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TECH TYRANNY: YouTube Announces Videos About Election Fraud Are ‘Misleading’ And Will Be Removed

Photo of K. Walker K. WalkerDecember 9, 2020
24 3 minutes read

This should raise the ire of Free Speech activists.

YouTube sent out a statement to content creators on December 9 detailing some “updates” on their work to “support the integrity of the 2020 U.S. Election.”

According to the video platform service, Basement Biden’s “historic” win with 81 million votes is not to be questioned… even as lawsuits are still before the courts.

They’ve said that any videos uploaded after the December 8 “Safe Harbor Deadline” claiming that “widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election” will be deleted because that is against their policy on spreading “misinformation.”

This is pretty hilarious considering we all went through 4 entire years of “Not My President!” hysteria from the Left in their “Resistance,” eh?

But memories are short, and there is no reason to question why a previously twice-failed Presidential candidate who squeaked by winning the nomination and barely campaigned won more votes than the guy whose shadow he sat in for 8 years and a President who gained 11 million more supporters in his reelection bid.

From the YouTube statement:

Yesterday was the safe harbor deadline for the U.S. Presidential election and enough states have certified their election results to determine a President-elect. Given that, 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, in line with our approach towards historical U.S. Presidential elections. For example, we will remove videos claiming that a Presidential candidate won the election due to widespread software glitches or counting errors. We will begin enforcing this policy today, and will ramp up in the weeks to come. As always, news coverage and commentary on these issues can remain on our site if there’s sufficient education, documentary, scientific or artistic context.

The statement continues by saying that although only a small portion of the content viewed on YouTube is election-related, it’s still something that people are searching for. But no, worries, they’re making sure that the search results are from “authoritative news sources.”

While only a small portion of watch time is election-related content, YouTube continues to be an important source of election news. On average 88% of the videos in top 10 search results related to elections came from authoritative news sources (amongst the rest are things like newsy late-night shows, creator videos and commentary). And the most viewed channels and videos are from news channels like NBC and CBS.

We also showed information panels linking both to Google’s election results feature, which sources election results from The Associated Press, and to the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) “Rumor Control” page for debunking election integrity misinformation, alongside these and over 200,000 other election-related videos. Collectively, these information panels have been shown over 4.5 billion times. Starting today, we will update this information panel, linking to the “2020 Electoral College Results” page from the Office of the Federal Register, noting that as of December 8, states have certified Presidential election results, with Joe Biden as the President-elect. It will also continue to include a link to CISA, explaining that states certify results after ensuring ballots are properly counted and correcting irregularities and errors.

Additionally, since Election Day, relevant fact check information panels, from third party fact checkers, were triggered over 200,000 times above relevant election-related search results, including for voter fraud narratives such as “Dominion voting machines” and “Michigan recount.”

Source: YouTube Official Blog

Apparently, raising questions that the New York Times did back in 2012 is now verboten on YouTube.

So is questioning the constitutionality of rushing through new rules for voting using the pandemic as an excuse.

There’s one part of this that I want to touch on a bit… the use of third-party “fact-checkers.”

Oh, please!

We don’t know who they are. They could be like Snopes — a now-divorced couple who started a website to check out weird internet rumors and lied about being part of a non-existent society to lend credibility to their “research” and whose staff included — at least in 2016 — a former escort-prostitute and a pot-smoking former sex blogger whose alias is “Vice Vixen.”

We know that “fact-checkers” lean solidly to the left but are called “moderate.”

Some content creators were not happy about this sudden turn of events.

Chief among them is the former lefty, Dave Rubin.

Independent journalist Tim Pool says that these are “editorial guidelines” and a violation of Section 230.

Dilbert cartoonist and an interesting observer of politics and the art of persuasion, Scott Adams, says that he’s going to be putting the new policy to the test.

Right Side Broadcasting Network has had it and is leaving YouTube.

There are some big names out there rasing alarm bells. We’ll see if this gets challenged and what happens if it does.

 

 

Photo of K. Walker K. WalkerDecember 9, 2020
24 3 minutes read
Photo of K. Walker

K. Walker

ClashDaily's Associate Editor since August 2016. Self-described political junkie, anti-Third Wave Feminist, and a nightmare to the 'intersectional' crowd. Mrs. Walker has taken a stand against 'white privilege' education in public schools. She's also an amateur Playwright, former Drama teacher, and staunch defender of the Oxford comma. Follow her humble musings on Twitter: @TheMrsKnowItAll and on Gettr @KarenWalker