YouTube was right to allow videos that contain anti-gay slurs to remain on its service, the company's CEO said Monday while apologizing for the hurt they caused, according to NBC News.
The interview at Code Conference was Susan Wojcicki's first public appearance since YouTube imposed a stricter ban on hate speech last week, which includes videos that promote the idea of racial superiority. But she was questioned about why YouTube allowed to leave up videos made in what journalist Carlos Maza says was a conservative YouTuber's campaign of targeted homophobic abuse and harassment.
"I know the decision we made was very hurtful to the LGBTQ community," Wojcicki said. "That was not our intention at all. We're really sorry about that."
But the videos were "not violative of our policy," she added. Harassment is only banned on YouTube when it is "malicious," and Wojcicki said there's a high bar for that on the platform.
