Here's Why LGBTQ+ Content Creators Are Suing YouTube

A team of eight LGBTQ+ content creators and influencers are banding together and collectively suing popular video-sharing platform YouTube and its parent company Google.

According to a report by The Verge, the cause of the lawsuit stems from allegations that YouTube is unlawfully censoring, age restricting, and demonitizing LGBTQ-themed videos that are made by queer creators and targeted for the queer community. "YouTube is engaged in discriminatory, anticompetitive, and unlawful conduct that harms a protected class of persons under California law," the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in California earlier this week, reads. 

The lawsuit also claims that YouTube has become "a chaotic cesspool where popular, compliant, top-quality and protected LGBTQ+ content is restricted, stigmatised and demonetised as 'shocking,' 'inappropriate,' 'offensive,' and 'sexually explicit,' while homophobic and racist hatemongers run wild and are free to post vile and obscene content on the pages and channels of LGBTQ+ plaintiffs and other LGBTQ+ content creators or audiences."

The eight plaintiffs in the case include couple and singing duo Bria & Chrissy, Queer Kid Stuff creator Lindsay Amer, as well as Celso Dulay, Chris Knight, Brett Somers, Cameron Stiehl, and Chase Ross. The group released a collective video, explaining to their viewers why they are taking legal action against YouTube and Google. 

"They use our important content to feed their bottom line and they simply just don't carw about us," Amer, whose educational, kid-friendly LGBTQ videos were the target of harassment from the far-right, said in the video. "They don't care about the importance of our work, they don't care about our mental health, and they don't care about our livelihood. Only their own profits." 

This is not the first time YouTube has come under fire. All the drama came to a head last year when trans vlogger Chase Ross called out the video platform for running transphobic ads before many of his videos. 

While it's widely-known that YouTube is a hard space for queer creatives to thrive in and to navigate, especially considering all of the roadblocks that are placed in from of them, the plaintiffs in this case are hoping their lawsuit enacts positive change for LGBTQ+ content creators who just want to create meanigful videos for the people in the community who need them the most.