Another victory of misinformation. In the United States, YouTube will reinstate creators banned from the platform in recent years for spreading misinformation about Covid-19 and the US elections.
“We know that many banned creators deserve a second chance. YouTube has evolved and changed over the past 20 years, and we’ve had second chances to make things better with our community,” the company said in a blog post on Thursday, October 9.
Political pressure
Under political pressure, the social network specified last month, in a letter addressed to Jim Jordan, Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, the creation of such a program for “a subset of creators” and “channels closed due to outdated policies.” With one goal: to give “more space to conservative voices.”
In 2020, YouTube announced the removal of videos containing misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine and vaccines more generally. After the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, YouTube also announced the removal of channels spreading misinformation about the 2020 election.
As a result, several key figures in the Trump administration were temporarily prevented from broadcasting their videos on the platform. This is the case of Dan Bongino, the current deputy director of the FBI, Sebastien Gorka, responsible for the fight against terrorism in the White House, Steve Bannon, the president’s former strategist or Donald Trump himself. All had been accused by the platform of spreading misinformation on both topics.
Since then, and somewhat under pressure, the chain has backed down. Therefore, the American president was reinstated. Some moderation policies were also abandoned to “reflect the new types of discussions and content” seen on the platform.
Various conditions to meet
This new program begins to be implemented today, Friday, October 10. In the coming weeks, eligible creators will see an option to request a new channel when they log in to YouTube Studio with their old channel.
YouTube claims to take into account “several factors” to evaluate requests for new channels, in particular “whether the creator has committed particularly serious or persistent violations of our community guidelines or our terms of use, or if their activities on or off the platform have caused or could continue to cause harm to the community,” the company specifies.
For example, it will not be possible to reset it on the platform in case of copyright violation or if the account was banned less than a year ago. If you deleted your YouTube channel or Google account, you will not be able to request a new profile at this time.
With this program, the social network, owned by Google, tries to align itself a little more with Donald Trump’s government. At the end of September, the video platform announced that it would pay $22 million to end the lawsuits initiated by the Republican after the suspension of his YouTube account.
The technology giant also ended its programs aimed at promoting diversity in hiring last February. In the process, the company agreed to modify the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America” on Google Maps.
Source: BFM TV
