Tag Archives: hate speech

The Scotsman reports: A controversial US preacher has threatened legal action against the 14,000-capacity SSE Hydro after a prayer meeting was cancelled due to homophobia and hate speech concerns. Franklin Graham was due to come to Glasgow in May as part of an eight day tour of the UK. Graham said he would still be coming to Glasgow, and urged …

Politico reports: YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said today that content by politicians would stay up on the video-sharing website even if it violates the company’s standards, echoing a position staked out by Facebook this week. “When you have a political officer that is making information this is really important for their constituents to see, or for other global leaders to …

“There is this little Asian guy or Chinese guy or whatever he is, he should go back to China or wherever he came from. You allow these people to come into our country and they come in with their socialist, communist ideas. Can we send this guy back to wherever he came from? Let him go over there and give …

The Verge reports: YouTube’s teams have removed more than 100,000 videos and 17,000 channels since the company implemented changes to its hateful content policies in June. Those numbers are approximately five times as many than the company’s last quarter, according to a new blog post from YouTube about the company’s attempts to tackle a growing number of hateful and dangerous …

Philadelphia’s NBC News affiliate reports: At least 13 Philadelphia police officers will be fired as a result of racist, homophobic and violent social media posts revealed last month by the Plain View Project, Police Commissioner Richard Ross announced Thursday. These officers were found to be the worst offenders among 328 local cops identified in the project’s national database. One of …

The Montgomery Advertiser reports: Two leaders of an Alabama city have resigned after their mayor posted a comment on Facebook about “killing out” socialists, “baby killers” and gay and transgender people. But mayor Mark Chambers refused to step down and told residents of Carbon Hill he plans to run for re-election. Protesters lied down in a “die-in” and then confronted …

Raw Story reports: President Donald Trump has remained active on his Twitter account this morning by first attacking the press and then, without any sense of irony, attacking Twitter for limiting the freedom of speech rights of conservatives. Just minutes after calling the New York Times and CNN “the Enemy of the People,” Trump lashed out at Twitter because he …

Vox reports: YouTube is finally banning content that promotes white supremacist views on its video platform. But it will still permit videos it classifies as “borderline,” which isn’t clearly defined, as well as a host of other problematic content. The Google-owned platform said on Wednesday that it’s updating its hate speech policy to prohibit “videos alleging that a group is …

The Washington Post reports: Carlos Maza, a video producer for the news site Vox, said the harassment began about two years ago. Steven Crowder [screenshot above], a right-wing commentator and comedian, had begun to call out Maza’s sexuality and his race — Maza is gay and Latino — in some of his videos on YouTube. And last week, Maza said, …

Business Insider reports: President Donald Trump blamed “fake news” for political division and hatred felt across the United States, following a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that is being prosecuted as a hate crime. Trump wrote that “fake news” is “doing everything in their power to blame Republicans, Conservatives” and him for political divisions felt across the country. Trump’s tweets …

The Daily Beast reports: Instagram said it would not remove a post from right-wing figure Milo Yiannopoulos praising the recent mail bombs sent to prominent Democratic officials, even after the post was reported as hate speech. On Thursday afternoon, Yiannopoulos posted a picture of himself with a caption that regretted that the bombs didn’t actually detonate. Yiannopoulos also told his …

Wired reports: Twitter on Tuesday announced a new policy addressing “dehumanizing speech,” which will take effect later this year, and for the first time the public will be able to formally provide the company with feedback on the proposed rule. The policy will prohibit “content that dehumanizes others based on their membership in an identifiable group, even when the material …

The Des Moines Register reports: An Iowa woman fired for disparaging Mexicans at work cannot collect unemployment despite her testimony that other employees also made derogatory comments about “blacks and foreigners” since Donald Trump became president. Angela Diers filed for unemployment after she lost her job at Dexter Laundry, a Fairfield manufacturer of commercial washers and dryers, for telling a …

Business Insider reports: Vimeo has removed Alex Jones’ InfoWars from its platform for violating the company’s Terms of Service standards, a Vimeo spokesperson told Business Insider on Sunday. The videos, posted on Thursday and Friday “violated our Terms of Service prohibitions on discriminatory and hateful content,” the spokesperson said, adding that Vimeo had notified the account owner and issued a …

Their press release via Media Matters: MailChimp doesn’t generally comment on individual users or accounts, but we’ll make an exception today. MailChimp notified Infowars that their accounts have been terminated for violating our Terms of Service, which make it clear that we don’t allow people to use our platform to disseminate hateful content. We take our responsibility to our customers …

“I think the real question here is who’s going to be next? Because at least in Alex Jones’ case, the language that they used was ‘hate speech’ and that’s a very broad term and it’s not really clear on any given day what that means to these tech companies. It’s important to remember that personnel is policy, and stacked from …

Buzzfeed News reports: Apple has removed the entire library for five of Infowars’ six podcasts from its iTunes and Podcast apps, BuzzFeed News has learned. Among the podcasts, which were removed from Apples’ iTunes directory, are the show “War Room” as well as the popular Alex Jones Show podcast, which is hosted daily by the prominent conspiracy theorist. Apple’s decision …

The Verge reports: Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ YouTube channel received a strike on Tuesday for violating the site’s community guidelines, The Verge has learned. YouTube removed four videos from Jones’ channel, which has 2.4 million subscribers, that contained instances of hate speech and child endangerment, sources familiar with the matter said. YouTube channels are deleted if they get three strikes …

Canada’s Daily Xtra reports: A man charged with distributing hate materials at the 2016 Toronto Pride parade has been released on bail. Bill Whatcott, 50, was flown to Toronto from Calgary after surrendering himself to the police on June 22. He was released on bail with a number of conditions. Whatcott is banned from much of downtown Toronto, must give …

The Toronto Star reports: Moments before William Whatcott turned himself in to Calgary police Friday morning, the anti-LGBTQ activist wanted on Canada-wide warrants for promotion of hatred said he regretted nothing. Whatcott is accused of distributing 3,000 pamphlets containing “hateful content” to attendees at Pride Toronto’s 2016 parade. The warrant for his arrest, issued this spring, has been hailed as …