YouTube introduced on June 2 that it’s going to now not take down video that make false claims in regards to the legitimacy of U.S. elections.

Lionel Bonaventure/AFP through Getty Images

cover caption

toggle caption

Lionel Bonaventure/AFP through Getty Images

YouTube introduced on June 2 that it’s going to now not take down video that make false claims in regards to the legitimacy of U.S. elections.

Lionel Bonaventure/AFP through Getty Images

YouTube will now not take away movies falsely claiming the 2020 U.S. presidential election was stolen, reversing a coverage put in place within the contentious weeks following the 2020 vote.

The Google-owned video platform mentioned in a blog post that it has taken down “tens of thousands” of movies questioning the integrity of previous U.S. presidential elections because it created the coverage in December 2020.

But two and a half years later, the corporate mentioned it “will stop removing content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past U.S. Presidential elections” as a result of issues have modified. It mentioned the choice was “carefully deliberated.”

“In the current environment, we find that while removing this content does curb some misinformation, it could also have the unintended effect of curtailing political speech without meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm,” YouTube mentioned.

The platform will proceed to ban movies deceptive voters about when, the place, and the way to vote, claims that discourage voting, and “content that encourages others to interfere with democratic processes.”

It additionally prohibits some false claims about election fraud or errors in different nations, together with the 2021 German federal election and the 2014, 2018, and 2022 Brazilian presidential elections.

YouTube’s reversal of its prohibition on false claims about U.S. elections comes because the 2024 marketing campaign is already underway, and former president and present Republican candidate Donald Trump continues to say, with out proof, that he misplaced to Joe Biden in 2020 due to widespread fraud.

“YouTube was one of the last major social media platforms to keep in place a policy attempting to curb 2020 election misinformation. Now, it’s decided to take the easy way out by giving people like Donald Trump and his enablers free rein to continue to lie without consequence about the 2020 elections,” mentioned Julie Millican, vp of liberal watchdog Media Matters for America. “YouTube and the other platforms that preceded it in weakening their election misinformation policies, like Facebook, have made it clear that one attempted insurrection wasn’t enough. They’re setting the stage for an encore.”

YouTube’s coverage went additional than Facebook and Twitter, which mentioned they might label however not take down false election claims.

Twitter stopped labeling false claims in regards to the 2020 election early final yr, saying it had been greater than a yr for the reason that election was licensed and Biden took workplace.

Facebook has pulled again on its use of labeling, in accordance with a 2022 Washington Post analysis of unfounded election fraud claims on the platform.