“Votes will not be counted”: Indian election disinformation ads and YouTube

To test YouTube’s treatment of election disinformation in India, Access Now
and Global Witness submitted 48 advertisements in English, Hindi, and
Telugu containing content prohibited by YouTube’s advertising and
elections misinformation policies. YouTube reviews ad content before it can
run, yet the platform approved every single ad for publication. We withdrew
the ads after YouTube’s approval and before they could be published, to
ensure that they did not run on the platform and were not seen by any
person using the site. The ad content included voter suppression through
false information on changes to the voting age, instructions to vote by text
message, and incitement to prevent certain groups from voting.