DRACONIAN: YouTube Announces It Will Begin Removing Videos That Dispute Biden’s Win or Allege Voter Fraud in 2020 Election
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – YouTube, the massive video sharing website owned by Google, has announced via their blog that they will begin removing video content, starting this Wednesday, which “falsely” disputes the victory of Joseph Biden and alleges wide-scale voter fraud in the 2020 Presidential election.
“We will begin enforcing this policy today, and will ramp up in the weeks to come,” the blog post announced.
Going forward, the company stated, any video content that “misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election” will be immediately removed without warning.
The decision to implement these new rules, YouTube stated, was due to the passage of the so-called “safe harbor” deadline for states to certify their election results, thereby solidifying Biden’s status as President-Elect after defeating incumbent Donald Trump in November.
Trump has refused to concede to Biden’s win, instead alleging wide-scale voter fraud as the reason for his loss and filing multiple lawsuits in key battleground states that the President was defeated in, so far without any success.
However, many supporters of Trump have nonetheless been spreading his claims of fraud online through social media – including YouTube – prompting Senate Democrats to issue a critical letter that said, in-part, that the video-sharing website “refused to prohibit users from posting false content on the outcome of the election or the manner in which state and local officials counted votes.”
While Democrats are no doubt pleased by YouTube’s new policy, Conservatives, however, have expressed anger at what they see as “partisan censorship” on the part of the website. For example, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) tweeted the following:
“@Google owned @YouTube officially announcing free speech no longer allowed,” he tweeted in response to YouTube’s announcement. “If you have concerns about election integrity, you must sit down and shut up. Repeal Section 230 and break these companies up.”
“YouTube’s recent policy announcement regarding their policing of content on the presidential election is an affront to Americans’ right to free speech. Not only do more than of 70% of Americans believe there was fraud in this recent election – which there was – but over 30% of voters believe fraud impacted the results of the election. Just because we have reached a deadline to certify the election results does not mean the presence of fraud has disappeared. No matter your party affiliation, the truth is that fraud was absolutely a factor in this election. And whether or not it would change the results in any given state should not be a reason to censor all speech that raises the question of it.”
Catherine Engelbrecht, True the Vote
Editors note: An earlier version of this story did not include the statement which came in this morning by True the Vote Founder and President Catherine Engelbrecht.
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