E&C Democratic Leaders Send Letter to YouTube Condemning Its Decision to Reverse Course and Allow Election Misinformation on its Platform

Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Innovation, Data, and Commerce Subcommittee Ranking Member Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Communications and Technology Subcommittee Ranking Member Doris Matsui (D-CA), and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Ranking Member Kathy Castor (D-FL) wrote to the CEOs of Alphabet Inc. and YouTube today condemning YouTube's recent decision to reverse its election misinformation policy regarding the 2020 election cycle and allow election misinformation on its platform. Alphabet Inc. is the parent company of Google, which owns YouTube.

"Based on your recent announcement, our understanding is that YouTube will now allow false content disputing the integrity of the 2020 Presidential election and other past United States Presidential elections to remain on its platform," Pallone, Schakowsky, Matsui, and Castor wrote. "While you claim that taking such action is ‘core to a functioning democratic society,' we emphatically disagree. Not only is this decision extremely irresponsible, but, in fact, it threatens to weaken our democracy, and therefore we strongly urge you to reconsider this harmful policy decision."

The Democratic leaders pointed out that false content questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 Presidential election has already caused real-world harms to election workers, law enforcement, and elected officials.

Given the 2024 Presidential election cycle has already featured some of these same misinformation tactics, they urged YouTube to take the utmost caution about any decision to allow YouTube users to offer a repeatedly disproven narrative about a Presidential election—or any election.

The Members requested information from YouTube regarding the following concerns:

• Given that election misinformation has been found to erode confidence in the democratic process and materially discourage voting, how is allowing election misinformation from the 2020 Presidential election cycle on your platform not a violation of the general elections misinformation policies, which claim to prohibit voter suppression content with "false claims that could materially discourage voting?"
• Since YouTube will no longer remove 2020 Presidential election cycle misinformation, which has been dismissed and disproven by multiple court decisions and studies finding there was no widespread election fraud during the 2020 Presidential election cycle, how does YouTube plan to fact check or reduce the spread of misinformation on its platform?
• Please provide a detailed description of YouTube's planned election misinformation policies for the 2024 Presidential election cycle and how it plans to address content containing 2024 Presidential election cycle misinformation.

Read the full letter to Alphabet Inc. and YouTube HERE.

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