YouTube will remove videos disputing Biden’s win, more than a month after election

Company claims efforts to curb election misinformation on platform have been successful

Company claims efforts to curb election misinformation on platform have been successful (REUTERS)

YouTube will now remove videos that dispute President-elect Joe Biden’s election win.

Engadget reports that the Google-owned platform is removing content uploaded from 9 December onwards if it alleges “widespread fraud or errors” changed the outcome of the 2020 election.

The decision was made after enough states had certified their results and the 8 December “safe harbour” deadline for the election was reached.

An update to the election fact-check panels will include a link to the Office of the Federal Register page that confirms that Joe Biden will be the next US president.

Further links to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s page debunking false claims about the integrity of the election, and the Google election results feature, which sources its information from the Associated Press, will also still appear.

The company says that its determination to curb election misinformation has been effective.

More than 8,000 channels and thousands of election-related videos have been terminated for “harmful and misleading” claims since September.

Over 77 per cent of the removed videos were taken down before they had 100 views.

In a blog post, the company said: “Yesterday was the safe harbor deadline for the US 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 US Presidential election, in line with our approach towards historical US Presidential elections.”

It continues: “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.”

There are exceptions for “news coverage and commentary on these issues” which can remain on the site if there is “sufficient education, documentary, scientific or artistic context”.

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", the company says.

In search, on average 88 per cent of the videos in the top 10 search results related to the election came from authoritative news sources, with the remainder being late night shows, creator videos, and commentary.

As viewers find content via recommendations on the platform, the company has acted to limit the reach of borderline content while promoting authoritative information. Over 70 per cent of recommendations came from authoritative news sources.

The company says that while only one per cent of what is watched on YouTube in the US is problematic misinformation, it is working to bring that number down even further, and is looking at ways that other sites link to content on the platform.

YouTube says that it “will apply learnings from this election to our ongoing efforts to protect the integrity of elections around the world”.