Google Executive Admits Company Made ‘Mistakes’ While Handling Complaints Of Election Fraud

Authored by Jacki Thrapp via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Google executive said the company made “mistakes” while handling complaints of election fraud during a U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing held Oct. 29.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who serves as the committee chairman, showed screenshots of a YouTube video that allegedly highlighted how former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Donald Trump both voiced concerns about election fraud and then asked Markham Erickson, who leads Google’s Government Affairs and Public Policy Centers of Excellence, why the video was taken down.

“YouTube deleted it, blocked it and gave the creator a strike, a step toward deleting his entire channel,” Cruz said. ”Why would you remove a journalist’s record of the claims of election fraud from both democrats and republicans?”

The Epoch Times has been unable to confirm specifically which YouTube video, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, Inc., was being discussed during the hearing and has reached out to Cruz’s press office for a copy of the screenshots that were mentioned.

Erickson responded: “We have election policies and we’ve had election policies for a long time to ensure that the most important thing that citizens can do, which is to vote, they can find relevant and useful information on our platforms. Where to vote, for example. What time the …”

Cruz interrupted Erickson and reiterated that his question was regarding a blocked YouTube video that discussed claims of election fraud made by presidential candidates from both parties, not voting.

“Then YouTube reversed that decision and unblocked it and you can see on the right [side of the posterboard], instead you decided not to block it, but simply to demonetize it,” Cruz said. “It is Google’s testimony that you regret nothing. Is that right?”

Erickson said that after the states had certified the 2020 election, YouTube adopted a policy to take down content that claimed there was “widespread fraud, or errors or glitches.”

“When the chance of real-world harm had dissipated, we removed that policy,” Erickson said.

Erickson did not comment on how the YouTube video allegedly shared Clinton’s criticisms regarding the 2016 election.

The 2016 Democratic nominee previously alleged the election had voter suppression, voter purging, and hacking. She even called Trump an “illegitimate president” during an interview with CBS News in September 2019.

When Cruz asked Erickson whether Google wanted to apologize or express regret for how it handled complaints of election fraud.

“We make mistakes,” Erickson responded.

“Name one,” Cruz said.

“We make those mistakes, Senator,” Erickson replied, without giving details.

“Name one,” Cruz said again. “Like you’re saying, was this a mistake? Yes or no?”

The Google executive reiterated that decisions were made “independently.”

“At the time, Senator, our trust and integrity teams, when looking at content on YouTube that claimed there was widespread fraud after the states had certified the validity of the election, we believed it was appropriate to take action against that content,” he said.