Google-owned YouTube is running damage control for the Biden campaign, running a “fact check” at the top of searches related to Joe Biden and fracking, which claims that the Democrat candidate does not want to “ban” the oil and gas extraction method.
Searches for “Joe Biden fracking” and “Biden fracking” currently return a prominently-featured “fact check,” positioned above the list of videos.
The first result in the search results is a clip of Biden and Trump’s exchange on fracking during the second presidential debate, in which the Democrat candidate said his administration would “transition away from the oil industry.”
“The oil industry pollutes, significantly. It has to be replaced by renewable energy over time,” said Biden.
The second result in a YouTube search for “Joe Biden fracking” is a video of Biden attempting to walk back the comments at a recent live event, insisting he is not “banning fracking.”
Biden’s comments on fracking are expected to be a major problem for Democrats in swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, both of which have enjoyed employment booms thanks to the fracking industry. Breitbart News fact checked Biden’s recent claims that he would not ban fracking in August, finding the claim “mostly false.
According to Breitbart’s fact check by Joel Pollak:
VERDICT: MOSTLY FALSE. Biden has promised to ban fracking — repeatedly — as has his running mate.
Biden said Monday — during a speech supposedly on violence: “I am not banning fracking. Let me say again: I am not banning fracking. No matter how many times Donald Trump lies about me.”
The problem, for Biden, is that he explicitly promised to ban fracking during the second Democratic Party presidential primary debate on July 31, 2019, in Detroit, Michigan.
President Donald Trump has begun using a video of Biden criticizing fracking at his recent campaign appearances.
Breitbart News has previously revealed that YouTube tightly controls what appears at the top of many politically charged search results.
An internal file from the company, called “youtube_controversial_query_blacklist” contained thousands of search terms, including “abortion,” “federal reserve,” “Maxine Waters,” and “David Hogg” at the time it was leaked to Breitbart News, in January 2019.
When a term is added to the blacklist, it reorders search results to favor videos a set of “verified” accounts handpicked by YouTube.
One Google source called the existence of the blacklist a “smoking gun” proving political bias.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. His new book, #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election, which contains exclusive interviews with sources inside Google, Facebook, and other tech companies, is currently available for purchase.