In a Friday afternoon information dump, YouTube inexplicably announced immediately that 2020 election denialism is a-okay. The corporate says it “fastidiously deliberated this modification” with out providing any specifics on its causes for the about-face. YouTube initially banned content disputing the results of the 2020 election in December of that yr.
In a feeble try to clarify its resolution (first reported by Axios), YouTube wrote that it “acknowledged it was time to reevaluate the results of this coverage in immediately’s modified panorama. Within the present setting, we discover that whereas eradicating this content material does curb some misinformation, it may even have the unintended impact of curbing political speech with out meaningfully lowering the danger of violence or different real-world hurt. With that in thoughts, and with 2024 campaigns properly underway, we’ll cease eradicating content material that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred within the 2020 and different previous US Presidential elections.”
Misinformation and disinformation are dangerous on a societal stage. They lure folks right into a false-reality bubble of “different details” the place the despots are the “good guys” and people supporting democracy are corrupt or untrustworthy. Failing that, it could actually go away folks too confused to know what’s and isn’t actual; that sort of gaslighting is sort of as helpful to authoritarian actions as drawing in rabid supporters.
The change comes as 2024 Republican front-runner Donald Trump and others proceed to unfold false claims concerning the outcomes of the 2020 election. Along with deceptive voters, bogus statements about election integrity may result in the adoption of laws making it more durable for folks to vote: basically voter-suppression laws handed underneath the guise of “election safety.”
If YouTube discovered some knowledge that by some means reveals the dissemination of election denialism isn’t dangerous in any case, it will appear applicable for the corporate to disclose that. However wanting that, all now we have is YouTube’s declare that it “fastidiously deliberated” this transfer.
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