Skip to main content

Trending

  • Fox/Dominion Lawsuit
  • Meta
  • Twitter

Social Media Menu

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Utility Navigation

  • Take Action
  • Search
  • Donate

Media Matters for America

Main navigation

  • News & Analysis
  • Research & Studies
  • Audio & Video
  • Archives

Media Matters for America

  • Nav
  • Search

Main navigation

  • News & Analysis
  • Research & Studies
  • Audio & Video
  • Archives

Trending

  • Fox/Dominion Lawsuit
  • Meta
  • Twitter

Utility Navigation

  • Take Action
  • Search
  • Donate

Social Media Menu

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
YouTube election
Molly Butler / Media Matters

YouTube prohibits content that misleads people about voting, but election misinformation has received more than a million views this week

Written by Alex Kaplan

Published 11/05/20 4:37 PM EST

Share

  • Email
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Print

Comment

  • Comments

YouTube videos pushing misinformation about the results of the 2020 presidential election have received high combined view counts, despite the platform's community guidelines prohibiting “content that aims to mislead people about voting.”

As YouTube emphasized in advance of the election, it prohibits both misleading voting-related content and content “encouraging others to interfere with democratic processes, such as obstructing or interrupting voting procedure.”

Yet the platform has come under criticism for allowing the spread of a video from right-wing host Steven Crowder pushing false voter fraud claims and another from far-right One America News Network (OAN) alleging that “Trump won. MSM hopes you don’t believe your eyes.” The platform has put a “results may not be final” label under these and other videos about the election.

A Media Matters review found that the spread of election misinformation on YouTube was not limited to those two videos: Searching since November 3 on the tracking tool BuzzSumo for videos with titles featuring “fraud,” “ballots,” “steal,” and “won” yielded numerous videos pushing inaccurate voter fraud claims, falsely alleging the election was stolen from President Donald Trump, and prematurely declaring Trump won. Collectively, these videos had drawn more than a million views.

YouTube election misinfo2
YouTube election misinfo1

In one video with more than 270,000 views, a person falsely claimed that in some of the contested states, “they are working overtime to find some of those missing ballots that all seem to be going for Joseph Biden.” Another video, with more than 70,000 views, also pushed that false claim. And a video with 50,000 views also pushed a false conspiracy theory circulating among supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory that certain ballots were watermarked to supposedly catch Democrats cheating.

YouTube election misinfo5
YouTube election misinfo7

Additionally, multiple videos have circulated on YouTube pushing the false claim that Arizona voters who filled out their ballots using Sharpie permanent markers would not have their votes counted, getting hundreds of thousands of combined views.

YouTube election misinfo6

There were also multiple videos pushing the baseless notion that Democrats were somehow “stealing” the election from Trump, including some featuring radio host and former Trump administration staffer Sebastian Gorka. Those videos alone had more than half a million combined views.

YouTube election misinfo9

One video pushing the baseless claim and drawing hundreds of thousands of views, from commentator Steve Turley, even had ads, meaning both he and YouTube made money from it; this was also the case with Crowder’s video. (YouTube has repeatedly monetized misinformation on its platform.)

YouTube election misinfo10

And OAN was not the only channel with content prematurely proclaiming Trump the winner: In one video with significantly more views than the OAN video (nearly 650,000), titled “Trump WINS REELECTION as FOX Becomes KING of FAKE NEWS!!!,” Turley said he was “calling it here: Trump has in effect won reelection.” And in another video with about 170,000 views, Tarl Warwick, a vlogger with far-right connections, claimed that “Trump has fairly clearly won reelection” and even encouraged people to protest at state capitols.

YouTube election misinfo3
YouTube election misinfo4

The Latest

  1. On The David Pakman Show, Media Matters' Matt Gertz explains why Fox is still backing Donald Trump

    Video & Audio 03/27/23 4:25 PM EDT

  2. Charlie Kirk: “You better believe that we're entering into a Marxist dystopian totalitarian hellscape”

    Video & Audio 03/27/23 3:05 PM EDT

  3. BlazeTV host Steve Deace: If COVID-19 vaccines weren't “a purposeful depopulation scheme ... what behavior would they have done differently, if it is one?”

    Video & Audio 03/27/23 2:56 PM EDT

  4. How the Fox bubble is stifling Trump’s GOP challengers

    Article 03/27/23 12:40 PM EDT

  5. Fox's Mark Levin: “Some books need to be banned”

    Video & Audio 03/27/23 11:56 AM EDT

Pagination

  • Current page 1
  • …
  • Next page ››

In This Article

  • Google

    Google-MMFA-Tag.png
  • Voter Fraud and Suppression

    Voter Suppression
Comments
0 Comments
Share Count
0 Shares

Related

  1. YouTube announced a crackdown on Pizzagate content, but highly-viewed videos pushing the conspiracy theory remain

    Article 10/20/20 3:50 PM EDT

  2. YouTube keeps allowing verified conspiracy theory channel The Next News Network to monetize misinformation

    Article 10/14/20 3:40 PM EDT

  3. Study: Vote-by-mail misinformation is all over YouTube thanks to right-leaning channels

    Research/Study 09/25/20 4:40 PM EDT

Media Matters for America

Sign up for email updates

Footer menu

  • About
  • Contact
  • Corrections
  • Submissions
  • Jobs
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions

Social Media Menu

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

© 2023 Media Matters for America