YouTube To Ban Videos Alleging Voter Fraud

It has been over a month since the 2020, US election which saw Joe Biden win the campaign to become the next President of the United States of America. President Donald Trump has claimed cases of ‘voter fraud’ throughout the count and after the election was called. The President has since attempted legal action and recounts have been undertaken. An ongoing issue surrounding social technology is that of misinformation and in 2020 misinformation has been particularly prominent and dangerous in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. As with any election, the spread of misinformation is somewhat guaranteed, but the speed at which false information spreads around social media, is increasingly problematic and hazardous. On election day, platforms such as Twitter and Facebook began censoring misleading tweets, including those from President Trump himself, putting up disclaimers that provided clarification such as ‘the winner of the presidential race had not yet been announced’, and even preventing shares. Online video sharing giant, YouTube recently announced that it would begin deleting videos that alleged to voter fraud or spread debunked information in regards to the recent 2020 election.

YouTube’s new policy will come into effect on Wednesday, December 9th 2020. As many have been calling on platforms such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to address misinformation surrounding the election, prior to and after election day, many may question why YouTube are only now making this move, after months of allegations and debunked theories. According to The New York Times, YouTube has now made this move as ‘Tuesday was the so-called safe harbor deadline — the date by which all state-level election challenges, such as recounts and audits, are supposed to be completed. YouTube said that enough states have certified their election results to determine that Joseph R. Biden Jr. is the president-elect.’ The new guidelines apparently stipulate that videos regarding the election that were uploaded prior to the safe-harbor deadline would not be deleted, (including several videos on the topic from President Trump himself) but instead given an ‘information panel’ linking to the Office of the Federal Register’s election results certification notice. This is not a new move for YouTube, who has previously labelled misleading election videos with a disclaimer that links to accurate information.

Videos uploaded after the safe-harbour deadline however, will be fair game and be deleted under the new guidelines. In a recent blog post, YouTube stated: “we will start removing any piece of content uploaded today (or anytime after) that misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election… We enforce our policies regardless of speaker.” Meaning that videos uploaded by the president himself, could also be deleted due to misinformation. This will likely cause uproar with many who believe that voter fraud allegations are legitimate, despite theories being debunked.

Like other platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, YouTube has been criticized for its allowance of misinformation to spread seemingly ‘unchecked’ throughout their website. YouTube has been particularly criticised for its policies on election videos which has allowed
videos that have spread false claims of widespread voter fraud.

Since and during the election, President Trump and various republicans have been claiming voter fraud, insisting that the election was rigged. Bloomberg reported ‘after Biden was declared the winner, Trump and his supporters continued to promote the idea that the election was rigged against him. In late November a group of Democratic U.S. senators appealed to YouTube to take down videos with “false and misleading” information about the election, a sign of political condemnation usually reserved for social networks Facebook and Twitter. The senators said the videos “seek to undermine our democracy and cast doubt on the legitimacy” of Biden’s incoming administration.’ Reuters apparently also recently identified several channels which were making money from ads and memberships whilst spreading debunked voter fraud claims.

YouTube apparently rejected these claims, The New York Times reporting: ‘the company said that since September, it had shut down over 8,000 channels and “thousands” of election videos that violated its policies. Since Election Day, the company said, it had also shown fact-check panels over 200,000 times above relevant election-related search results on voter fraud narratives such as “Dominion voting machines” and “Michigan recount.” According to CNET, although YouTube stated that its policies prohibit videos alleging fraud, “in some cases, that has meant allowing controversial views on the outcome or process of counting votes of a current election, as election officials have worked to finalize counts.”