YouTube deleted a video of a Jan. 6 committee hearing because it included a clip of former President Donald Trump’s false claims about the election, The New York Times reports.
A clip of a hearing that included testimony from former Attorney General Bill Barr was removed because it also included a clip of Trump pushing election lies on the Fox Business channel.
“We had glitches where they moved thousands of votes from my account to Biden’s account,” Trump falsely claimed in the video.
The video was initially removed before it was restored with a message saying “this video is private.”
YouTube defends:
“Our election integrity policy prohibits content advancing false claims that widespread fraud, errors or glitches changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, if it does not provide sufficient context,” YouTube spokeswoman Ivy Choi told The New York Times.
“We enforce our policies equally for everyone, and have removed the video uploaded by the Jan. 6 committee channel,” Choi added.
Backlash:
Robby Soave, the host of “Rising,” slammed the policy in a piece in Reason, noting that his own show was suspended for playing a clip of Trump lying about the election.
“Neither I nor my co-host expressed any agreement with these statements; we simply reported what was said. It was an act of basic journalism, but YouTube said it was akin to promoting a prohibited viewpoint,” he wrote.
“In essence, YouTube does not distinguish between Trump saying the election was stolen and a third party saying that Trump says the election was stolen. Suffice it to say this is not a very intelligent policy,” he continued, calling the standard “absurd.”
“YouTube is a private company and can set whatever policies it deems best,” he wrote. “But it seems fairly clear that the election misinformation policy is not working as intended; in fact, it is actively undermining good journalism.”
