August 17th 2023.
On Thursday, a U.S. federal judge dismissed a lawsuit which accused YouTube of discriminating against Black and Hispanic content creators by restricting or removing their videos. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria from San Francisco said that although the idea of YouTube's algorithm discriminating based on race is plausible, the plaintiffs had not provided enough evidence to support the claim.
The lawsuit was filed in June 2020, shortly after the murder of George Floyd caused a nationwide focus on racial injustice. Nine plaintiffs argued that YouTube, owned by Alphabet's Google, subjected their videos to more restrictions than those from white contributors, thereby breaching YouTube's contractual obligation to provide race-neutral content moderation under its terms of service.
However, Judge Chhabria said that YouTube had only promised that its algorithm would not treat people differently based on their identities, not that it was infallible. He further noted that the plaintiffs had relied on a small sample of videos, some of which actually provided evidence against them. As an example, Chhabria cited YouTube's restriction of one plaintiff's "makeup tutorial" on how to create Donald Trump's "distinctive look", which the plaintiff had described as a joke in mocking white supremacists.
The judge also pointed out that some of the claims predated YouTube's recent update to its community guidelines, and so YouTube could not be held liable for breaching a promise it had not yet made.
Chhabria dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought again, after the complaint had been amended five times. Neither the lawyers for the plaintiffs nor YouTube and its lawyers responded to requests for comment on the case.
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