Recently, the video-sharing platform YouTube has come under fire for censoring a series of clean educational topics. According to the New York Times, YouTube initially started the mass-censorship to curb the spread of white supremacist ideology. In the beginning, far-right creators noticed their videos were removed and YouTube publisized a new policy stating they will ban “…videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion” (nytimes.com). Ultimately, this is a valiant goal, considering the supremacist movement is gaining traction in the current political climate.

    However, the algorithms YouTube instituted are far too broad and poorly thought out to accomplish the task. In their goal to remove hate speech from the service, vast amounts of inclusive and positive content, ranging from historical events to LGBT+ rights, have been removed as a byproduct. YouTube shouldn’t be censoring these videos, because it promotes the deletion of culture and the silencing of those who need to speak the loudest. 

     History Central, a channel devoted to making history videos for high school students, has been unfairly targeted. A video they posted about the Holocaust was restricted since it contained what YouTube deemed sensitive content relating to hate speech (newsweek.com). Ultimately, the video contained footage of concentration camps and coverage of some of the terrible things that happened to the Jewish people during World War II. YouTube decided that this harmless, important education was “too sensitive” and restricted it from view. 

    What they don’t realize is that it’s impossible to hide from the past. Society cannot move forward until they accept that there are marginalized groups of people that have been ostracized and killed, and covering up such historical events as the Holocaust is simply augmenting the problem. Taking down these videos removes marginalized groups’ identities and destroys their right to freedom of speech.

   Several LGBT+ creators have been targeted by censorship as well. Many creators have noticed their content being flagged — the Washington Post explained that “YouTube’s software algorithms, as well as its human reviewers, single out and remove content that features words common in the LGBT+ community, such as ‘gay,’ ‘lesbian’ or ‘bisexual’” (washingtonpost.com). 

    The restrictions have stirred the LGBT+ community for a good reason: the censorship directly attacks centuries of progress made by the LGBT+ community towards equality. Furthermore, the restriction of words such as “gay” and “lesbian” contradicts YouTube’s policy, which states that only harmful language will be banned. The restriction of these videos is clearly discrimination and therefore an attack on human rights.

   Junior Francesca Kading said, “By removing videos that include LGBT+ topics, YouTube is allowing the exclusion of people. Media apps should be pro-diversity and allow people to be who they are no matter their gender, sexuality, or race. YouTube must fix the algorithm or there isn’t any point in censoring the content at all.”

   Obviously, it is difficult for a company like YouTube to mitigate the content present on its platform. According to The Guardian, more than 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube a minute (theguardian.com). However, YouTube has a responsibility as a platform to encourage diversity and inclusion, not censorship and close-mindedness. What started as a true effort to minimize hatred had an unintended consequence: YouTube has marginalized the communities they said they were going to protect. 

   Despite YouTube’s content policies, censorship can be seen as a direct denial of freedom of speech to benign creators. It’s up to YouTube to save face now, but it looks like they’ll be forever playing catch up with media malcontents if they can’t find a better solution.