YouTube and their paid comment system are being used by white nationalists and members of the alt-right as a way around the site’s complex monetization policies.
BuzzFeed News reported that white nationalists such as Christopher Cantwell and others have utilized “Super Chats” on their channels and live streams. The service allows viewers to spend money in order to have their remarks highlighted by YouTube’s software while simultaneously donating to the channels.
YouTube itself takes a small percentage of the donations, which totaled just over $4,000 only on two recent videos where white nationalists Richard Spencer and Mike Enoch were guests, according to a BuzzFeed analysis. The comments submitted by viewers of the streams, like the broadcasters themselves, are often racist or anti-Semitic.
Meanwhile, YouTube told BuzzFeed in a statement that the site, which does not find the alt-right broadcasters to fall under the umbrella of “hate speech,” is reexamining the Super Chats system because the comments are often used to publicize shocking or vulgar remarks.
“Hateful content that promotes violence has no place on YouTube. We carefully reviewed the live streams that were provided by BuzzFeed and found that the content does not meet our threshold for hate speech. However, we found that the comments shared in Super Chat do,” YouTube spokesman said.
“Super Chat is a relatively new feature, it’s a small but growing source of revenue for some creators, and we are re-examining our policies in light of these edge cases.”
Earlier in May, another web hosting service GoDaddy, which was used by the alt-right, said it would give Spencer, a well-known white nationalist, 48 hours to move his website from the company’s platform to another site before it deletes all data associated with it.
“In instances where a site goes beyond the mere exercise of these freedoms, however, and crosses over to promoting, encouraging, or otherwise engaging in specific acts of violence against any person, we will take action,” GoDaddy said.
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