In an effort to reach Americans, the January 6 committee has been uploading clips from its ongoing hearings to YouTube. There’s just one small problem. A recent video was pulled for triggering YouTube’s policy against election disinformation, which is obviously going to be in the mix. The January 6 attacks were the result of Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen, so naturally, the topic is going to come up.
However, YouTube is actually defending the removal of the Jan. 6 committee video. In a statement to The New York Times, the company said election disinformation will be removed if “sufficient context” isn’t provided, regardless of the user:
“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 said in a statement. “We enforce our policies equally for everyone, and have removed the video uploaded by the Jan. 6 committee channel.”
That’s an odd stance for YouTube to take considering the context is an official government hearing on how election fraud claims sparked the January 6 insurrection. As for the disinformation that violated YouTube’s policy, it was a clip of Trump’s infamous “big massive dumps” interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo where the former president claimed suspicious data “glitches” were giving his votes to Joe Biden.
“They’re not glitches. They’re theft. They’re fraud. Absolute fraud,” Trump ranted to Bartiromo. “This election was over, and then they did dumps. They call them dumps. Big, massive dumps. In Michigan, in Pennsylvania, and all over.”
As of this writing, YouTube has yet to reverse its decision on removing the Jan. 6 committee’s video.
(Via The New York Times)