Videos will be paired with information in Spanish and English to avoid spreading misinformation
YouTube said it will add contextual information below election-related videos and in search results for the US midterm elections in the coming weeks, an initiative to limit the spread of the virus. spreading false information on the Google-owned video platform.
Leslie Miller, YouTube’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, said Thursday in a blog post that YouTube will roll out the bulletin board in two languages, English and Spanish. When users search for information about the election. The video site will also promote authoritative content from national and local news sources, and work to quickly remove video violate this organization’s community guidelines, including those that mislead voters on how to vote, encourage interference in the democratic process, incite violence, or promote false information other electoral bias. YouTube says it has collected a number of videos containing false claims about widespread fraud, bugs and glitches in WE presidential election, although it did not specify how much.
“Over the years, we have developed policies, systems and team Miller said in the blog post. “Whether it’s learning about when and where to vote or finding information about political candidates, we take our commitment seriously to connecting viewers with trusted sources. .” Starting on Election Day, the company said, Everyone You will see election results below the video and in search results related to the midterms and can follow the results live. But YouTube did not say whether its bulletin board addresses election-related falsehoods in real time.
Misinformation on major social media platforms has been widespread in recent years, popping up around particularly credible periods like elections when candidates fight for votes and Political pundits and social media influencers struggle for attention and advertising dollars. In the past, YouTube has lagged behind other platforms in handling different types of misinformation, often announcing stricter policies weeks or months behind platforms like Facebook and Twitter. YouTube’s announcement on Thursday details an expansion of its election misinformation policies following similar statements from Facebook, Twitter and TikTok last month. Its parent company, Alphabet Inc., Google, published a blog post in March reiterating the video platform’s long-standing policy to ban false claims about widespread fraud in its results. previous US presidential elections.
As YouTube takes a tough stance on misinformation, research has shown it makes a difference in what ultimately goes viral on other social media. Last October, researchers at the Center Social media and Politics at New York University published a study describing how after December 8, 2020, the date YouTube announced that it would remove videos promoting unfounded theories about fraud and errors in election, soon followed by a sharp drop in the rate of false and misleading videos on Facebook and Twitter.
