Issues & Insights

YouTube’s Selective Ban On ‘Stolen Election’ Videos

The New York Post reports that YouTube deleted a video it posted about the Jan. 6, 2021, incursion into the Capitol building.

“In the video, Aaron Mostofsky, son of a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge, explains why he was compelled to come to the Capitol, namely ‘to express … [his] opinion as a free American … that this election was stolen’,” the Post says.

YouTube’s censors says they deleted the video because “it’s our job to make sure that YouTube is a safe place for all,” and that “content that advances false claims that widespread fraud … changed the outcome of the U.S. 2020 presidential election is not allowed.”

Early in May, YouTube deleted a video of Donald Trump’s speech to the Heritage Foundation because Trump said the 2020 election was rigged. The censors told Heritage that “violated our policies pertaining to elections misinformation.” 

The Post argues that YouTube owner Google is effectively carrying out the Biden administration’s censorship campaign.

“The administration’s domestic-terror strategy had called for ‘enhancing faith in government’ by countering ‘dangerous conspiracy theories that can provide a gateway to terrorist violence,’ and vowed to ‘collaborate on addressing terrorist content … with technology companies.’”

The Post is right, and here’s how we know. YouTube has no problem posting videos that claim the 2016 election was stolen.

We did a YouTube search for “2016 election stolen.” The first result is a video, still available on YouTube, of Hillary Clinton saying the election had been stolen from her.  

There’s another video of Clinton calling Trump an “illegitimate president” and still another featuring Clinton supporters calling for the 2016 election to be overturned, and in another she says “There Are Lots of Questions About Its Legitimacy,” referring to the 2016 election.

You can also find a clip, still on YouTube, of Jimmy Carter from 2019 saying that a “full investigation” would show that Trump lost in 2016.

“He lost the election,” Carter said, “and he was put into office because the Russians interfered.”

There’s a video on YouTube taken from MSNBC, which features multiple examples of Democrats calling past elections stolen.

So why are any of these videos still up on YouTube if any mention of election fraud in 2020 gets deleted?

Why does YouTube let Hillary’s flagrant lies about a “stolen election” remain on its service?

Isn’t it just as “dangerous”? Doesn’t it make you feel that YouTube is not “a safe place for all”?

Apparently, talk of election fraud is only “dangerous” when a Republican says it. If you’re a Democrat, you are free to say whatever you want.

YouTube should at least be honest about this distinction in its terms of service.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board

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I & I Editorial Board

The Issues and Insights Editorial Board has decades of experience in journalism, commentary and public policy.

4 comments

  • Much remains unexplained about the 2020 election, such as Pennsylvania counting several hundred thousand more mail-in ballots than were mailed out; which is not proven fraud, because any audit or investigation has been blocked by various parties. January 6 was a search for the truth, which was hijacked and spun for political purposes by Pelosi et al. Making the Proud Boys January 6th scapegoats is a cover (false flag) for the Seattle moguls who funded the violent anti-fa capitol (infiltration) and street presence January 6. We have a New Axis of Evil inside the USA, spawned by the Marxist-controlled DNC. Wisconsin Senator McCarthy’s reviled 1950s commie hearings now seem almost prescient. We now know that since at least 2012, the FBI had offices with servers inside the same DNC law offices funding the fake Steele dossier and Trump Russia bank hoax promoted by Hillary. Michael Sussman was named as the DNC law firm’s official liaison in charge of the FBI server/office space since 2012; so, of course, the FBI should have known that their man Michael was part of the FBI/DNC anti-Trump hoax-promotion squad. Would not be surprising for similar FBI arrangements with tech and media, such as CNN, which always seems to be on hand when Trump allies are put in handcuffs and leg chains, Gestapo-style by SWAT squads in the middle of the night. Oh, but wait, the new White House press secretary is literally in bed with her CNN lover/partner. No DNC conflict of interest there, either? Joseph Stalin, the KGB and Pravda all seem to have reincarnated into the DNC, which somehow controls the national propaganda narrative. Though the more they try to suppress truth, the more the truth is leaking out. Given enough time, the 2020 election truth will come out. The DNC and its partisan allies such as Homeland Security and Google can only delay it. Perhaps they figure the delay will allow them to consolidate the power seized in 2020.

  • This sort of open political bias is the clearest indication that YouTube is not a neutral platform protected by the law from suit, but a selective publisher pushing a specific agenda. But what are the odds that anything will come of it?

  • “it’s our job to make sure that YouTube is a safe place for all”

    As long as they’re not Trump supporters… or Jews, of course.

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