Candace Owens Blasts YouTube For 'Bats--- Woke' Policy That Led to Removal of One of Her Shows

Conservative political commentator Candace Owens blasted YouTube on Friday for removing an episode of her podcast due to the company's policy on hate speech.

Owens said that the company removed the episode because of her outlook on gender, calling YouTube "outrageous" and referred to its hate speech policy as "bats*** woke."

"YouTube removed an entire episode of the Candace Owens show because we said that men are not women, and women are not men. I honestly cannot even believe how absolutely bats*** woke you have to be to believe basic truth to be "'hate speech,'" she wrote.

In the episode, which aired on July 14, 2019, Owens had fellow conservative commentator Michael Knowles on air to discuss gender, sex, and pronouns.

Within their conversation, Knowles and Owens both stated that they did not believe in gender identities outside of the traditional binary of male and female, and that they viewed transgender individuals as having mental illness.

Owens also accused the left of "giving people mental disorders" by encouraging individuals to explore and embrace their preferred gender identity.

"What the left wants to do is break down structure, and what it creates is mass confusion. And I genuinely believe that mass confusion, and when you have a society that does not have structure, that leads directly to depression," she added.

Owens and Knowles continued by implying that transgender individuals are mentally ill, and Owens said that she doesn't "play the game," by respecting an individuals preferred pronouns.

"I don't play that game," she said in regard to respecting transgender identity.

"What I always say to people is 'if you have a mental disorder, that's fine. I don't need to come up to you and tell you that you have a mental disorder, that would be rude.' But when you have a mental disorder and you're now requiring that I have a mental disorder to meet your mental disorder, that doesn't work for me," she added.

In response, Knowles added that those who deny that men and women are inherently different "deny objective reality."

A YouTube spokesperson told Newsweek that the language used in Owens' podcast directly violated the company's hate speech policy, which forbids claims that individuals or groups are physically or mentally inferior, deficient, or diseased based on sex or gender.

"We rigorously enforce this policy, which prohibits claims that LGBTQ+ individuals are mentally diseased based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, said YouTube spokesperson, Alex Joseph.

On Friday, Knowles tweeted "Just imagine what Big Tech is getting ready to do if Joe Biden is named president," in response to the company's action.

Censorship has become a hotly debated topic within the context of the 2020 election and political commentary, as Twitter, Facebook and Google have each ramped up policy initiatives to curb the spread of misinformation and hate speech.

During a congressional hearing with Facebook and Twitter on Tuesday, Republican Senator Ted Cruz accused the tech giants of administering censorship policies in a "partisan and selected manner," by disproportionately labeling the posts of conservative politicians and thinkers.

In response, some Democrats have maintained that tech companies need to go further to limit the spread of false and harmful information.

"You have built terrifying tools of persuasion and manipulation—with power far exceeding the robber barons of the last Gilded Age," Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said.

"You have made a huge amount of money by strip mining data about our private lives and promoting hate speech and voter suppression," he added.