In June 2023, YouTube decided to stop fighting the most persistent strain of election misinformation in the United States: the falsehood that President Biden stole the 2020 election from Donald J. Trump.
Within months, the largest video platform became a home for election conspiracy theories, half-truths and lies. They in turn became a source of revenue for YouTube, which announced growing quarterly ad sales on Tuesday.
During four tumultuous months of this year’s presidential campaign, researchers from Media Matters for America, a group that monitors information from conservative sources, examined the consequences of YouTube’s about-face.
While Media Matters is a progressive organization that regularly criticizes conservatives, reporters and academics frequently cite it as a source on YouTube misinformation because it devotes significant resources to tracking the vast platform.
The New York Times independently verified the research, examining all of the videos identified by Media Matters and determining whether YouTube placed ads or fact-check labels on them.
From May through August, researchers at Media Matters tracked 30 of the most popular YouTube channels they identified as persistently spreading election misinformation, to analyze the narratives they shared in the run-up to November’s election.
The 30 conservative channels posted 286 videos containing election misinformation, which racked up more than 47 million views. YouTube generated revenue from more than a third of those videos by placing ads before or during them, researchers found. Some commentators also made money from those videos and other monetized features available to members of the YouTube Partner Program….
Mr. Carlson and Mr. Shapiro did not directly respond to a series of questions, but attacked reporting from The New York Times. Mr. Giuliani said in an X post that he was “proud to be included with Ben and Tucker — two GREAT Patriots!” He added that “we are particularly honored by the designation as #1 among ‘major YouTube creators.’”
YouTube, which is owned by Google, has prided itself on connecting viewers with “authoritative information” about elections. But in this presidential contest, it acted as a megaphone for conspiracy theories. The commentators used false narratives about 2020 as a foundation for elaborate claims that the 2024 presidential contest was also rigged — all while YouTube made money from them.
Kayla Gogarty, a research director at Media Matters who led the analysis, said that “YouTube is allowing these right-wing accounts and channels to undermine the 2024 results.”…