YouTube is making no friends after refusing to take action against right-wing personality Steven Crowder, who has been accused of harassing Vox journalist and creator Carlos Maza in a number of videos.

Maza first publicly called out YouTube last week, posting a now-viral Twitter thread that outlined the harassment he had been subjected to from Crowder and his followers. In the past, Crowder has called Maza a “lispy queer” and made other racist and homophobic comments, under the usual guise of shitposting irony that many on the far-right hide behind.

Almost 20,000 people retweeted Maza’s initial tweet thread, which included video examples of the abuse Crowder had directed at the Vox presenter.

“I have been called an anchor baby, a lispy queer, a Mexican… these videos get millions of views on YouTube,” wrote Maza. “Ever time one gets posted, I wake up to a wall of homophobic/racist abuse on Instagram and Twitter.”

Maza said he had been doxxed in 2018, with his personal phone number receiving hundreds of messages with the same message: “debate Steven Crowder.”

Having tried to work through YouTube’s internal system to flag the abuse “on several occasions”, Maza said YouTube had failed to enforce its own policies and accused it of doing so because of Crowder’s large subscriber base.

On Wednesday, a week after Maza initially went public with his complains, YouTube finally commented on the matter, saying it would not be taking action against Crowder.

YouTube’s Twitter account tweeted a four part statement in response to Maza’s thread, telling him a team had spent days reviewing the flagged videos and that, while Crowder’s language was indeed hurtful, it didn’t violate the platform’s policies.

“Opinions can be deeply offensive, but if they don’t violate our policies, they’ll remain on our site,” said the statement.

Many – including Maza – were shocked by YouTube’s response, particularly during Pride Month, an initiative that YouTube has openly tried to court and appear to cupport.

“If you’re an LGBT creator, YouTube is using you,” said Maza on Twitter.

“They’re trotting you out to convince advertisers that their platform hasn’t become a breeding ground for hate speech and bigotry.”

“They’re hoping you’ll distract advertisers away from the monsters they’re creating.”

YouTube’s guidelines specifically say the platform does not allow hate speech and removes content that promotes violence or hatred against an individual or groups based in certain attributes – including sexual orientation.

Then there’s its harassment policy, which states any content intended to harass, threaten, or bully is not allowed.

It remains to be seen how Crowder’s videos do not fit within this spectrum.

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