YouTube’s anti-extremism crackdown targets journalist who documents extremism

Enlarge / News2Share’s YouTube page. (credit: News2Share)

YouTube on Wednesday announced an expanded crackdown on hate speech, but the company said it would make sure not to ban or demonetize videos that “aim to condemn or expose hate, or provide analysis of current events.”

However, YouTube’s crackdown has already targeted a journalist who documents extremism, presumably by mistake.

“Within minutes of @YouTube’s announcement of a new purge it appears they caught my outlet, which documents activism and extremism, in the crossfire,” journalist Ford Fischer wrote on Twitter yesterday. “I was just notified my entire channel has been demonetized. I am a journalist whose work there is used in dozens of documentaries.”