Online video platform YouTube has started banning content that includes information obtained by “hacking” and that “may interfere with democratic processes, such as elections and censuses,” the company announced on Aug. 13.
It’s not clear how the company plans to determine whether any particular information was hacked, what the intent is behind including it, and what qualifies as election interference.
Google didn’t immediately respond to emailed questions.
The policy’s most obvious target seems to be preventing a repetition of the Wikileaks release in 2016 of emails allegedly hacked from the Democratic National Committee and the account of John Podesta, then-head of Hillary Clinton’s election campaign.
Special counsel Robert Mueller accused Russian agents of the hacking as part of a probe into 2016 election interference. The YouTube policy, however, doesn’t say a hack needs to be part of a foreign operation for the resulting information to get banned.
YouTube’s announcement comes amid a ramping up of content policing by Google and social media companies in the lead-up to the election. The tighter controls have been advocated by Democrat lawmakers, while Republicans have complained that the policies are enforced unevenly and sometimes designed to disproportionately curb conservative speech.
A partnership of 50 U.S. states and territories, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, also is reviewing Google’s practices, while a separate bipartisan coalition of attorneys general in eight states is looking at possible antitrust concerns with Facebook.