YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

Why should "alleging" anything be policed? I concur that painting widespread fraud as "definite" seems like a false claim (at least with current evidence), but let's leave that aside for now. Exploration of election fraud would have to begin with speculation ("alleging"), just like challenging any prevailing thought begins with speculation. For example, imagine if no one was permitted to challenge the WHO's claim earlier this year that there was no human to human transmission of the coronavirus. Furthermore, if there WERE fraud happening, there aren't any great avenues by which outsiders could detect it to offer up evidence. The system is too opaque, proprietary in its implementation, and varied across jurisdictions to allow gathering of evidence. So the notion that there must be hard proof before people can talk about a problem doesn't make sense to me in this instance.

Some thoughts on content curation and censorship by big tech platforms: YouTube is not a small backwaters website. It is one of the most influential and popular websites, with reach greater than most countries' governments, and it is therefore a digital public square. YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook should not be allowed to implement restrictions on content beyond what the law minimally requires, since doing so effectively curtails practical access to the right to free speech. And I am not talking about legal technicalities of free speech as enshrined in current US law, but rather the fundamental principle of free speech - something worthy of aspiring to regardless of what the law allows right now.

Lastly, a word on elections: elections need to implement the law strictly and be tightly controlled. There should be nothing left to chance. This means there needs to be multiple cross-checked counts by default, with a variety of organizations involved (observers and counters from parties, media outlets, etc.). There should be random sampling of ballots where citizens are asked to vote a second time to validate their initial ballot. There should be strong voter verification to disallow any illegal voting. All machines and software must be open source and audited by third parties. People should be able to verify their ballot's choices were recorded as expected online. And so on. I realize some of this may run into limitations of secret ballots, but we can perhaps come up with technical solutions to allay those fears (like issuing one-time use logins for each election that have no PII tying a ballot back to a specific individual).

The other side had hordes of FBI and DOJ professionals digging every nook and cranny for years in an attempt to find evidence. That did not stop anyone from screaming "Russia collusion" all over social media and the 24/7 news cycle.

What's tricky about it?

Regarding the former situation, the president is one person with clear, self-serving motives. His actions are constantly examined under the critical eyes of the media and his political opposition. The public itself can also use social media to provide additional scrutiny (with varying degrees of quality and professionalism).

The public has to search through garbage to find the truth. It's all easy to access, but there's a lot to go through.

In the prior situation, businesses are trying to denying the public access to provide scrutiny based solely on the content of the message, regardless of quality. Those same businesses also happen to facilitate content discovery for the overwhelming majority of internet users. There are still political opponents and a few media organizations which might broadcast the message, but it will unquestioningly reach a much smaller audience.

The public still has to search through garbage to find the truth. Now, though, some of it is much harder to access.

Neither is good, but the prior situation sounds much worse to me.

Yet another sign that Google has too much power.

The current Tech Companies news narratives makes no logical sense to me. Here is why:

We were told that Russia interfered in 2016 elections and helped to elect Trump. Now, we are told that 2020 elections were of the highest integrity. Why wouldn't Russia interfere in 2020 elections? Were they scared of Trump administration? But wait, we were told that Trump was Russian puppet, so they would be scared of him, right? So again, why wouldn't Russia interfere in 2020 elections? Or did Russia interfered in 2020 election, "just as they did in 2016", and elected Biden this time?

In short, Tech Media narrative does not make sense to me. And all censorship eventually fails, just take a look at the Fall of Socialism in the Soviet Union.