YouTube tells moderators to ease up on political, social, and cultural content

YouTube wants to be a forum for political debate, so it’s relaxing some rules that affect many content creators in that category. In recent months, the platform has advised human moderators to take down fewer videos that contain misinformation, derogatory language, and other forms of violative content.

Previously, videos considered to be in the “public interest” were removed if more than a quarter of the video violated YouTube’s rules. Now, the threshold has been raised to a half-video, according to The New York Times.

YouTube hasn’t made a public announcement regarding this policy update, but it has started training moderators to follow its new standards, as seen in materials reviewed by the Times. A YouTube spokesperson told the Times that YouTube often adjusts its rules for moderators; as an example, she noted how policies surrounding COVID misinformation have been softened since the height of the pandemic.

“Recognizing that the definition of ‘public interest’ is always evolving, we update our guidance for these exceptions to reflect the new types of discussion we see on the platform today,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Our goal remains the same: to protect free expression on YouTube while mitigating egregious harm.”

News channels’ issues with YouTube moderation date back at least as far as the 2017 “adpocalypse,” when tighter enforcement of platform rules led to a wave of demonetizations and takedown notices. At the time, YouTube’s critics argued that they couldn’t even invoke hot-button issues like gun violence or hate speech without having their channels restricted. To them, policies that were designed to curb bad actors were silencing middle-of-the-road commentators as a side effect.

Eight years later, top tech companies and their creator communities have more political influence than ever before. YouTube is interested in promoting the political discussions that sparked the so-called “influencer election,” and the slackened moderation guidelines are part of that promotional effort.

Or, in other words: YouTube doesn’t want to be Twitch, which has earned a reputation for overzealously policing its library of political content. Hasan Piker’s Twitch channel has become a cultural force, but the progressive voice has earned numerous bans after invoking sensitive subjects on stream. YouTube wants its community of politicos to speak their minds without fearing retribution.

YouTube’s change is good news for creators who comment on political, social, and cultural issues, but it also potentially benefits the platform as well. Since Donald Trump‘s return to the White House, tech companies like Meta have rolled back policies that were previously used to root out electoral misinformation. YouTube, which made the controversial decision to end its ban on 2020 election conspiracy theories, has shown its willingness to accede to Trump intimidation tactics.

Now, by allowing more misinformation to remain in videos, YouTube is giving even more fuel to creators who peddle unverified and inaccurate takes (and making bank along the way). It just so happens that a lot of creators who engage in that behavior do so via video podcasts, and YouTube is eager to grow its podcasting presence. That doesn’t seem like a coincidence.

The decision to further encourage all sorts of truthers will no doubt lead to more criticism of YouTube from fact-checking organizations like Poynter. In response, YouTube could remind its detractors that it is hardly giving up on moderation. Over the first three months of this year, the platform removed 192,586 videos because of hateful and abusive content, good for a 22% year-over-year increase.

Will social media companies continue to play by Trump’s rules? Perhaps, now that the President and Elon Musk have had a falling out, X will reverse course by putting the clamps on misleading rhetoric. That still feels like a long shot — but could you imagine?