do no pay the content provider for that ad.

      OBEY you little shit, OBEY GOOGLE your worthless scum, or they show ads with your content and you

  • The third claim is true but irrelevant. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mal-2 ( 675116 ) on Thursday August 15, 2019 @07:39PM (#59091958) Homepage Journal

    The claim that YT doesn't do enough to stop harassment in the comments is absolutely true, but it's not discriminatory because they do just as shitty a job for everyone.

    • It isn't harassment if you have to navigate to and read the comments. The video publisher is free to disable comments as well. There is a point where your harassment concerns yield to free speech.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        That part seems to be more of a general complaint designed to show that YouTube's claims that it supports the LGBTQ community are untrue. If it did, it would presumably do something to stop LGBTQ people getting harassed as any reasonable supporter of a community would.

        All part of building up their case.

  • Good luck (Score:3)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Thursday August 15, 2019 @07:52PM (#59092000)
    They're hardly the only group whining about unfair treatment, but just the same, Google doesn't owe them a platform. If Google can restrict advertising for or remove videos from other groups from search, they can do it to anyone. And advertisers don't want to be placed next to anything that might appear controversial because in today's world victimhood has become a virtue. Start a Patreon or go find sponsors and do an ad-read in your videos if you're concerned about making money from all of this.

    And fuck off with making Google responsible for dealing with your comment section. Channel owners can already remove or hide comments that they don't like. If you're too lazy to do that on your own, just turn comments on your video off. If you want to make Google do it, don't be surprised when they keep all the advertising revenue for doing the extra work.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      They're hardly the only group whining about unfair treatment

      Indeed. Conservatives also are complaining about search bias and removals.

      When you are a near-monopoly in a medium, you will get such scrutiny.

      Youtube should refine their filtering and ad guidelines, give clear reasons for judgements made, and include a reasonable way to address grievances.

      I'm okay with the idea of requiring a fee to address grievances because of the sheer volume, but only if it can be shown it's to cover the review costs and not a

      • This is what happens when you try to use your political position to silence your opposition, eventually it turns around to bite you in the ass. I see a lot of people here that were saying "Youtube is a private company and can censor/remove anything they want, now claiming they can't censor or remove anything they want. Meanwhile I'm just going to sit here and continue laughing at the twisting mind circles. You either want free speech or you don't. Nobody likes inconsistent positions.

  • They aren't the first to sue Youtube over its content filtering. They are a private entity, they have no obligation to do anything for anyone. PragerU lost a similar lawsuit last year.

  • Advertisers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Thursday August 15, 2019 @07:58PM (#59092012) Homepage Journal

    There are probably a large percentage of advertisers that don't want to be attached to their content, so the algorithm doesn't promote their videos as heavily. I would imagine the algorithm weights advertiser friendly content and distributes it more widely.

  • the group claims YouTube restricts advertising on LGBT videos and limits their reach and discoverability.

    So what? Youtube is a private entity, and Youtube has 1st amendment free speech rights. That includes the right to not speak or to moderate out certain content on their network Should they choose: Youtube has the constitutionally protected right to prohibit videos on their platform featuring any LGBT-content.

    Youtube does not do that, but b/c they have the right to do that "Youtube discriminat

    • "Youtube has 1st amendment free speech rights"

      Only corporate stooges believe the "rights" of a fictional legal "person" ought to trample the fundamental rights of human beings.

  • Listen... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Excelcia ( 906188 ) <slashdot@excelcia.ca> on Thursday August 15, 2019 @08:07PM (#59092042) Homepage Journal

    Youtube is, for the most part, a place that tries to be family friendly. Sexual orientation is not something that is valid to discriminate based on. However, for a family site, sexuality is and will continue to be. I don't care if it's hetero, gay, lesbian, "little people", or goatsex porn. I don't want it on Youtube and I support Google in their efforts to restrict it. You can't put sexual themes in a video, label it lesbian, then cry discrimination when that label causes it to be flagged or dropped from searches. There is not a special dispensation for homosexual sexual themed videos because the people who make them feel marginalized.

    • This is not about porn, and your attempt to divert it to that with "family values he betrays your own laziness in letting your kids watch whatever they want and expecting the Internet to babysit them.

      • Re:Listen... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Livius ( 318358 ) on Thursday August 15, 2019 @08:44PM (#59092150)

        You're both right - sometimes they nobly fight for equality and sometimes they already are equal but feel entitled to a free pass. The problem is there is so much hysteria around discrimination that it's hard to distinguish actual discrimination, which is morally wrong, from absence of favouritism, which is not discrimination at all. Many self-identified groups, not just LBGT, want better treatment, whether they are disadvantaged, equal, or already advantaged.

      • I never said it was about porn, and you're misreading my comment to try and direct it that way. I said it was about sexuality.

