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Is YouTube’s APOLOGY to LGBTQ+ Creators Good Enough?!

July 03, 2018

YouTube has apologized to its LGBTQ+ creators over featuring anti-queer ads on many of their videos.

We reported on this story a month ago: In late May, YouTube creators started seeing anti-LGBTQ+ ads on their videos. Most prominent was this ad from the “Alliance Defending Freedom” called “Should The Government Force People to Create Art That Violates Their Beliefs?” The ad centered around a woman who was being sued by a gay couple for refusing to make a flower arrangement for their wedding.

Our previous video on this came out literally the same morning that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. -So, amid this troubling news for the LGBTQ+ community, creators were also finding these ads playing before their videos being critical and, frankly, insulting about their lifestyle. And, as you can imagine, it didn’t sit well with creators.

This is on top of the fact that LGBTQ+ content is frequently demonetized by YouTube because they’re scared that advertisers won’t want their ads to appear on it. I guess the mere existence of a not insignificant chunk of the U.S. population is still controversial.

So, YouTube has definitely felt the heat.

And on the last day of Pride Month, they posted a series of tweets directed at the LGBTQ+ community.

It’s the last day of Pride Month and we wanted to reach out to the LGBTQ community. We’re proud of the incredible LGBTQ voices on our platform and the important role you play in the lives of young people. 1/4

— YouTube (@YouTube) June 30, 2018

But we’ve also had issues where we let the LGBTQ community down–inappropriate ads and concerns about how we’re enforcing our monetization policy. We're sorry and we want to do better. 2/4

— YouTube (@YouTube) June 30, 2018

We’ve taken action on the ads that violate our policies, and we are tightening our enforcement. And when we hear concerns about how we’re implementing our monetization policy, we take them seriously and make improvements if needed. 3/4

— YouTube (@YouTube) June 30, 2018

It's critical to us that the LGBTQ community feels safe, welcome, equal, and supported on YouTube. Your work is incredibly powerful and we are committed to working with you to get this right.4/4

— YouTube (@YouTube) June 30, 2018

There’s two critical parts to this.

One is that they don’t want LGBTQ+ creators to be seeing offensive ads on their videos. But it’s important to note that they say “We’ve taken action on the ads that violate our policies.” So, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that anti-LGBTQ+ ads might crop up again that YouTube feels doesn’t violate their policies.

So, while they’re getting rid of the ad that basically promotes conversion therapy, that’s not to say we’re completely out of the woods. Creators might still have to make some noise if an inappropriate ad shows up.

The second critical point deals with monetization.

Previously, just having the words “lesbian” or “transgender” in a video’s title was enough for YouTube’s algorithm to demonetize it. Now, What’s Trending isn’t specifically an LGBTQ+ channel, but we can say that our own videos on the subject, even those that were previously demonetized, have been remonetized. So that’s potentially a good sign for LGBTQ+ creators out there.

But there’s a worrying lack of specifics in this apology, so it’s hard to say for certain that things are going to change for the better. Many of the most vocal creators on this issue, including Chase Ross, Gaby Dunn and Ty Turner, haven’t yet weighed in on YouTube’s apology.

But here are a sampling of the comments on YouTube’s tweet thread.

https://twitter.com/MeganBrierGrace/status/1013459830801985536

https://twitter.com/alpacalypse_why/status/1013284417798885376

-What do you guys think? Is this apology genuine? Or would you expect to see more discrimination against LGBTQ+ creators on YouTube in the future? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter at @WhatsTrending.