YouTube will remove Sandy Hook hoax videos
Russel Blair
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YouTube said Wednesday it will remove videos claiming the Sandy Hook shooting didn’t happen as it updates its hate speech policy.
“We will begin enforcing this updated policy today; however, it will take time for our systems to fully ramp up and we’ll be gradually expanding coverage over the next several months,” the Google-owned video site said.
The families of the 20 children and six educators killed in the Dec. 14, 2012 shooting in Newtown have spent years fighting conspiracy theorists on the internet, including those who claim the shooting was a hoax carried out to win support for stricter gun laws.
Internet radio host Alex Jones is facing numerous defamation lawsuits filed by the Sandy Hook families for stating on his InfoWars program that the victims’ families were actors. The families say they have faced death threats and online abuse as a result.
In a wide-ranging and bizarre three-hour deposition that was released in March as part of one of those lawsuits, filed in Texas, Jones admitted children died at Sandy Hook, but at the same time argued there is evidence of a second shooter and claimed he couldn’t even remember the day the massacre took place.
Jones is also being sued in Connecticut and has been ordered to give a deposition in that case as well, but no date has been set.
YouTube banned Jones and his InfoWars channel from its platform in August, the same day Apple, Facebook and Google said they were removing his content for violating their terms of service.
“Today, we’re taking another step in our hate speech policy by specifically prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status,” the company said in a post on its blog Wednesday. "This would include, for example, videos that promote or glorify Nazi ideology, which is inherently discriminatory. Finally, we will remove content denying that well-documented violent events, like the Holocaust or the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, took place.
Russell Blair can be reached at rblair@courant.com.
https://www.courant.com/business/hc-biz-youtube-sandy-hook-20190605-wkh2ovn6yfg2rmtgnjmmhrrqru-story.html