YouTube to remove videos claiming mass fraud changed election results

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YouTube to remove videos claiming mass fraud changed election results
It's a policy shift that could put the tech giant at odds with President Donald Trump.

By CRISTIANO LIMA 12/09/2020



YouTube said Wednesday it will begin removing any videos that falsely claim widespread voting fraud changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential race now that the deadline for states to resolve disputes over the results has passed.

It's a policy shift that could put the tech giant at odds with President Donald Trump and his GOP allies in the remaining days of his administration, but one that will be welcomed by Democrats who have called for more aggressive action.

What’s changing: The Google-owned video-sharing platform announced in a blog post that it will begin outright removing content published Wednesday or later that “misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.”

The company in recent months has taken steps to label election-related posts and direct users to “authoritative news sources” regarding the outcome, but stopped short of outright banning unsubstantiated claims of a rigged election.

YouTube said it would begin enforcing the policy now that the national safe harbor deadline for states to conclude any disputes over the election results passed on Tuesday. “We will begin enforcing this policy today, and will ramp up in the weeks to come,” the company said.

Policies under fire: A group of Senate Democrats called on the company in a letter last month to take more aggressive action to crack down on election-related misinformation.

“We write to express our deep concern regarding the proliferation of misinformation on your platform during and immediately following the 2020 elections and in light of the upcoming Georgia run-off elections,” wrote the lawmakers, led by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.).

Democrats took particular issue with the fact that the company “notably refused to prohibit users from posting false content on the outcome of the election or the manner in which state and local officials counted votes.”

The conservative blowback: Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), an outspoken Google critic and a top Trump ally on social media issues, lambasted YouTube's decision as an affront on free speech. And he seized on the shift to renew calls to revoke Section 230, the 1996 law that shields online companies from lawsuits over the content they host and how they police it.

"@Google owned @youtube officially announcing free speech no longer allowed," he tweeted in response to YouTube's announcement. "If you have concerns about election integrity, you must sit down and shut up. Repeal Section 230 and break these companies up."

What's next: Trump's legal team continues to claim widespread fraud and push to overturn the election results, but the passing of the safe harbor deadline makes that effort very unlikely to succeed. Increased anger among conservatives about social media companies' treatment of posts could, however, continue on into next year and add further fuel to Republican efforts to restrict laws that give them liability protections around user content.