YouTube is once again cleaning up a mess of its own creation, tweeting out a series of apologies to the gay community.

 

On June 30th, the site apologized on Twitter for the many ways it has ‘let the LGBTQ community down’.

 

"It’s the last day of Pride Month and we wanted to reach out to the LGBTQ community," it tweeted. "We’re proud of the incredible LGBTQ voices on our platform and the important role you play in the lives of young people."

 

"But we’ve also had issues where we let the LGBTQ community down -- inappropriate ads and concerns about how we’re enforcing our monetization policy. We're sorry and we want to do better."

 

The "ads" that the site is referring to were anti-gay ads from Christian groups, many of which spoke about the evils of homosexuality or offered a "cure" to same-sex attractions.

 

YouTuber Elijah Daniel tweeted pictures of one offensive ad, criticizing YouTube for failing LGBTQ users. He wrote: “how fucking dare you @youtube? You restrict creators beyond belief with what we can have ads on, but don't screen ads like this before going live? And let them run on LGBT channels? For days? During Pride Month?”

 

And YouTube creators also discovered that they were being denied ad revenue because their videos referenced sex or trans issues, meaning even popular or educational videos were removed from the site's revenue-sharing program.

 

"I posted my five-years-post-op top surgery video yesterday, and it was demonetized instantly the second I added the word 'transgender' in the title," explained Chase Ross. "My content on trans issues being restricted makes me feel so unwelcome on a platform that the LGBT+ community helped form."

 

"We’ve taken action on the ads that violate our policies, and we are tightening our enforcement," YouTube claimed. "And when we hear concerns about how we’re implementing our monetization policy, we take them seriously and make improvements if needed.

 

"It's critical to us that the LGBTQ community feels safe, welcome, equal, and supported on YouTube. Your work is incredibly powerful and we are committed to working with you to get this right."

 

YouTube, however, has a terrible track record with the LGBTQ.

 

In 2017, a ‘family-friendly’ filter blocked all queer content. And a few years before, the site was called out for labelling all queer content as "adult." In both cases YouTube apologized and promised to do better.

 

In this latest mea culpa, YouTube failed to give concrete examples of what changes are planned and when users can expect to see them enacted. Seems like a pretty hollow apology to us.