YouTube removes CPAC content for violating ‘election integrity policy’

YouTube removed some video content posted on the account of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) from its platform because it was in violation of its “election integrity policy,” a spokesperson told The Hill on Thursday.

“We removed content from the CPAC channel for violating our election integrity policy,” said YouTube Policy Communications Manager Ivy Choi. 

She continued: “Our policies apply to everyone, regardless of the uploader’s political views, and while we do allow content that provides additional context such as countervailing views, the content we removed from this channel was footage that did not provide sufficient context.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said in a Twitter post on Thursday that YouTube had removed all the video footage from two days of the four-day conference, which occurred from Feb. 24-27. He said that the removed content included speeches made by former President Donald Trump and multiple GOP senators and House members, among others.

“The only notice we got from YouTube was that our videos were ‘flagged’ for ‘misinformation,'” Biggs added in another post. “No additional details were provided. We appealed and recently learned that all of our appeals have been ‘rejected.'”

American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp told The Washington Examiner that the organization noticed that the content had been taken down a few days earlier. After opposing the removal of Trump’s speech, “it was over the course of days that we realized so much more of the content had been taken down,” he said.

“The policies that would be most destructive of their companies — I think we’re for those,” Schlapp added.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) tweeted that her speech at the event was among the content that YouTube removed.

“Youtube’s censorship has become COMPLETELY out of hand,” she said. “Two entire days of CPAC were just ripped off the website – including my speech.”

The Hill has reached out to the American Conservative Union for comment.