Candace Owens suspended from YouTube for ‘violating hate speech policy’ with anti-LGBTQ+ content

Right-wing political commentator Candace Owens has reportedly been suspended from YouTube, following previous punishments for ongoing hate against the LGBTQ+ community.

Owens, 34, hosts a show on conservative news site The Daily Wire, as well as running her own podcast, and has become well-known for spouting dangerous claims about LGBTQ+ people.

In a video posted on The Daily Wire’s YouTube channel, fellow host Michael Knowles explained that he would be delivering the segment alone due to Owen’s suspension.

Explaining that the show will now be streaming directly to its website rather than the video-sharing platform, Knowles said: “YouTube, you see, hates us.”

“With its vague – some are calling them tyrannical – guidelines and their proclivity to censor conservative voices has once again banned my friend Candace,” he added, explaining that the ban prohibits the political commentator “from posting or appearing on any of the Daily Wire’s YouTube channels”.

He went on to say that “every one of us here at The Daily Wire has been in YouTube jail for one reason or another”.

Knowles did not explain how long the suspension would last, or the exact reason for her being removed from the platform. 

A YouTube spokesperson told PinkNews: “We issued a strike to the Candace Owens Podcast channel for violating our hate speech policy, which prohibits content promoting hatred against protected individuals or groups, including the LGBTQ+ community.”

In June this year, Owens’ YouTube content was demonetised for her continued misgendering of trans people, which the platform said at the time was in breach of its “hateful conduct” policy.

YouTube operates a “three-strike” system and anyone who violates its policy three times within a 90 day period can be permanently banned from the platform.

Candace Owens is no stranger to controversy, having previously been criticised for claiming YouTube star JoJo Siwa is “lying” about being gay, claiming anyone who shops at Target is “gay” and a “pervert”, saying “transgenderism” is a “cancer”, and praising Donald Trump as a “feminist icon” due to his opposition to trans rights, among other anti-LGBTQ+ statements that have violated YouTube’s policies. 

Fellow Daily Wire host Knowles has also come under fire for anti-LGBTQ+ hate, in March calling for “transgenderism” to be completely eradicated from public life.