        What I cannot countenance are people who are further stirring already muddy water. As was pointed out in another comment, the hysteria and noise-to-signal ratio is terrible on the subject of discrimination, and people who use that muddy water to further their own goals of just wanting no limits on what they personally can do are not helpful to anyone. I like being able to say Yout

    • It seems that YouTube disagrees with you, as their examples [google.com] purports to allow some content about sexuality:

      Sexually suggestive content
      You can turn on ads for this content
      [...], general discussions of relationships or sexuality, [...], non-graphic sex education; [...]

      I struggle to find anything in their guidelines [google.com] that could be construed to forbid it as well.

      My speculation is that YouTube's automated scanners are just worse than usual at differentiating between sex and sexuality, magnified by some cognitiv

      • Youtube's "Nudity and sexual content policies" [google.com] speaks toward what I am talking about. Pornography and pornographic-like content is barred, as are clips from non-pornographic shows intended to isolate explicit scenes. Anything that is intended to isolate, promote, or enhance content meant for sexual gratification is essentially barred. Sexuality itself isn't barred in its entirety, but my take on those guidelines is basically a "PG" type environment.

        Keywords that are generally used to identify such conten

        • Keywords that are generally used to identify such content are, I would suggest, fair game for algorithms that catch this.

          Using keywords such as "lesbian," "straight," or "gay" seems like a clumsy way to filter out sexual content while allowing educational videos about sexuality. Would it then not be comparable to filtering out videos condoning apartheid by the keywords "black African" and "Dutch?"

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Dog-Cow ( 21281 )

            Any video talking about sexual identity is going to be a mature topic. Homosexuality has the word "sexuality" there for a reason, and it's not because the topic is talking about cute puppies.

            • That's a subjective opinion, one that YouTube's guideline examples disagrees with you on, as I mentioned in the blockquote further up.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      "Sexuality" just refers to if someone is lesbian, gay or bi. It doesn't mean explicit details of sex.

      In the UK children start learning about this as soon as they start school, around ages 4 to 5. It's all very tame stuff as you would expect. Fairy tales where the two princes are in love, anthropomorphised animals with two mothers. Some general discussion about the different kinds of families that exist, including for example hetro couples who are in long term relationships but not married or where the wife

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday August 15, 2019 @08:13PM (#59092056)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fenrif ( 991024 )
      Teach your kids about adblockers. Don't push all your parenting onto youtubes shoulders.
  • Want to constructively talk about a mental illness on YouTube and still be monetized? No way man, that's against the rules. Want to watch a show on YouTube TV about a child being kidnapped, molested, and murdered? That's A-OKAY!!!! I just wish someone would egg Susan Wojcicki's house - every night, till her nepotistic garbage leadership is over.
    • Not sure about enacting mob rule, but the lack of transparency and consistency is definitely troublesome. I'd argue that this also applies to other entities such as the MPAA's film ratings though; but what would a non-violent solution look like? Await free-market forces? Legal enforcement? Something else?
  • Maybe if Twitter/Democrat types start getting censored they'll realize that censorship isn't such a great thing after all, and quit demanding it on everything

  • Apologies to Dylan (Score:3)

    by pslytely psycho ( 1699190 ) on Thursday August 15, 2019 @08:42PM (#59092144) Journal
    Well, they'll sue you when you're trying to be so good
    They'll sue you just like they said they would
    They'll sue you when you're trying to go home
    And they'll sue you when you're there all alone
    But someone saw you nude
    Everybody must get sued
    Well, they'll sue you when you're walking on the street
    They'll sue you when you're tryin' to keep your seat
    They'll sue you when you're walkin' on the floor
    They'll sue you when you're walkin' to the door
    Because everybody is so rude
    Everybody must get sued
    They'll sue you when you're at the breakfast table
    They'll sue you when you are young and able
    They'll sue you when you're tryin' to make a buck
    Then they'll sue you and then they'll say "good luck"
    Tell ya&#226;&#8364;&#166;
    Everybody must get sued
  • Random demonetization happens when YT is not making as much money as it thinks it oughtta.

  • LMAO. I mean it's possible that they run into AI filter stupidity like everyone else. Or not complete stupidity if sex(uality) related videos are downranked on a site for mixed age/gender/sensitivity audiences. But being specially discriminated compared to say Ben Shapiro? Not a chance on this particular site.

  • Aren't they just *sexual* orientations. So wouldn't sexually themed content be....porn?

  • If you talk about sexual intercourse or genitalia in your videos, expect Youtube to make you less discoverable by kids. The seclusion of sex-related topics from children is a nearly universal tenant in human cultures. Yes, sexuality, sexual orientation, and even transgender topics by their nature and definition fall under those categories. Don't act surprised. You know this is the issue at hand.

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