(WP) – YouTube will now remove videos that make false claims that widespread fraud or error cost President Trump the election, the company announced Wednesday in a blog post, and since September it has purged 8,000 channels for spreading “harmful and misleading” content.
The Google-owned video giant has taken heat in recent weeks for not removing or individually fact-checking content that has boosted baseless claims about voter fraud, as other social media companies have. But now that the “safe harbor deadline” — the point by which state-level election challenges must be completed — has passed, YouTube said it will bar content uploaded Wednesday or after that suggests widespread fraud or errors cost Trump the election.
“For example, we will remove videos claiming that a Presidential candidate won the election due to widespread software glitches or counting errors,” the company said in the blog post. “We will begin enforcing this policy today, and will ramp up in the weeks to come.”
This policy will apply to Trump, who on a daily basis has insisted without evidence that the election was rigged and that he actually won in a landslide. Democrat Joe Biden won the Nov. 3 election, and the White House transition is underway. “We enforce our policies consistently, regardless of speaker,” Ivy Choi, a YouTube spokeswoman, said in an email to The Washington Post. READ MORE
