Black metal legend Varg Vikernes has been video blogging via his YouTube channel, ThuleanPerspective since early 2010. Not surprisingly, much of the content from Varg is widely considered to be racist, bigoted, and discriminatory.
Certainly, YouTube feels that way, as they deleted Vikernes’ channel this afternoon.
YouTube released a statement today with the announcement:
“Today, we’re taking another step in our hate speech policy by specifically prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status.
They further added:
This would include, for example, videos that promote or glorify N*zi ideology, which is inherently discriminatory. Finally, we will remove content denying that well-documented violent events, like the Holocaust or the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, took place.”
Varg will almost certainly find a new outlet for his videos, but for now, his 250,000 YouTube subscribers will have to amuse (or inspire, sadly) themselves in other ways.