YouTube Changes Policy To Allow False Claims About Past US Presidential Elections

YouTube will stop removing content that falsely claims the 2020 election or other past US presidential elections were marred by “widespread fraud, errors or problems,” the platform said Friday.

The change is a reversal for the Google-owned video service, which said a month after the 2020 election that it would begin removing new posts that falsely claim widespread voter fraud or errors changed the outcome.

YouTube said in a blog post that the updated policy is an attempt to protect the ability to “openly discuss political ideas, even those that are controversial or based on rebuttable assumptions.”

“In the current environment, we find that while removing this content limits some misinformation, it may also have the unintended effect of limiting political speech without significantly reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm,” the post said. on the blog.

The updated policy, which takes effect immediately, will not prevent YouTube from taking down content that attempts to deceive voters in the upcoming 2024 election or other future races in the US and abroad. The company said its other existing policies against election disinformation remain unchanged.

That could prove difficult to enforce, said John Whibee, an associate professor at Northeastern University who studies social media and misinformation.

“It doesn’t take a genius if you’re on the side of the ‘we were wronged in 2020’ misinformation to say ‘wait a minute, let’s just argue that voting in general isn’t worth it. And 2020 is our example,” he said. “I don’t know how you untangle the rhetoric that is both about past mistakes and future opportunities. The content moderation team trying to do this will be tying themselves in knots trying to figure out exactly where that line is.

The announcement comes after YouTube and other major social media companies, including Twitter and Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, have come under fire in recent years for not doing more to combat misinformation about the election and misinformation that spreads on their platforms. .

The left-leaning media watchdog group Media Matters said the policy change was no surprise as it was one of the “last major social media platforms” to uphold the policy.

“YouTube and other platforms that preceded it in relaxing its policies on election disinformation, such as Facebook, have made it clear that one attempt at insurrection is not enough. They are setting the stage for an encore,” Vice President Julie Millican said in a statement.