YouTube Sued for Race Discrimination, Profiting from Hate Speech

Four African American plaintiffs have filed a class action alleging that YouTube engages in “overt, intentional, and systematic racial discrimination” against its users.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses YouTube of profiting off of hate speech, while at the same time excluding legitimate channels and videos from full revenue generation based solely on the inclusion of terms like “BLM” or “Police Brutality” in titles and tags.

Plaintiffs Kimberly Carleste Newman, Lisa Cabrera, Catherine Jones, and Denotra Nicole Lewis claim that YouTube uses artificial intelligence, algorithms, and other sophisticated filtering tools ...