LGBTQ community sued YouTube and its parent company Google (GOOG). The company alleged for discriminating the community by restricting their content. Thus, they cannot make money and wide distribution of their videos.
The lawsuit filed on Tuesday in a federal court in California. Within the lawsuit, the community claims that they subjected to unlawful content regulation, distribution, and monetization.
Also read: Indonesian Student Won an Award in Google Science Fair
YouTube vs. LGBTQ
In recent years, creators can make money directly from ads running on their videos. Many LGBTQ people expressed concern about their videos being cut off from earning. Besides, their videos also become age-restricted. If a video is a age-restricted video, then users under 18 years old cannot see it. Moreover, new viewers will also have difficulty to find it.
Yet, YouTube has denied the allegation. The company states that their policies have no notion of sexual orientation or gender identity.
The allegation also claims YouTube denied an LGBTQ news show the right to advertise. Therefore, the show cannot increase its viewership on the platform. The news name is ‘GNews’ on GlitterBombTV.com’s channel. Meanwhile, the company behind the channel is DivinoGroup.
Divino escalated the situation. The company mentioned that the show alleged for promoting ‘shocking’ and ‘sexually explicit’ content. Divino claims that YouTube customer service told them the reason behind the ad blocked was ‘because of the gay thing’.
Also read: Amazon Overtakes Google to Become World’s Most Valuable Brand
YouTube has apologized to Divino. It said that was a ‘misunderstanding’ and eventually agreed to run the ad. YouTube has also made a statement that they are proud of LGBTQ+ voices in their platform. They also promise to take issues about the community very seriously.
In recent years, the tension between YouTube and the LGBTQ community have repeatedly surfaced. In early 2019, a transgender creator has also expressed concern about YouTube. Within the complaint, he says that some trans-related content gets problem from making ad money or made age-restricted. The example of the content is sexual education videos.
Some LGBTQ members said they YouTube’s lack of transparency around why their videos are being demonetized frustrates them.