YouTube to Stop Removing Content Denying 2020 US Election Result

This doesn’t seem right. Come on YouTube!

Edit: it’s to prevent another Jan6… hmm

“The division of Alphabet Inc.’s Google said the new policy will take effect on Friday. “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,” the company said in a blog post. “With that in mind, and with 2024 campaigns well underway, we will stop removing content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 and other past US presidential elections.” YouTube and other social media companies have been under pressure since the 2016 US presidential election to ensure their platforms are not manipulated to spread political misinformation. YouTube said in December that it had taken down more than 10,000 videos related to the US midterm elections for violating its policies on election integrity and other guidelines. Some of those videos were removed for promoting the falsehood that the 2020 US presidential election was stolen. YouTube said Friday it would continue to ban content that misleads people about how to vote, advances false information that could dissuade people from voting, and promotes interference with elections. Axios earlier reported the company’s policy shift.“

Worth noting that 2016 election denial (Russia hacked the election!) was never banned. Here's an entertaining compilation of some of it, but there's plenty more where that came from.

[1] https://twitter.com/0rf/status/1664745495288225805

Well seeing as the Republican platform is "any election that we don't win is ipso facto fraudulent", I suppose that they had to make this change in order to avoid losing out on those sweet Republican ad dollars.

The only question to ask here is how does this benefit the DNC? Most likely they’re preparing for election denial claims if a republican wins, which as we’ve seen from 2016-2020, is totally ok.