| Friend,
YouTube has a white-supremacist problem.
Motherboard recently reported that Facebook adopted a policy against white supremacist, white nationalist and white separatist content, yet YouTube and Twitter have failed to take even this most basic step to protect 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. And the company’s failure to do anything about it is putting lives at risk. Pushing companies that are worth billions of dollars to do better isn’t cheap. Could you chip in $15 to help force YouTube to adopt terms of service that keep us safe?
The KKK is using this content to recruit people and solicit funding for the white-supremacist movement.
While all people have a First 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 chilling the speech of people of color, religious minorities, LGBTQIA+ people and women — and endangering people’s lives.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki recently told the New York Times, “We’ll get to a point where we have solved a lot of these issues, and I feel like we’ve already made significant progress.”2 And yet the KKK is still operating on the platform she oversees.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The Change the Terms coalition3 — which Free Press helped found — has developed model corporate policies designed to disrupt hateful activities online.
Donate $15 (or whatever you can) to help Free Press Action hold online platforms accountable and push them to adopt terms of service that protect all of us.
Thanks for all that you do—
The Free Press Action team
freepress.net
P.S. People of color, religious minorities, LGBTQIA+ people and women should be able to go online without worrying about harassment. Donate $15 to support us as we work to ensure that platforms like YouTube keep everyone safe.
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=12654%2E10296224%2EkVta3W 2. “The Most Measured Person in Tech Is Running the Most Chaotic Place on the Internet,” April 17, 2019, New York Times: https://act.freepress.net/go/30823?t=10&akid=12654%2E10296224%2EkVta3W 3. “Change the Terms: Reducing Hate Online,” Change the Terms: https://act.freepress.net/go/30825?t=12&akid=12654%2E10296224%2EkVta3W |
