Crowder vs Maza: Time for YouTube to grow up or shut up

The last week has seen major controversy arise between right wing comedian and political commentator (aka YouTuber) Steven Crowder and left wing Vox news reporter, comedian and commentator (aka YouTuber) Carlos Maza.

Over the last few months, Maza has made a series of Vox Strikethrough videos attacking conservative news media for its political bias and partisan reporting. Most recently this included a video examining the Republican origins of Fox News and criticising the wider media for allowing Fox to set the news agenda through manufactured controversies.

While Maza makes a number of good points about the increasingly ludicrous nature of partisan reporting in America, his video couldn’t help but attract mockery from those on the conservative right. With Maza having repeatedly stated in the video that there was no left wing equivalent to Fox News, critics were quick to point out that platforms such as Buzzfeed, CNN, HuffPo and even Vox (Maza’s own organisation) are all examples of left-leaning news outlets that help set the US agenda.

Up until this point, the back-and-forth debate was a fairly standard example of political discussions online, with both sides acting equally stunned by the other’s apparent lack of self awareness and filter bubble thinking.

Where things start to get nasty, however, was in the release of a rebuttal (rant) video from Steven Crowder, pointing out the hypocrisy of Vox and mocking Maza for his apparent lack of self awareness. During this video Crowder made several personal attacks on Maza, including multiple racist and homophobic remarks about his sexuality, accent and skin colour.

Following the video’s release, Maza took to Twitter to write an impassioned thread calling out Crowder’s behaviour and demanding that YouTube take immediate action. Acting on this thread, YouTube took the decision to demonetise Crowder’s channel. (along with numerous other right — and left — wing commentators and comedians).

Since these events, the outrage machine of social media has gone into overdrive with both those on the left and the right claiming to be victims of bullying and censorship and demanding that YouTube take a stance to help their cause.

While I’d normally be the first person to blame the Silicon Valley tech giant in this scenario, I can’t help but feel that YouTube is stuck between a rock and a hard place (if one largely of its own making).

On the one hand, YouTube’s powerful position in modern day society places it alongside any other television network, meaning that it has a responsibility to moderate content on its platform and adhere to editorial standards fitting of such a position. On the other, YouTube’s history as a tech company and online “community” ties it to a whole host of narratives around information freedom, sharing and decentralised ownership. Every time an issue such as the Crowder vs Maza argument arises, YouTube is forced to take a stance on one or the other side of this fence — alienating a huge segment of its audience.

At the same time, YouTube can’t deny that it holds some degree of responsibility for these types of issues occurring in the first place. More than any offline media, YouTube has created an environment which rewards short-form, rapidly produced, heavily opinionated, clickbait content. It’s also the platform that has allowed the spread of fake news and biased reporting on both the far left and the far right of politics, and that has helped to increasingly blur the lines between news, comedy, abuse, opinion, political commentary and satire.

Both Vox Strikethrough and Louder with Crowder thrive in this environment, providing videos that are extremely opinionated but do not have to present any of the balance or nuance associated with traditional news reporting. At the same time, both shows also benefit from the fall back that they’re not really news, allowing them to rapidly and retroactively reposition their outputs as “comedy takes” in the face of any controversy.

Now, while both Strikethrough and Louder with Crowder are outputs of a problematic system, none of this is to say that Steven Crowder shouldn’t be reprimanded, demonetised or even banned from YouTube. Of course he should. If Crowder chooses to position himself as the host of his own show then he needs to take on the responsibility that comes with that role. With the internet and television increasingly merging, there’s absolutely no reason why the host of a show, regularly watched by 3.7 million people, should be allowed to openly slur people for their race or sexuality live on air. If a TV host or political pundit were to say anything close to what Crowder has got away with saying, they would be taken off the air.

Recognising this fact isn’t about attacking conservative media or demonetising particular views, it’s about all of these content providers (whether left or right wing) realising that the rules and regulations guiding traditional media were put in place for a reason. If content creators really believe that their shows could one day compete with, or even replace, traditional broadcast alternatives then they need to hold themselves to a higher standard. That means being less partisan, being more honest, doing more research, not purposely misleading people, not being purposely offensive, not pandering to clickbait and — most importantly for Steven Crowder — not being blatantly homophobic and still expecting to retain your position of influence.

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