YouTube: Waging War on Free Speech?

December 9, 2020 - From here on out, YouTube will decide which content its users see with regard to the 2020 election. That's according to a blog post released on the platform's website Wednesday morning.

The blog read in part: "Yesterday was the safe harbor deadline for the U.S. Presidential election and enough states have certified their election results to determine a President-elect. Given that, we will start removing any piece of content uploaded today (or anytime after) that misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, in line with our approach towards historical U.S. Presidential elections. For example, we will remove videos claiming that a Presidential candidate won the election due to widespread software glitches or counting errors. We will begin enforcing this policy today, and will ramp up in the weeks to come."

Besides the fact that YouTube is opening admitting it will be censoring information it does not like, there is another problem. The election is, in fact, contested. The Trump Campaign has multiple ongoing lawsuits that allege widespread voter fraud; The state of Texas now has a lawsuit against (4) battleground states in front of the Supreme Court; Thousands of Americans have signed sworn affidavits testifying to personal accounts of voter fraud; The state of Georgia and its Secretary of State's Office has 250 open investigations into alleged voter fraud (other states may have similar investigations as well); And private citizens have active lawsuits in multiple states alleging voter fraud.

Regardless of the final outcome of the election, and regardless of a person's opinion on whether there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election, the fact that fraud is being alleged, and the fact it is being litigated... makes it relevant and newsworthy. (Also... this is America).

Citizens have right to know about these allegations, whether states have certified or not. Withholding that information is extremely concerning, and will no doubt, send many thousands of users to new content sharing sites, such as #Rumble and #Parler.

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