The comment section of a livestream of a congressional hearing where Facebook and Google were among those testifying about white nationalism on the platforms was shut down after a flood of hate speech were posted, according to reports.
The hearing, hosted by the House Judiciary Committee and titled “Hate Crimes and the Rise of White Nationalism,” is being live streamed on YouTube, which is owned by Google.
However, the live chat was flooded with people posting support for white nationalism and anti-Semitic remarks, according to the Washington Post. CNN also reported that there were racist and anti-Semitic remarks that were posted on the live stream before the hearing began.
The comment section on the official YouTube stream for the hearing on white nationalism and social media had to be turned off because it was too racist pic.twitter.com/6Wnyn4MsQF
— Ryan Broderick (@broderick) April 9, 2019
https://twitter.com/jguynn/status/1115629222364508162
YouTube addressed the removal of the comment section in a tweet on Tuesday morning.
“Hate speech has no place on YouTube,” they wrote. “We’ve invested heavily in teams and technology dedicated to removing hateful comments / videos. Due to the presence of hateful comments, we disabled comments on the livestream of today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing.”
Hate speech has no place on YouTube. We’ve invested heavily in teams and technology dedicated to removing hateful comments / videos. Due to the presence of hateful comments, we disabled comments on the livestream of today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing.
— YouTubeInsider (@YouTubeInsider) April 9, 2019
Representatives from the tech giants are testifying along with civil liberties advocates and Candace Owens.
You can read all of the Washington Post report here.
READ MORE:
- Facebook to reportedly testify before Senate about ‘censorship’
- Chinese woman in possession of ‘malicious malware’ arrested at Mar-a-Lago
- Activists call on Amazon to oppose anti-LGBTQ laws
