Soph/YouTubeControversy surrounds a self-confessed potty mouth teen YouTuber who has been accused of bigotry against Muslims in a recent video.
Fourteen-year-old vlogger ‘Soph’, has become centre of the debate after releasing a foul-mouthed video titled ‘Be Not Afraid’, in which she dresses in a chador and claims she has become a ‘devout follower of the Prophet Muhammad’, and jokes how she gets ‘raped by my 40-year-old husband every so often.’
The provocative 20-minute video is said to be a stand against so-called internet outrage culture, in a bid to get young people to speak their minds without fear of offending people.
Soph/YouTubeIt was highlighted in a Buzzfeed News article, which accused Soph of bigotry towards Muslims, and the video was later banned for ‘violating the company’s policy on hate speech.’
Soph, from the Bay Area, is described as ‘a cherubic white girl mocking Islamic dress while lecturing her hundreds of thousands of followers about Muslim “rape gangs,” social justice “homos,” and the evils wrought by George Soros.’
It continues to say the high school freshman’s videos veer towards racism or anti-gay sentiments, and the author criticises YouTube for allowing the controversial videos on its platform.
A YouTube spokesperson told the MailOnline:
YouTube is an open platform where anyone may post videos as long as they comply with our Community Guidelines. This may include content that some find offensive.
We enforce our policies rigorously and last quarter alone, removed more than 8 million videos. Responsibility remains our number one priority and we continue to invest heavily in our teams, technology and processes to protect the platform.
Soph/YouTubeThe online giant continued to say Soph’s channel had been reviewed, and while two of those videos were taken down, the majority of them did not appear to violate their policies, and remain on her channel.
Soph’s followers grew by around 10 per cent after the Buzzfeed article was published, taking her to 880,000 subscribers, and she took to Twitter to ‘thank’ the author, Joseph Bernstein.
I cannot thank you enough @Bernstein
— soph (@sewernugget) May 14, 2019
‘I cannot thank you enough @Bernstein,’ she wrote.
Not everyone agreed with Buzzfeed’s sentiment, and YouTube’s judgement to remove the video, with some conservative commentators accusing the journalists of targeting Soph.
Right-wing talk show host Dave Rubin said:
There are “journalists” who hunt down kids on YouTube to report for [saying the] wrong thing. (Which in this case is biting social commentary and funnier than anything on network TV).
The debate continues…
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.