YouTube policy change: False claims about past US presidential elections will be allowed

FILE - Photo illustration showing the YouTube icon. (Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)YouTube will stop removing content that falsely claims the 2020 election or other past U.S.

presidential elections were marred by "widespread fraud, errors or glitches," the platform announced Friday.The change is a reversal for the Google-owned video service, which said a month after the 2020 election that it would start removing new posts that falsely claimed widespread voter fraud or errors changed the outcome.YouTube said in a blog post that the updated policy was an attempt to protect the ability to "openly debate political ideas, even those that are controversial or based on disproven assumptions.""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 blog post said.The updated policy, which goes into effect immediately, won’t stop YouTube from taking down content that tries to deceive voters in the upcoming 2024 election, or other future races in the U.S.

and abroad. The company said its other existing rules against election misinformation remain unchanged.This could prove difficult to enforce, said John Wihbey, an associate professor at Northeastern University who studies social media and misinformation."It doesn’t take a genius if you’re on the disinformation ‘we were wronged in 2020’ side to say, 'wait a minute, let’s just claim that voting just generally is not worth it.