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YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

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Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#41
post #23

This is an enormous overreach. > Given that, we will start removing any piece of content uploaded today (or anytime after) that misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, in line with our approach towards historical U.S. Presidential elections. For example, we will remove videos claiming that a Presidential candidate won the election due to…

> These same claims are being made in ongoing court cases. Of which what % have been tossed? 95%+? And the one (!) that hasn't have had zero impact on the results. The election is over. Biden won. The votes will be certified, but not after Trump's team has done a great deal of damage to the American democracy.

I think Trump's behavior is abhorrent. But I've been complaining for years about Gore, Kerry, Clinton, and Abrams laying about stolen elections, and nobody listened. It's worse this year than usual, because Trump is worse than usual, but the losing side believing the election was stolen has become a feature of American politics during the last two decades: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

After elections, half of people on the losing side now regularly believe the election wasn't free and fair.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#42

>Connecting people to authoritative information Top channels from picture. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com ABC: Left of Center NBC: Left of Center USA today: Left of Center CNN: Left CBS: Left of Center The "Authoritative Sources" are all Left-wing news agencies. So in other words they have done like Wikipedia. They have determined that Left of Center is authoritative and have limited the reach of alternative viewpoin…

Or alternatively, the center in the US is so far right that media naturally falls to the left of that.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#43

>Connecting people to authoritative information Top channels from picture. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com ABC: Left of Center NBC: Left of Center USA today: Left of Center CNN: Left CBS: Left of Center The "Authoritative Sources" are all Left-wing news agencies. So in other words they have done like Wikipedia. They have determined that Left of Center is authoritative and have limited the reach of alternative viewpoin…

For people who doubt your characterization of where the "center" is, consider this: 2/3 of Americans oppose the Supreme Court decision banning school prayer. Is your idea of a "centrist" person someone who believes school prayer would be a good idea if the law were different?

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#44

>Connecting people to authoritative information Top channels from picture. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com ABC: Left of Center NBC: Left of Center USA today: Left of Center CNN: Left CBS: Left of Center The "Authoritative Sources" are all Left-wing news agencies. So in other words they have done like Wikipedia. They have determined that Left of Center is authoritative and have limited the reach of alternative viewpoin…

Or alternatively, the center in the US is so far right that media naturally falls to the left of that.

To the right under what rubric? In Germany, I have a legal right to have my kid given religious education in public schools. Bavaria can put crosses on public buildings. Abortion is only decriminalized, generally illegal after 12 weeks, and is subject to waiting periods and mandatory counseling. The governing center-right party declared accepting Muslim refugees "a mistake" that they would not repeat.

The American media demonized Amy Coney Barrett as a "Handmaid" because of the possibility that she could rule that elective abortion is a matter for the legislature, not a constitutional issue of fundamental rights. Which is the law of the land in Canada, France, Italy, Austria, and the EU Human Rights Court.

At least on social issues, the American media is significantly to the left of even moderately liberal EU countries.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#45

20 years ago reputed organizations such as newspapers, radio stations and television informed people the truth. Conspiracy theories were fringe and didn't have a way to spread. Today more than half the population believes in conspiracy theories because they learn the "truth" from disreputable sources on social media. This is dangerous for society. I am glad social media companies are taking action themselves, instead…

20 years ago, and before that, liberals complained that the media, schools, etc., were lying to the public.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#47
post #5

Jeez. They could have been doing this for the last month before it became endemic. How much damage did the Trump team do to America's democracy with a month of sore-losership?

Probably the same amount of damage that Gore did in about 1.5 months of sore-losership.

That was a 500 vote difference out of 6 million votes, a 0.009% difference, in a single state, where there were known to have been severe issues with the ballots.

Both sides agreed that there were serious issues with the ballots and counting, with the only dispute being how to address them because the issues made it pretty much impossible to determine who actually would have won if the system had been able to correctly register the intended vote of every voter.

There were no serious allegations that anyone did anything illegal or tampered with the votes.

I have a hard time believing that you are seriously comparing that to 2020, where those trying to overturn the election are alleging intentional widespread fraud in multiple states, without being able to offer any creditable evidence that it happened. All the evidence they offer generally falls into three categories:

1. Things that are outright factually incorrect. For example, that video of vote counting in Pennsylvania (I think that was the state...) that supposedly shows suitcases of fake ballots being snuck in and opened late at night.

If you watch the full surveillance video, instead of just that short extract, you see that (1) those are the standard containers they use to store ballots when they are not actively working with them, and (2) those particular ballots were ballots they were working with earlier and put in those containers when they stopped. In other words, all the excerpt is actually showing is the normal resumption of processing after a break.

Another example is the claims that votes were counted without Republican observers allowed in the room, usually based on Republican observers being turned away. Some observers were in fact turned away--because there were already the maximum number of legally allowed observers from their party in the room.

2. Things that are true, but are not evidence of fraud or error. For example, various statistical measures of a candidate's votes look different between the winner and loser in districts where one candidate receives a lot more votes than the other.

They point to these in heavy Biden districts, saying the differences indicate tampering. But if you look at heavy Trump districts, you see the same thing but going the other way.

3. Actual mistakes, such as ballots lost or miscounted. You get some of these in every big election, and no one has found any evidence that these mistakes were more frequent in this election, and even if every single one of this kind of mistake went in Biden's favor, it would not be anywhere near enough to change the outcome in any state.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#48

For God's sakes ... What underpins this need for social media companies to virtue signal about protecting 'election integrity' is the false notion that 2016 was stolen from Hillary by the Russians - a claim that had no evidential support (and no, that some trolls bought a minuscule amount of Facebook ads does not raise this claim to that level) but the entire Democratic party, with media allies, promulgated for the l…

[deleted]

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#49

For God's sakes ... What underpins this need for social media companies to virtue signal about protecting 'election integrity' is the false notion that 2016 was stolen from Hillary by the Russians - a claim that had no evidential support (and no, that some trolls bought a minuscule amount of Facebook ads does not raise this claim to that level) but the entire Democratic party, with media allies, promulgated for the l…

You are mis-stating the assertion. The Government said that Russia had meddled in the 2016 election. They didn't say it changed the results.

That's not at all what people were screaming for the past four years. Even if Russian "meddled" in the US elections, so did Boeing, BASF, Microsoft, Facebook, Northrop Grumman, Softbank, YCombinator .. anyone who bought a fucking ad or funded one campaign.

What the Russian/2016 narrative really was: Americans are too stupid to make up their own minds and fall for propaganda. There has been a four year campaign to condemn every single Trump supporter as some kind of racist, white supremacist Nazi, and it's been big media and big tech (FOX/MSNBC/CNN/YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/NYTimes/etc.) that's literally been pouring petrol on the American people and the world.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#50

For God's sakes ... What underpins this need for social media companies to virtue signal about protecting 'election integrity' is the false notion that 2016 was stolen from Hillary by the Russians - a claim that had no evidential support (and no, that some trolls bought a minuscule amount of Facebook ads does not raise this claim to that level) but the entire Democratic party, with media allies, promulgated for the l…

The problem is the "regular open discussion", which has turned into a cesspool of fact-free ranting, and has created serious societal virality and negative impact. You can rant against the mainstream media, but at least there is a modicum of fact checking and research there -- how many independent YouTube sources do the same?

> but at least there is a modicum of fact checking and research there

No. No there absolutely is not. The fact that you trust the Legacy Media at all is part of the problem. It's independent analysts who have been the only ones to do any real research.

Viva Frei does a great piece on how the New York Times contradicts their own headlines in their article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmgMu5sefzA

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