YouTube now allows more harmful misinformation on its platform

YouTube continues in the possible dangerous steps of Meta and X (formerly Twitter) by relaxing moderation policies in the content. New internal training materials are seen New York Times AdDructies Iderators to leave videos live if up to half its content violates YouTube policies, with an increase of a quarter. The new policy platform presented in mid -December, a month after President Trump was re -elected.

The new guidelines reflect what YouTube considers “public interest”. These areas include discussion or discussion of elections, movements, race, sex, immigration and more. “The definition of” public interest “is always developing, we update our instructions for these exceptions to reflect the new types of discussions that we see on the platform today. New York Times. “Our goal remains as it is: to protect freedom of expression on YouTube while alleviating the terrible damage.”

When Engadget arrived at YouTube, Bell shared more context about the decision. “We regularly provide our society’s guidelines to adapt to the content that we see on YouTube. As examples, earlier this year, we have retired from the remaining Covid-19 policies and added a new protection related to gambling content,” Bell said. “New York Times The article revolves around a separate aspect of our approach: our long practice of applying exceptions to our content policies that serve the public interest or EDSA context (educational, documentary, scientific, technical). These exceptions apply to a small portion of YouTube videos, but they are vital to ensuring that the important content remains available. This practice allows us to prevent us, for example, a news podcast for hours of removing it to show a short section of violence. We update our guidelines regularly to these exceptions to reflect the new types of discussion and content (for example the appearance of long content, podcast) that we see on the platform, and the reactions of our global creator community. Our goal remains as it is: to protect freedom of expression on YouTube. “

According to what was reported, the platform removed 22 percent of the videos due to the abhorrent and abusive content from last year. It is not clear that the number of videos that were reported or removed under previous guidelines.

According to YouTube, the supervisors told that they can now preserve the content if this is a discussion between freedom of expression and risk. For example, a video clip entitled “RFK JR. It provides heavy strikes on the genetic advanced strikes”, which was a lie that Covid vaccines can change people’s genes. However, YouTube told the supervisors that the public interest “outweighs the risk of damage” and the video should remain awake. Since then it has been removed, although the reason is not clear.

Other videos allowed to stay online included one with a spectrum aimed at a transgender person and one in which the commentator discussed a graphic demise of former South Korean President Yun Suk Yol.

Update, 9 June 2025, 12:27 pm East time: This article was updated to include YouTube’s statement to English.