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| For now, YG's song advocating robbing AAPI will remain on YouTube. |
Days before the Vietnamese American family were tied up and had their house ransacked by home invaders, YouTube decided to keep airing a music video that told listeners to break into Asian American homes and steal their money.
The robbers broke into the home on March 30, tied up the couple and punched the man in the mouth, right in front of their 7-year-old daughter.
"They cover up my daughter with a blanket," said the woman Friday, April 2.
"They say, "If I move and try to run away, the first person I'll shoot will be your daughter,' " said the woman.
After ransacking the home, the gang left with what the couple said was their life savings.
Earlier in the week, YouTube decided not to delete
YG's 2014 song "Meet the Flockers" video whose lyrics said:
“’First, you find a house and scope it out. Find a Chinese neighborhood, cause they don’t believe in bank accounts. Second, you find a crew and a driver, someone ring the doorbell … And someone that ain’t scared to do what it do. Third, you pull up at the spot. Park, watch, ring the doorbell, and knock. Four, make sure nobody is home. They gone, okay it’s on.”
In the context of the raised awareness and increased frequency of attacks against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, staff members of YouTube asked the streaming company's Trust and Safety Committee to remove the video that advocates violence towards Asians.
An exec from that specific department along with a content policy leader denied the request via email on March 22.
"We find this video to be highly offensive and understand it is painful for many to watch, including many in Trust & Safety and especially given the ongoing violence against the Asian community," the email reads, according to Bloomberg. "While we debated this decision at length amongst our policy experts, we made the difficult decision to leave the video up to enforce our policy consistently and avoid setting a precedent that may lead to us having to remove a lot of other music on YouTube."
Meanwhile a spokesperson for YouTube said in a statement, "YouTube has an open culture and employees are encouraged to share their views, even when they disagree with a decision. We’ll continue this dialogue as part of our ongoing work to balance openness with protecting the YouTube community at large."
The company's refusal to remove the song also is due to their exception for "educational, documentary, scientific or artistic" (EDSA) content.
“While EDSA is not a free pass for any content, there are likely thousands of music videos that would otherwise violate policies including Sex & Nudity, Violent or Graphic Content and Hate Speech were it not for these sorts of EDSA exceptions,” the statement reads. “As a result, removing this video would have far-reaching implications for other musical content containing similarly violent or offensive lyrics, in genres ranging from rap to rock. While we debated this decision at length amongst our policy experts, we made the difficult decision to leave the video up to enforce our policy consistently and avoid setting a precedent that may lead to us having to remove a lot of other music on YouTube.”
YouTube reportedly removed more than 97,000 videos and more than 46 million comments last year that it determined violated it's hate speech policy.
Its not the first time YG's song came under scrutiny. When the song was blamed for a rash of home invasions occurred throughout the nation 2016-2017. Sacramento, CA was particularly hard hit with over 20 incidents during that time. AAPI community members blamed the song for the increase of robberies and burglaries, gun sales rose among AAPI, and protests appeared at YG appearances.
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| The mother and daughter whose home was invaded in Oakland. |
Meanwhile, in another part of Oakland, a new attack happened Friday. As an elderly Asian couple were bringing up groceries up the steps into their home, four men attacked them, grabbing a necklace from the woman and attempted to take the man's cell phone and wallet.
Only the appearance of the machete-wielding son prevented further injuries and kept the robbers from entering the house. The son who was inside the house, heard the commotion outside, grabbed a machete and chased after the attackers, who fled to a waiting car.
The earlier home invasion that occurred March 30 traumatized the entire family but has left the 7-year old daughter in fear.
"She couldn't sleep all night, and she is really frightened and she keeps asking me, 'Are they going to come back?' "
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