Elections 2020: YouTube Takes Steps To Battle Misinformation Around Mail-in Voting

In the run-up to the November elections, Youtube is stepping up its efforts to fight fake news. In a blog post, the platform last Thursday gave an overview of its efforts to dispel misinformation on mail-in voting.

Leslie Miller, YouTube’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, wrote in the post. “As we approach Nov. 3, we are working hard to make YouTube a more reliable source of news and information, as well as an open platform for healthy political discourse,” he wrote.

The platform announced a slew of changes including tweaks to search results for congressional and presidential candidates so that informative panels from third parties about the candidates are shown before video search results.

This feature was used by the platform during elections in Brazil and India to fight misinformation.

Additional steps have been taken to target fake information about mail-in voting and propaganda that leads to fraud. YouTube videos related to mail-in voting will now include a panel with a link to a report by think tank Bipartisan Policy Center called ‘Voting by Mail Counts.’ The video platform has made similar information panels about the Moon landing, vaccinations, and other similar conspiracy theories.

Voting by mail, mail-in ballot, or postal voting, refers to voting where ballot papers are distributed to voters by post. Typically, they must be mailed back before the election schedule.

The issue has taken center-stage as President Donald Trump has, on many occasions, claimed that mail voting will result in fraud, without offering any evidence to back his claims. Although the microblogging website Twitter labeled Trump’s tweets on mail-in voting as misleading, they have not been taken down.

In one of his speeches in August, Trump said, “Universal mail-in voting will be a tremendous embarrassment to our country.”

Voting by mail was used in the U.S. presidential ballots in 2016 as well. Nearly one in four voters were cast via mail then. While Trump’s claims are unverified, issues like the high rejection rate of absentee ballots continue with mail-in voting.

YouTube is also expected to roll out panels for voters’ queries about registration and other processes related to the election. This will be done by redirecting YouTube traffic to Google’s 'How to register to vote' and 'how to vote' pages.