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According to a report from The New York Times, YouTube has softened its moderation standards, advising reviewers to not delete content potentially violating its rules if the content is considered to be in the “public interest.” This internal policy adjustment was reportedly made in December and includes examples such as medical misinformation and hate speech.
Training materials viewed by the Times reveal YouTube’s direction to reviewers to retain videos deemed in the public interest — covering topics like elections, ideologies, movements, race, gender, sexuality, abortion, immigration, and censorship — provided that no more than half of the video breaches the platform’s guidelines, an increase from the previous limit of a quarter. This change builds upon an earlier adjustment made before the 2024 US election, permitting content from political candidates to remain available even if it contravenes community standards.
Furthermore, the platform instructed moderators to consider removing content if the “freedom of expression” value surpasses the risk of harm. Borderline cases should be referred to a manager instead of being immediately taken down, the Times reports.
“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,” YouTube spokesperson Nicole Bell said in a statement to the Times. “Our goal remains the same: to protect free expression on YouTube while mitigating egregious harm.” YouTube didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
As noted by the Times, YouTube showed reviewers real examples of how it has implemented the new policy. One video contained coverage of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s covid vaccine policy changes — under the title “RFK Jr. Delivers SLEDGEHAMMER Blows to Gene-Altering JABS” — and was allowed to violate policies surrounding medical misinformation because public interest “outweighs the harm risk,” according to the Times. (The video has since been taken off the platform, but the Times says the reasoning behind this is “unclear.”) Another example was a 43-minute video about Trump’s cabinet appointees that violated YouTube’s harassment rules with a slur targeting a transgender person, but was left up because it had only a single violation, the Times reports.
YouTube also reportedly told reviewers to leave up a video from South Korea that mentioned putting former president Yoon Suk Yeol in a guillotine, saying that the “wish for execution by guillotine is not feasible.”
