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thenelli01: Beautifully stated. . ...aware of my value as a person independent of ...

I don’t know if calling someone a “Lispy sprite” and a “little queer” is by itself bullying, but it certainly is cruel and has the potential to encourage the behavior to be continued, especially when done by someone of Crowder’s popularity. As someone who is gay, growing up I had to listen to my parents, brothers, classmates, society in general, insult, dismiss people for being gay - calling them f*ggots, queers, homos - people would say how disgusting it is and how sick those people make them. It probably had an enormous effect on my sense of worth as a person growing up and certainly led me to want to stay guarded and not open up about who I was because of it. Even the other week when I heard a relative say the word “f*ggot”, it made me cringe, except now I feel comfortable calling him out on it because I’m aware of my value as a person independent of other people’s opinion of me. However, children/teens, by their nature, are dependent on their parents and to some extent their environment to understand their inherent value as a person. Psychologically speaking, at this stage of development and less so as they get older, they need to rely on external stimuli to understand that they matter. If you have society telling you are disgusting, worthless and less than just because you are you, it can be very damaging to your sense of dignity. Many have committed suicide because of it, and it’s absolutely tragic. Any cruel speech directed at someone for an aspect of themselves that they cannot control doesn’t deserve a platform and giving it a platform has the ability to encourage the bullying behavior and damage people psychologically (those who see it or are victimized by other people who are encouraged by the content). In this respect, I would be okay with YouTube taking down any content of this type on moral grounds. It’s below the standard that should be set for public dialog. I don’t think they have to set the standard, but if that is the standard they want to set, I think that is appropriate. With that said, I agree it’s a slippery slope, not well defined and they open themselves up to having to navigate through ALL of the content to monitor for expression of that nature if they want to be consistent. It’s actually a fairly tricky topic, as I see both sides. Sorry for any typos - on my phone.