• by Colin Kirkland , October 22, 2024

As the U.S. presidential election looms, YouTube is delivering a number of additional features to help users navigate through the process of casting their ballots -- including accurate news and information related to the election and the candidates, while also pausing election-related ads after polls close.

First, the YouTube home page will begin highlighting information on where and how to vote. Searching “how to vote” or “how to register to vote” in the app will bring up an informational panel directing users to additional details via Google Search.

YouTube says an information panel will also appear if a user searches for something related to a “2024 federal election candidate,” which would include their political party, a link to their official channel, and a click-through to Google Search to do additional research.

After the votes are counted, the Google-owned company will also provide links to Google's election results feature, which tracks poll data in real-time.

According to YouTube, “viewers will see timely context around election results underneath videos and at the top of search results related to the election.”

With the expected spread of misinformation surrounding the election -- especially across the social-media landscape -- YouTube is making efforts to establish itself as a “reliable” source for news and information. This is why the platform will provide live streams from “authoritative news channels” on the home page, allowing users to watch election night unfold in a live video format delivered in both English and Spanish.

To further prevent misinformation from going viral on the app, YouTube says its elections teams are working to create new safeguards ahead of the upcoming election, including temporarily pausing ads related to the U.S. elections after the last polls close on November 5 and removing content that “misleads voters on how to vote or encourages interference in the democratic process” determined by YouTube’s guidelines.

“We quickly remove content that incites violence, encourages hatred, promotes harmful conspiracy theories, or threatens election workers,” the company writes in a blog post.

Concern over generative AI's advanced influence over this year's presidential election has pushed most major social-media platforms to integrate new safeguards as well.

This year, YouTube is requiring creators to disclose whether the video they are uploading contains any altered or synthetic content. From there, the company says it will add a label to the description panel indicating the alterations in order to provide context for viewers.

“For altered or synthetic content about sensitive topics, such as elections, a more prominent label is applied directly to the video player,” the company says, adding that this safeguard was displayed over 40 million times on videos across the EU during this summer's European Parliamentary election.

Altered content that violates the platform's community guidelines will be fully removed.

Finally, YouTube is working alongside Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) to combat foreign interference in the election, including government-backed hacking.