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Youtube News Politics

Election Misinformation Often Evaded YouTube's Efforts To Stop It. (nytimes.com) 203

YouTube videos endorsing the false idea that there was widespread election fraud were viewed more than 138 million times on the week of Nov. 3, according to a report from an independent research project that has been studying misinformation trends on the video site. From a report:The report by the project, called Transparency.tube, looked at videos on YouTube that supported claims of voter fraud during the November elections, as well as videos that disputed such claims. Over all, the researchers identified 4,865 videos, viewed a combined 409 million times, that mentioned voter fraud. The YouTube videos supporting claims of voter fraud accounted for 34 percent of all views in the data set studied, while those disputing the voter fraud claims or remaining neutral accounted for 66 percent of views among the videos the research project identified. YouTube does not release data about the total number of videos uploaded to the site weekly. The company has said that 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.

Many of the largest YouTube channels can rack up millions of views each day. For example, CNN, which has over 11 million subscribers to its YouTube channel, uploaded 51 videos during the week of Nov. 3. Those videos were viewed 69 million times, according to an analysis by The New York Times. Some of the most-watched videos disputing the results of the election include two videos by the right-wing news outlet BlazeTV, which were viewed 1.3 million times. Videos by the right-wing news outlets Newsmax and OANN that spread claims of widespread voter fraud were also viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

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Election Misinformation Often Evaded YouTube's Efforts To Stop It.

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  • Too many people just plain lack critical thinking skills. They are easily persuaded by all the basic tricks of misinformation and common fallacies. It's like shooting fish in a barrel.

    Then again, it's hard to say how much of it is lack of education and how much is wishful thinking: clinging to ideas that mirror what one wants to hear regardless of veracity for the purpose of comfort.

    • Re:Suckers 101 (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nevermindme ( 912672 ) on Thursday November 19, 2020 @04:19PM (#60744224)
      Perfectly non partisan. The internal statistics of the vote counting are at issue. There are just to many wacky results in to few places with large centralized counting and the same vendors machines.
    • On the one hand, I agree with you, there are too many people who lack critical thinking skills.

      On the other hand, there are a whole lot of people who believe they have critical thinking skills, but who are actually just rejecting anything they read that doesn't suit their political bias, and calling that "critical thinking." Such people insist that the only reason anyone at all is on the other side of the political spectrum from themselves is due to a lack of critical thinking skills.

      Same goes for any kind

      • A true story I will relate to you, from this morning. This is my eyewitness account:

        An 80-year-old man is fervently tapping on his computer keyboard. The keystrokes are so thunderous that you're not sure if it's because he learned to type on a mechanical typewriter, or due to some emotional distress. "Honey, I've been trying to sign up for Parler for 2 days, it keeps telling me I have the wrong password. I don't even have a password! It must be down from all the traffic."

        Wife comes by from the kitchen, "I'm

    • Unfortunately that includes reporters, who cling to an uncritically accepted assumption about voter fraud being rare. They are not investigating the allegations, in part because it contradicts an assumption they are not willing to reconsider.

      Obama was wildly popular. He could draw massive crowds, and massive numbers of voters to the polls. Biden is not popular. He can't draw a crowd or gin up enthusiasm. How then could Biden get more votes than Obama ever did?

  • At this point in the election process, as close as the tallies are, I want to be sure that whoever did win, won fair and square. I have no problem waiting for a verdict. However, I have read news stories claiming malfeasance so the claim here, by Transparency Tube via the New York Times, seems to be more of the same sort of propaganda we are being subjected to from all sides. Let's re-count with witnesses and when it's done, I will, like all Americans I know, accept the results.

    • At this point in the election process, as close as the tallies are, I want to be sure that whoever did win, won fair and square. I have no problem waiting for a verdict. However, I have read news stories claiming malfeasance so the claim here, by Transparency Tube via the New York Times, seems to be more of the same sort of propaganda we are being subjected to from all sides. Let's re-count with witnesses and when it's done, I will, like all Americans I know, accept the results.

      Holy shit, Vlad. Did you get your vodka for posting that tripe? You have not read any news stories claiming malfeasance (congrats on using a word most Americans don't know its meaning). Also, your definition of "propaganda" is what's known as a free press. They report the facts, not what the dictator-in-chief says [bbc.com].

      Let's re-count with witnesses and when it's done, I will, like all Americans I know, accept the results.

      You must be new to the job because no one, and I mean no one, uses the phrase, "like all A

  • by Jarwulf ( 530523 ) on Thursday November 19, 2020 @04:20PM (#60744234)
    these days is a diatribe crying out for more censorship and top down control. They should change the motto of this place to News for Authoritarians, Stuff the masses.
  • Whether or not there was widespread, unprecedented levels of fraud, the APPEARANCE of it is so overwhelming that the legitimacy of all our future elections is threatened. I recall a few years ago when the UN wanted to send observers to a presidential election. It wasn't because we were a shining example to the rest of the world, and this is far worse than Bush v. Gore was.

    The solution is not to maintain that, "Of course nothing happened, every (right thinking) person knows that," and laugh off anyone who di

    • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      Whether or not there was widespread, unprecedented levels of fraud, the APPEARANCE of it is so overwhelming that the legitimacy of all our future elections is threatened. I recall a few years ago when the UN wanted to send observers to a presidential election. It wasn't because we were a shining example to the rest of the world, and this is far worse than Bush v. Gore was.

