YouTube announced that starting December 9, the platform will block and remove content containing “allegations of widespread fraud or misrepresentation of the results of the historic U.S. presidential election”. Kawakami’s legal team said the day before that the safe harbor was not the final deadline for determining the election results and that they would continue their battle with the fraud lawsuit.
Google’s YouTube said it was blocking and removing information about the election fraud allegations because the December 8 “safe harbor” deadline for the presidential election had passed, saying that “enough states have certified their election results.
However, there are still unresolved legal battles going on, including challenges at the Supreme Court, that could change the outcome of the election. But the YouTube statement makes no mention of these, nor of the Dec. 14 date for the electoral college vote.
The Chronicle-Times has not yet declared a winner for the election. The Epoch Times says it will not declare the real winner of the 2020 election until all legal battles are settled and all disputes are resolved.
But San Bruno, California-based YouTube said: “We will begin removing any content uploaded today (or at any time thereafter) that alleges widespread fraud or error to change the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election in an effort to mislead people, consistent with our treatment of previous U.S. presidential elections,” the company said. The approach is consistent.”
“For example, we will remove videos claiming that presidential candidates won the election due to widespread software glitches or vote-counting errors. We will begin enforcing this policy today and will increase our enforcement in the coming weeks.” The company added, “As always, news stories and commentary on these issues may remain on our website if they have sufficient educational, documentary, scientific or artistic background.” However, the platform did not elaborate on what exactly the “background” it was asking for.
The company then said it would “direct” people to “authoritative information” provided by corporate news outlets such as ABC, CBS, NBC or CNN. In the past month since the election, these news outlets have provided little coverage of lawsuits or allegations of election fraud.
The Epoch Times has reached out to President Donald Trump’s team for comment.
Team Trump: Safe Harbor Not Deadline Will Continue Fight
On Twitter, YouTube’s announcement came under fire from conservative commentators, who said the company was censoring speech.
“YouTube has announced that you are now barred from criticizing the (swing state) government’s handling of the election (the fraud issue),” OANN’s Jack Posobiec wrote. A few weeks ago, OANN’s YouTube channel was suspended.
Many conservatives have said that YouTube and other social media companies were involved in censoring pro-Trump or conservative views.
Some members of Congress and Trump himself have argued in recent weeks that social media and technology companies should not be protected under federal Section 230 of the law because such companies are thus exempt from liability for content censorship. Lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties have said that the law should be rewritten or repealed.
A lawsuit filed against YouTube in October 2020 says the company has repeatedly violated its own terms of service by removing their pages or suspending their services without cause and without any explanation to the parties.
“The plaintiffs still don’t understand exactly what content led them to become part of a massive de-platforming effort, beyond the commonality that they are a conservative news channel with a broad audience reach,” Attorney M. Cris Armenta wrote in a lawsuit filed in California federal court on behalf of several of the plaintiffs.
Armenta argued that YouTube violated their First Amendment rights, saying it “succumbed to government coercion to engage in state action” to remove the accounts.
The program “Wenzhao Talking about the Past and Present”, which is rated as one of the most popular commentary programs in the Chinese-speaking world, states that starting today (December 9) YouTube will remove videos alleging election fraud and machine vote rigging. The reason is that the “safe harbor period” has expired. I don’t know which law defines the “safe harbor period” during which such (election fraud) behavior is tolerated, but why not the people’s uprising?
Trump’s legal team says the safe harbor is not the final deadline for determining election results and they will continue their battle with the fraud lawsuit.
Trump campaign counsel Jenna Ellis said on Fox Business Tuesday that Jan. 6 is the actual date “of ultimate significance” when congressional delegates will be counted in the states.
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