Big Tech targeting non-progressive opinion

Tmost viewed conservative commentator on Youtube is Steven Crowder with his channel, Louder with Crowder. His fans love his politically incorrect jokes.

He also sets up a table at college campuses, invites people to debate and airs the debate unedited. One such video, titled, “There

Are Two Genders: Change My Mind,” has been viewed 40 million times. Students don’t change Crowder’s mind, but he has a fair conversation.

Crowder won’t change my mind, either (I believe gender can be on a spectrum), but in my new video, Crowder says he was influenced by me. Louder With Crowder, he says, is “a cross between early David Letterman, maybe Howard Stern TV and John Stossel.”

I interviewed Crowder recently because Youtube abruptly deleted some of his videos, blocked him from uploading new videos for a week and permanently demonetized his channel. “It means I can make $0 on Youtube,” he explained.

Youtube even deleted his good reporting that showed Nevada election rolls include people with fake addresses. Why? Youtube says its “presidential election integrity policy” bans “false claims that widespread fraud, errors or glitches changed the outcome of any past U.S. presidential election.”

But Crowder made no such claims — and what he said was true. Youtube could have checked. Crowder lists his sources on his website. Good for him.

I’m also glad that he defends freedom. “Individuals, if given the freedom and opportunity to do so … do things relatively well,” he said.

But Crowder does some things that make me cringe. In one video, he dresses as a stereotypical Chinese man and dunks a baby doll into a glass of water while an announcer says it’s “cultural appropriation month.”

I tell him: “Depending which things of yours I watch, I’m either honored or horrified that I influenced you. You’re drowning a blond doll in a glass of water? I don’t even understand the joke.” Crowder pushed back, explaining that the episode is about China’s onechild policy, which “resulted in countless girls being drowned in a bathtub. … I don’t think the joke is more offensive than the policy.”

Crowder points out that Youtube is not consistent about what it limits. Conservatives such as him, he complains, are more likely to be censored. He referred me to a Youtube video, viewed more than 100 million times, that portrays rapper Lil Nas X “being sodomized by Satan, and not only is that monetized, but it’s deemed child-friendly!”

He’s right when he says Youtube is biased.

The company, owned by Google, restricted my video in which Black people express skepticism about “systemic” American racism (Youtube labeled it “hateful … content likely to offend marginalized individuals”), one that criticized antischool-choice politicians who send their kids to private school, one that says, “socialism leads to violence” and others.

“There’s an ideological motivation beyond the profit motivation,” Crowder complained.

Now, he’s suing big tech companies, arguing that they break their terms of service by treating people such as him differently. “I am unapologetic,” Crowder concluded. “You don’t have to like what I say. But I think at the end of the day, you’ll be glad that there’s someone there doing it.”

I am glad. Youtube should let people say what they want.