| Friend,
YouTube has a white supremacist problem.
Earlier this month, Motherboard reported that Facebook adopted a policy against white supremacist, white nationalist and white separatist content. Meanwhile, YouTube and Twitter have failed to take even this most basic action to ensure the safety of their users.1
In fact, YouTube is hosting content from a thinly-veiled media front for the Ku Klux Klan.
Yes, you read that right. YouTube is hosting content from the KKK.
Tell YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki to stand on the right side of history and remove all forms of white supremacist content — including white separatism and white nationalism — from the platform.
Let us be clear: While all people have a 1st Amendment right to free speech, no one is guaranteed a right to be amplified by online platforms. By continuing to host white supremacist groups, YouTube is not only chilling the speech of those often targeted with hate — like of people of color, religious minorities, LGBTQIA+ people and women — it is putting their lives at risk.
The Ku Klux Klan has active channels on YouTube — some of them hiding in plain sight behind alt-right and white-pride branding. One example is “Alt-RightTV”. The channel is featured on the front page of the KKK website (we checked so you don’t have to) and is supported by Thomas Robb, the national leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
While these groups hide behind language about the “alt-right”, “white nationalism” and “white separatism”, it is just a front. The KKK and neo-Nazi groups conceived of and now use that language to sanitize their image and make themselves palatable to people who learned about the horrors of the KKK in elementary school.
These channels aren’t just passively putting content up for the world to see either — they are a part of a highly organized effort to recruit people into and fund the white supremacist movement: Tell YouTube to take its megaphone away from white supremacists.
In early April, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the rise of white nationalism, and YouTube had to disable the chat on the livestream of the hearing because white nationalists overran it.2 Meanwhile, Red Ice (a popular white supremacist conspiracy theory channel) was fundraising off of the livestream.3
This has got to stop — and that will only happen if YouTube takes a stand.
Keep fighting for what’s right,
The Free Press team
freepress.net
P.S. YouTube is putting people’s lives at risk. Tell them to drop the KKK.
1. “Twitter and YouTube Won’t Commit to Ban White Nationalism After Facebook Makes Policy Switch,” April 2, 2019, Motherboard: https://act.freepress.net/go/30820?t=8&akid=12594%2E10296224%2EHLVc-B 2. “Lawmakers held a hearing on white nationalism. On YouTube, it was immediately attacked with hate speech,” April 9, 2019, NBC News: https://act.freepress.net/go/30821?t=10&akid=12594%2E10296224%2EHLVc-B 3. “YouTube Shuts Down Chats After Streams of House Hearing on White Nationalism Are Flooded by White Nationalists,” April 9, 2019, Gizmodo: https://act.freepress.net/go/30822?t=12&akid=12594%2E10296224%2EHLVc-B |
