Soph’s channel was banned over the weekend for hate speech, but there’s more to that.
YouTube is cracking down on the hate speech. The far-right 14-year old that earned nearly a million followers on YouTube received a permanent channel ban. The news of it blew up over the weekend, with distasteful and violent responses coming from the young YouTuber on Twitter.
All You Need to Know About Soph and YouTube
Background
The YouTuber in question and channel was just known as Soph. She made Buzzfeed headlines in spring 2019 for her edgy humor and blatant hate speech. She quickly nearly one million like-minded followers on the platform.
Soph’s content in question was a mixture of attempted edgy humor and American far-right politics. Soph’s channel underwent many changes from its first iteration. It originally went by LieutenantCorbis, according to her Wikitubia profile, specializing in a satirical commentary on other YouTuber personalities. In a popular video, she mocks Islamic culture while wearing traditional Islamic clothing. The video proceeds into a homophobic rant laced with slurs. At this point, it’s difficult to call it satire when it becomes so blurred with hateful content.
The video was deleted for hate speech, leading to a surge in hate speech versus free speech discussions. Kron4 notes that her high school reported that her classmates walked out in protest of her content.
Her content has been subject to at least two investigations, one of which was a threat towards the YouTube CEO. The police at the time determined the threat not credible since Soph did not have access to firearms. That appears to have changed.
PRESS F TO PAY RESPECTS
[give @TeamYouTube a hard time about it if you can]
subscribe to my MUHFUGGIN BITCHUTE: https://t.co/KyqL50Amdk]
donate to my PATREON: https://t.co/utgcL1L8TZ
and buy my POPPIN MERCH [6 more days!!!]: https://t.co/0jpHjaewMx pic.twitter.com/CrEdBccdKx
— soph (@sewernugget) August 1, 2019
YouTube Ban
At the time of her Buzzfeed Feature back in May 2019, a lot of people called an account ban from YouTube, citing her hate speech violations of their Terms of Service. YouTube finally answered this call, even if it took a couple of months.
Buzzfeed reports the offending video in question was a 12-minute long rant targeting the LGBTQ community, that ended with threats of violence and a call to her followers to “blame [her] in your manifesto.” The reference to the “manifesto” is a dog whistle of sorts to sites like 8chan where shooters are frequently worshipped, encouraged, and where shooters publish their manifestos before mass murder sprees. An example is the Christchurch shooter that published such a document. While this video was made before the El Paso event, the shooter in question would also publish a manifesto of his own with a similar visceral hatred.
Soph only responded to this a violent fourteen-year-old could: with guns and threats.
In addition to her YouTube ban, Patreon closed her account for similar violations.
gun tweet obviosly a joke. BTW i have a BTC and a BCH wallets. GoDoN8
BTC: bc1qrttngtd7rwhw2gg5jg4z2vusnags88cfjpcyc6
BCH: bitcoincash:qrp7esy6qtt5mzv4vv7l3p7khslxx6rryc5ntl507w
— soph (@sewernugget) August 1, 2019
Twitter “Joke”
After her ban, Soph posted an image on Twitter of herself holding an assault rifle with the caption “YouTube Headquarters here I come,” according to Buzzfeed. This has since been deleted, and Soph claims it was a joke.
That investigation that was determined not to be credible as she didn’t have access to firearms might want to be renewed. Although it is unclear if the photo was photoshopped or if she owned the weapon in question.
The post was made on August 1, as her ban went into effect then and her tweet retracting the comment is stamped with the same date. It was in poor taste, especially since shortly after, several shootings happened over the weekend.
Future
Unfortunately, hate like this will find a platform thanks to the internet. Soph has already started advertising new platforms, claiming that YouTube is the “fast food” of media and “nothing of value was lost.” It is unlikely that the ban will discourage further hate speech. Instead, she will likely move on to other platforms. Currently, she is advertising a new BitChute channel. BitChute was founded on the idea of hosting content that violates the rules of other platforms such as YouTube, much like 8chan. Her content will likely remain on alternative platforms.