      There's a solution to that. When you have a President of the United States who constantly lies to the American people and behaves in a m

    • Whether or not there was widespread, unprecedented levels of fraud, the APPEARANCE of it is so overwhelming that the legitimacy of all our future elections is threatened.

      There was no widespread anything except the ongoing stupidity and outright lies of people like you and the con artist. If there is any issue of the legitimacy of any future elections it will be as a direct result of you and the con artist, and Republicans, spewing this crap. Congratulations. You got your wish.

      • And you know this based on what? Corporate media that feed you propaganda for the past 4 years that Russian colluded with Trump, which was debunked by the Mueller report.
  • Youtube makes money when videos are viewed. Youtube thus prefers people watch lots of videos. Youtube thus cares to manage uploaded content only enough to avoid legal repercussions, advertiser repercussions, and public relations repercussions. The last of these is (usually) easily done with a veneer of handling destructive or malicious content.

    If advertisers don't care when their ads are slapped on videos peddling lies then Youtube does not either. Same goes for any other platform where "engagement" is the

  • I don't usually see that stuff. I'm afraid of clicking on anything outside my bubble or else I'll spend the next day trying to get You Tube to stop suggesting similar videos. Rule #1: Never click on a cat video.
  • spectacularly. It's going to mean a ton of additional scrutiny on election processes, which is the last thing the Republicans want.
    • I hope your prediction is right.
    • It's the last thing Democrats want, and something Republicans have been demanding and fighting for - against Democrats who have only worked to make fraud easier. Voter ID is a great example. Republicans want it because it makes cheating very hard. Democrats have fought it tooth and nail. Republicans worry about non-citizens being illegally allowed to vote. Democrats have allowed non-citizens, as in both legal and illegal aliens, to vote in local elections. Democrats are pushing to make ballot harvesti
  • To paraphrases Tolstoy, "Verifiable facts all look alike, but wild falsehoods are all false in their own way."

    Now I see lots of Trump supporters claiming yuuuge fraud. No evidence because witnesses who were too dumb to report it at the time are too scared to swear under oath now. The people losing are not Trump's people.

    Like many conspiracies, they are increasing the size of the conspiracy and the scope of excuses to explain the lack of evidence. Grosse Pointe Antifa is intimidating everyone into silence,

  • Youtube appears to be censoring with stealth, not by removing videos or informing the poster of any problem, but instead limiting viewing by just not showing videos alleging election fraud to some users.

    Because the Gateway Pundit re-posted one of their videos alleging election fraud to another platform after links to it on Youtube often just stopped working, you can see for yourself [rumble.com] what kind of content Youtube chose to censor.

  • Let's be honest... when wacko leftists falsely claimed Russia stole the 2016 election for Trump and all the other nutcase lies that came from the left, YouTube and Google treated it as news. When the other side does it, they think ensorship. This is why YouTube and Google should be displaced from the leadership role they play in video media. They aren't willing to conduct a fair game. Either you let both sides have their pathetic ranting and ravings or you apply some kind of rule even handedly. I'd prefer t

  • Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, has certified Georgia's votes [cnn.com] after a recount. In all, Biden received 12,284 more votes than the con artist, meaning all of Georgia's electoral votes will go toward Biden's landslide victory.

    • Don't overdo it. Based on electoral college votes, Biden won by the same margin in 2020 as Trump did in 2016. Neither result was what I would call a "landslide". But there was a noticeable absence of legal objections from the Democrats in 2016.

  • 2017: Election Meddling!

    2018: Election Meddling!

    2019: Election Meddling!

    2020: Our elections are safe and secure!

    https://i.redd.it/pjxw0mm0y606... [i.redd.it]
    • So what you're saying is that you've identified a case of continuous improvement which went well? Also nice fake news meme, but it was a republican appointed head of a republican government run cyberseucirty organisation that declared 2020 safe and secure.

      Please leave your bullshit propaganda in the Fox News comments section where it belongs.

      • LMOL wow the Atlantic Council trolls are out in force today.

        Except no improvements were made to our election systems. Politicians were screaming our election systems were not safe during this election cycle. They claimed Russian interference early on.

        Biden wins and Pelosi claims everything was safe.

        You can fuck off now.
        • LMOL wow the Atlantic Council trolls are out in force today.

          Is that another fantasy of yours?

          I take it you live in a state which legalised weed recent? Take it from someone who lives in Amsterdam, you gotta get into that stuff gently or it'll mess up your mind. Next you're be thinking Biden is hiding under you bed just waiting for you to fall asleep.

          It's truly hilarious to watch America implode the way it is.

  • Journalists, who are as an industry heavily biased towards the left, claim without even looking for or at evidence that election fraud is incredibly rare. Solely upon the basis of that unsubstantiated claim, any allegation that there is widespread fraud gets dismissed as misinformation. How is that allowed to stand? I look at the reporting and I don't see any investigation of the claims, just mockery and dismissal.

    There is evidence of widespread fraud, including eye-witness testimony (sworn, under pen

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