YouTube Terminated

The Account Of A 14-

Year-Old Star Over
Her Anti-Gay Video
YouTube has removed the account of Soph, a 14-
year-old girl who accumulated nearly a million
followers through racist and anti-Muslim videos, after
she uploaded an anti-LGBTQ video on July 31.
In the video, a 12-minute anti-gay rant titled “Pride
and Prejudice,” Soph encourages her followers to
“make sure to blame me in your manifestos” — a
direct reference to the kind of document posted to
8chan by the Christchurch shooter who killed 51
people in March. On Saturday, the El Paso shooting
suspect would also publish a manifesto to 8chan
before killing at least 21 people.
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According to YouTube, the channel was removed in

accordance with its strike system, under which
YouTube terminates accounts that violate its
Community Guidelines three times in 90 days; in the
case of Soph’s channel, the final strike violated the
site’s Community Guidelines on hate speech.
Soph, who earlier this year threatened to murder
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, had managed to
keep her account active, though YouTube did levy a
temporary suspension and demoneztize her
account.
In June, YouTube faced weeks of blistering criticism
for its hate speech policies — including direct
questions from the press about the Soph channel.
The same month, YouTube announced new policies
aimed at reducing “harmful content.”
After her channel was taken down, Soph tweeted an
image of herself with what appears to be an assault
rifle, with the caption “youtube headquarters here I
come.” She later removed the tweet. “Gun tweet
obviosly a joke,” she wrote in a follow-up tweet.
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UPDATE
August 5, 2019, at 9:58 p.m.

Joe Bernstein is a senior technology reporter for BuzzFeed News and

is based in New York. 

Contact Joseph Bernstein at joe.bernstein@buzzfeed.com.

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