‘That should not be tolerated’
YouTube bans Sandy Hook ‘truther’ lies and hate content
NEWTOWN — Sandy Hook families who lost loved ones in the 2012 school shootings breathed a little easier Wednesday after YouTube decided to ban hate content, including videos that question whether the shootings took place.
“That should not be tolerated,” said Neil Heslin, whose 6-year-old son was among the 20 students and six adults killed when Adam Lanza burst into the Sandy Hook Elementary School and began firing.
“These social media platforms have put a lot of people at risk to where they become targeted by people who are not wrapped that tight in the head or not rational,” Heslin said.
“They are right to ban what they feel is inappropriate and I support their decision,” Heslin said. “But I also support someone’s First Amendment rights, and their opinions.”
YouTube announced through a blog statement that it will now prohibit various forms of hate speech and Nazi content, including “videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination.”
YouTube also said it will ban and remove material
“denying that well-documented violent events, like the Holocaust or the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, took place.”
YouTube, which is owned by Google, noted it will begin enforcing the policy immediately but warned it will take time to remove all of the offensive content.
The decision to limit hate speech and blatantly inaccurate content comes a month after Facebook removed similar posts, including from Alex Jones, who founded InfoWars.com and has called the Sandy Hook tragedy a fake event.
Twitter banned Jones from its platform last year.
Lawsuits and free speech
Jones is considered one of the biggest peddlers of misleading and false information regarding the Sandy Hook tragedy, falsely claiming that the parents of the children killed were “crisis actors” involved in a deception to support curtailing gun rights.
He also promoted the fake “Pizzagate” conspiracy about a childsex slave ring run by Democrats through a Washington, D.C., pizza shop and has suggested the Parkland, Fla., school shooting was the work of a “communist.”
Last week, Jones mimed shooting former Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Sandy Hook parents sued Jones over his comments and videos, arguing his misinformation incited attacks and threats against them.
Heslin said his lawsuit against Jones did not seek to have him removed from social media platforms.
“It was about what he said about me and what he did,” Heslin said.
“He damaged my credibility and reputation on a worldwide basis,” Heslin said. “These boldfaced, outright lies are just a means to torment and harass people. It’s not just Sandy Hook, it’s Parkland and the whole list is long.”
Heslin added, “For many years, since this all evolved on the internet, it’s really been a problem. It’s been tolerated and let go and overlooked. I think it finally got to a point where they had to limit it.”
Marc Randazza, an attorney representing Jones, said YouTube has the right to ban any content it wants.
“YouTube is a private platform and has the legal right to do that,” Randazza said. “I would say I don’t believe them when they claim their motivation is somehow to be helpful. Once YouTube became the video sharing platform and you experiment with censorship, it’s first the people who make statements who are very unpopular.”
Randazza said he doubts the censorship will stop with easy targets such as Nazis.
“Less objectionable speech will be curtailed,” Randazza said. “It’s easy to say Nazi speech should be banned. But define Nazi extremist hate speech, which you can’t. It really means speech I don’t like.”
Lenny Pozner, who founded the HONR Network after his son died in the Sandy Hook shootings, said he’s pleased with YouTube’s decision.
“HONR is grateful that YouTube is enacting policy changes that we have been recommending for the past half-decade,” Pozner said.
“We look to Twitter and other hosting platforms to follow suit and enforce current, existing policies,” Pozner said.
The HONR Network is committed to ending harassment and intentional torment directed at victims of mass shootings.
Pozner recently wrote an emotional open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg urging him to police content on his platform.
“Almost immediately after the massacre of 20 little children, all under the age of seven, and six elementary school teachers and staff, the attacks on us began,” Pozner wrote.
“Conspiracy groups and antigovernment provocateurs began making claims on Facebook that the massacre was a hoax, that the murdered were so-called “crisis actors” and that their audience should rise up to ‘find out the truth’ about our families,” Pozner added.
“We are far from alone in our experiences, as many other families who have lost loved ones in mass shootings and other tragedies have reported the same continuing torment,” Pozner told Facebook.