Dubbed the "VoxAdpocalypse", internet users have been protesting the YouTube crackdown on a number of viral channels that belong to conservatives, with seemingly innocuous accounts caught in the crossfire. As a result the not-so-popular and struggling Vox media and its journalist, Carlos Mazam have witnessed some internet wrath.
The story started a week ago when Carlos Maza went to Twitter to post a lengthy thread detailing the harassment he has been receiving for months from the conservative YouTuber and comedian, Steven Crowder who has repeatedly made jokes about Maza’s sexuality and race. It led Crowder’s fans to attack Maza and harass him online.
I've been called an anchor baby, a lispy queer, a Mexican, etc. These videos get millions of views on YouTube. Every time one gets posted, I wake up to a wall of homophobic/racist abuse on Instagram and Twitter.
— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) May 31, 2019
In his thread, Maza criticized YouTube’s failure to implement its anti-harassment policies to protect the users. He also described the video-sharing platform of promoting the homophobic and racist content for engagement.
Anyway, if you want to help, I guess you can go to this dude's videos and flag them? But @YouTube isn't going to do anything, because YouTube does not give a fuck about queer creators. It cares about "engagement," and homophobic/racist harassment is VERY "engaging."
— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) May 31, 2019
With more pressure was piling against YouTube, the platform announced on Tuesday that the company "found language that was clearly hurtful, the flagged videos [referred to by Maza] as posted don't violate our policies”.
Yet a day later, YouTube announced a change in their policy and a demonetization of Crowder's channel and other similar channels sparking the “VoxAdpocalypse” backlash against the video-sharing platform.
This guy made videos of relaxing sounds, like being at the beach on a rainy day, now Youtube has stripped his monetization.#VoxAdpocalypse https://t.co/tkJiqzKaGt
— Tim Pool (@Timcast) June 7, 2019
While YouTube faced a backlash by Maza’s followers at first for thinking the platform supported Crowder, things only got worse after YouTube announced their new policy provoking another backlash by conservatives against YouTube and the Vox journalist who triggered of the decision.
While some had defended Maza as he was only calling for Crowder to be punished for violating the website’s policies and has nothing to do with the YouTube change of policies, conservatives and many have accused Vox, a left-wing news outlet, and its journalist of the "Adpocalypse." It was also noted by several writers that Maza was formerly employed by Media Matters, a partisan Democrat think-tank with a long history of using specific media tactics to de-platform its political opponents and police the Internet.
For any who missed it:
— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) June 6, 2019
Yesterday, Vox, a multi-million dollar corporation succeeded in stripping independent YouTube creators of their livelihood... journalists, educators, podcasts... And they want us all to forget and go on as usual.
We won’t. #VoxAdpocalypse
It brought back the debate over social media platforms’ bias against conservatives that has been ongoing for months now among the internet crowd.
Now, bad business aside. Never in history has limiting speech ever been productive for a civilized society.
— Michael (@Vigilant_Inc) June 6, 2019
The free exchange of ideas should be open to everyone.
How are we to know what a bad idea is if we can't hear about it?#VoxAdpocalypse pic.twitter.com/sLv2LCHB3n
Why is @TeamYouTube aligning their “values” with Carlos Maza, a violent leftist who has publicly called for conservatives to be physically attacked in public? ??#VoxAdpocalypse pic.twitter.com/UMAsrZ6wF6
— Dan Bongino (@dbongino) June 7, 2019
