YouTube bans 14-year-old for violating hate speech guidelines

YouTube has reportedly removed the account of Soph, a 14-year-old girl with nearly 1 million followers, after she uploaded a video attacking LGBTQ people. 

The video, which has since been taken down along with Soph’s account, is an anti-gay rant titled “Pride and Prejudice,” BuzzFeed News reported on Monday. Soph, who has allegedly also made a number of racist and anti-Islam posts, says in the video that her followers can “make sure to blame me in your manifestos,” a reference to the documents posted on the fringe site 8chan by the mass shooter from the attack in Christchurch, New Zealand.

{mosads}Under its three-strike system, YouTube terminates accounts if they violate community guidelines three times in 90 days. Soph’s most recent video reportedly broke the site’s rules on hate speech. YouTube confirmed that the video violated the site’s community guidelines in a statement to The Hill.

Soph threatened to murder YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki earlier this year, which resulted in the site temporarily suspending and demonetizing her account, according to BuzzFeed. 

After her account was taken down on Thursday, Soph tweeted a now-deleted post with a picture of herself and a gun, writing, “Youtube headquarters here I come.” She deleted the tweet and later said the “Gun tweet obviously a joke.”

She also tweeted that “nothing of value was lost” by her account being taken down.

jokes aside, nothing of value was lost. there’ll be less people watching — their loss, the ones subscribed to the patreon will continue getting their money’s worth.

— soph (@sewernugget) August 1, 2019

personally, less viewers is no biggie. youtube is the fast food of media, it thrives off of convenience, not the quality of its service, but if it upsets you because you want my ideas to be broadcasted as much as possible, send complaint emails, do what you have to.

— soph (@sewernugget) August 1, 2019

Updated at 1:55 p.m.