YouTube censors Nashville shooter’s manifesto after allowing others on the site for years

YouTube censored a video containing several pages of the Christian Covenant School shooter’s manifesto that was first leaked on Monday, the company confirmed on Tuesday.

The now-deceased Audrey Hale killed six individuals with a gun inside the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, in March, and authorities verified they found her manifesto allegedly planning the attack. YouTube says it took down conservative political commentator Steven Crowder’s video because it included a link to Hale’s writings, but the company does not appear to have a specific rule about manifestos and other videos containing them that are still on the platform.

The video’s link prompts viewers to post a link to Crowder’s post on X — formerly Twitter — revealing the manifesto. The video was an episode of his “Louder With Crowder” show in which he discussed the manifesto, reading from and showing pictures of it.

“Our Community Guidelines prohibit linking to content containing manifestos from individuals who have committed violent attacks, including the tragic event that took place in Nashville Tennessee in February of 2023,” a YouTube spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “This is consistent with how we’ve enforced our Community Guidelines in the past.”

YouTube’s “violent extremist or criminal organizations policy” does not mention the term “manifesto,” but the company cited the policy in a screenshot Crowder posted regarding the video takedown. The policy prohibits “content that glorifies or promotes violent tragedies, such as school shootings” as well as “raw and unmodified reuploads of content created by terrorist, criminal, or extremist organizations.”

YouTube also enforces the policy on external links, according to its community guidelines.

Yet a video about now-deceased California mass shooter Elliot Rodger titled, “Elliot Rodger: His Biographical Manifesto” is still on the platform. Moreover, a video about now-deceased Virginia Tech mass shooter Seung-Hui Cho titled “Virginia Tech Shooting Confession Video” is also on the platform.

Both videos have been up for over nine years and have large view counts. The former has almost 500,000 views and the latter has over 3.5 million.

The platform did not address whether it believes Hale was part of a “terrorist, criminal, or extremist” group.

Facebook also censored Crowder’s post of the manifesto on Meta’s platform Facebook, he asserted, posting a screenshot on X.

“Your post may go against our Community Standards on violence and incitement,” a message from Facebook to Crowder stated. “Your post looks similar to content that we’ve removed for going against our Community Standards. You can delete it now to avoid potential account restrictions.”

The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) confirmed the three pages Crowder leaked are authentic in a statement on Monday.

Meta and Crowder did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

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