website of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which debunked the myth that the election had been “stolen.” To calculate VVR, human reviewers manually analyze a sample of actual YouTube views to determine how often violative videos slipped past automated and human content moderation filters. In late 2021, the estimated rate was 0.12% to 0.14%.2 But once more, it’s not clear what those percentages mean. If there were 10,000 total views of content on YouTube in a given quarter, 0.14% would suggest a modest-sounding 14 instances of violative views. But users watch a billion hours of video a day. At that scale, the number of daily views of harmful content would be measured in the millions. Self-Policing on YouTube Removals (October 1 December 31, 2021) Channels The platform uses automated and human review to filter out harmful content but doesn’t disclose the percentage of content that it takes down. 3,850,275 Videos 3,754,215* *YouTube removed an additional 77,327,364 videos associated with channels that it took down. Source: Google Declining ‘Violative View Rate’ Google estimates the percentage of YouTube views of rule-breaking content (fourth quarter of each year). Source: Google 2017 0.63% - 0.72% 2018 0.23% - 0.27% 2019 0.16% - 0.18% 2020 0.16% - 0.18% 2021 0.12% - 0.14% As former President Trump and his supporters promoted that myth in late 2020, YouTube moved more tentatively than Facebook or Twitter to counter disinformation about rogue ballots and rigged voting machines. On December 9, the deadline for states to certify their election results, YouTube announced that it would start removing misleading allegations that “widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome.” But the new policy applied only to videos uploaded after December 9. An untold number of videos such as Crowder’s remained on the site, contributing to the erosion of trust in elections and democracy itself.62 During the January 6 melee at the U.S. Capitol, Trump used his YouTube account to reassure the mob. “Go home, we love you, you’re very special ....I know how you feel,” he said in a video from the White House. Six days later, after both Twitter and Facebook had barred Trump, YouTube blocked him as well, citing an “ongoing potential for violence.” Since then, YouTube hasn’t specified when Trump’s account might be reactivated, saying only that he would be allowed to return “when the risk of violence has decreased.” Meanwhile, on January 13, 2022, the Select House Committee investigating the Capitol insurrection alleged in a subpoena to Google that YouTube “was a platform for significant communications by its users that were relevant to the planning and execution of the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol.” Defending its actions related to the election fallout, YouTube told us in May 2022 that “over the last year, we’ve removed tens of thousands of videos for violating our U.S. elections-related policies, the majority before hitting 100 views. In addition, our systems actively point to high- HOW YOUTUBE SPREADS HARMFUL CONTENT – AND WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT 13