YouTube Edits Donald Trump Clip On Capitol Riots, Citing Falsehoods

YouTube removed a video clip of part of the US congressional hearings over the Jan. 6 riots because it contained comments from former President Donald Trump that the company considered to be misinformation that violated its policy on election integrity.

The House select committee has been investigating the Capitol riots in a series of televised hearings that have also been uploaded through YouTube to the committee’s official website. 

The excerpt contained testimony of former US Attorney General William Barr, but also a clip of Trump promoting lies about the election on the Fox Business news channel, the New York Times reported. The clip didn’t include Barr’s perspective that Trump’s claims that the election was stolen from him were wrong, even though Barr made the assertion several times throughout the hearing. 

“Our election integrity policy prohibits content advancing false claims that widespread fraud, errors or glitches changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, if it does not provide sufficient context,” YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi said in a statement. “We enforce our policies equally for everyone, and have removed the video uploaded by the January 6th Committee channel.”

YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet Inc.’s Google, does permit content with false claims about the election in some instances, but only if there is additional context, such as countervailing views in the video’s description.