President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign criticized YouTube’s decision to stop censoring certain election-related content, saying it could lead to “violence.”
Biden’s team characterized YouTube’s move to allow content creators to say that there was “widespread fraud” during the 2020 election and other races as a careless decision.
“YouTube’s reckless and irresponsible decision will invite further democratic decay and potential violence, and we urge them to reconsider this policy,” said campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz.
Munoz added that the new policy would do nothing to “erase” the outcome of the 2020 election, when Biden beat former President Donald Trump, also partly blaming “the spread of misinformation” for the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
“The spread of misinformation helped lead to an unprecedented, violent assault on our nation’s capital that killed Americans. Social media companies played a central role in broadcasting those lies, and they have an obligation to act responsibly,” Munoz posted on Twitter. He predicted that Biden would be “fairly reelected for another term in 2024.”
YouTube indicated that the policy change was based on free speech concerns. It said that while the former protocol intended to remove “misinformation,” it “could also have the unintended effect of curtailing political speech.”
“Two years, tens of thousands of video removals, and one election cycle later, we recognized it was time to reevaluate the effects of this policy in today’s changed landscape,” YouTube said in a statement. “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.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP
YouTube said it “carefully deliberated” before making the surprising change but did not provide specific details on what caused the Big Tech company to reverse course. The new policy took effect last week.
Biden has repeatedly referred to allegations from Trump and his supporters that there was fraud in the 2020 election as “the big lie.”
“For those who challenge the results and question the integrity of the election: No other election has ever been held under such scrutiny and such high standards,” Biden claimed in a July 2021 speech.
Some election information will still be taken down. YouTube, which was bought by Google in 2006, said it would continue to stifle content it deems “election misinformation,” which includes videos “aiming to mislead voters about the time, place, means, or eligibility requirements for voting; false claims that could materially discourage voting, including those disputing the validity of voting by mail; and content that encourages others to interfere with democratic processes.”
Zach Jewell contributed to this report.