It’s disengenuous to say that YouTube didn’t have rules before this. This is just another rule on what’s allowed. Is it wise? I don’t know, probably. In America white supremacy is a rising problem and they are getting radicalized by YouTube and the economics of hate for profit making a lot of money by recommending the more clickbaity extreme videos. They are perhaps correcting the course. Perhaps they are overreacting. We will see where the chips lie after this.
Edit. I looked at the way back on YouTube’s tou from when the site was a dating site and it’s always disallowed hateful content regarding race or other things. This seems like a clarification on that provision.
from the original tou as far back as it went on archive.org:
> You may not post, upload or transmit to the Site, or to the YouTube servers, any communications, text, graphics or other information or Materials that: (1) is unlawful, obscene, fraudulent, indecent or that defames, abuses, harasses, or threatens others, or is hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable; (2) contains any software viruses, Trojan horses, worms, bombs, or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment or that may damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept, or expropriate any system, data, or personal information; (3) advocates or encourages any illegal activity; (4) infringes on the copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, right of publicity or other intellectual property, proprietary, contracted, personal or other right of any third party; (5) violates the privacy of inpiduals, including other users of the Site; or (6) violates any applicable local, state, national or international law. You agree not to use bots, spiders or intelligent agent software (or other methods) for any purpose other than accessing publicly posted portions of the Site and then only for the purposes consistent with the limited license hereunder and these Terms of Use. You agree not to, or attempt to, circumvent any access or use restrictions, data encryption or content protection related to the Site; not to data mine the Site and not to in any way cause harm to or burden the Site. You agree that you will not post on or transmit through the Site any advertising or commercial solicitation of any kind whatsoever, including, without limitation, via e-mail or chat, without YouTube's express prior written approval and, if then, solely in accordance with the terms and conditions imposed by YouTube with respect thereto. You further agree not to use the Site, or any element or portion thereof (including, without limitation, e-mail addresses of users), for any commercial purpose whatsoever.
specifically the first part: (1) is unlawful, obscene, fraudulent, indecent or that defames, abuses, harasses, or threatens others, or is hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
heading from their blog post:
> Removing more hateful and supremacist content from YouTube
where they go on to clarify what is meant by hateful.
> What is a clarification combined with a change in behavior?
It's moving from an ad hoc approach to a more definite, clarified criteria. Before some of these videos were being removed and some not but now there's more of a clear framework by which to judge offending content.
you can squabble over definitions of words all you like but they've always been against hateful content. they are just clarifying what is hateful.
Edit. I looked at the way back on YouTube’s tou from when the site was a dating site and it’s always disallowed hateful content regarding race or other things. This seems like a clarification on that provision.