Several Democratic members of Congress are calling on YouTube to implement measures to control what they consider to be disinformation in content published in Spanish. Democratic congressmen such as Tony Cardenas, Ben Ray Lujan and Bob Menendez sent a letter last Friday to the tech giant's CEO, Susan Wojcicki, in which they stated their "serious concern with the continued lack of action and transparency" with respect to the dissemination of fake news.
In the letter obtained by The Hill, the Democrats stated that they were particularly concerned about the Spanish-language content focused on next week's midterm elections:
It is critical that YouTube prioritize platform safety and content moderation for non-English speakers on the platform. However, despite repeated assurances that this is a top priority for the company, reporting on rampant misinformation spread on the platform continues.
In addition, the Democrats asked Susan Wojcicki to provide them with information on the steps she planned to implement at YouTube to combat the dissemination of false and misleading information in languages other than English. They also asked the company's CEO to disclose the number of content moderators the platform appointed to review content in languages other than English.
YouTube, against 'disinformation' in Spanish
The tech giant was quick to respond. Elena Hernandez, a spokeswoman for YouTube, reached out to The Hill through a statement responding to the Democrats' letter.
The letter recalls that the company has more than 20,000 employees worldwide, many of whom, she says, have "Spanish language expertise." All of them have a clear mission: to review and remove all content that violates the company's disinformation policies.
We prominently feature content in search results from authoritative Spanish-language sources including news outlets. We also surface election information panels in English and Spanish to connect viewers with third-party information about a given election.
