Starting earlier this week, YouTube has added a “Context” information panel, which serves as an Election Commission of India (ECI) disclaimer, to videos that raise doubts about Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs). Underlining the “safeguards” in place to ensure “free and fair” elections, the information panel, right below the video, also provides a link to the ECI's page on Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about EVMs and VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) machines. The information panel, titled 'Electronic Voting in India, Election Commission of India', says: “The strong technical safeguards in electronic voting machines and elaborate administrative safeguards, procedures and security put in place by ECI (Election Commission of India) ensure that the elections are transparent, free and fair.” Search results for “EVM” on YouTube have also started showing the same information panel. YouTube is learnt to have taken the action after the EC wrote to it recently, asking for the information panel to be added, along with a list of about 70 videos. EC sources said this is a part of the poll panel’s attempts to address doubts over the use of EVMs and VVPATs. When reached for comment, a YouTube spokesperson did not respond till the time of filing the report. The videos listed by EC include those allegedly showing “rigging” of machines designed to look like EVMs. The EC’s move comes just a few months before the Lok Sabha elections, and at a time the Opposition INDIA bloc has written to it several times to raise concerns over EVMs and VVPAT machines. Going forward, the information panel and link to the FAQs would be added to other videos about EVMs, sources said. The EC is also in the process of reaching out to Meta (Facebook) and X (Twitter) for adding disclaimers to content related to EVMs. Among the videos where the information panel has already been added are news reports this week about Congress leader Jairam Ramesh writing to the EC seeking a meeting to discuss VVPATs; a four-year-old interview of former IAS officer Kannan Gopinathan raising concerns about the use of VVPATs; and a 2022 news report by a local TV channel in the US city of Detroit about voting machines in the state of Georgia. The Georgia report talks about a University of Michigan cyber security professor embroiled in a lawsuit related to allegations about the vulnerability of voting machines. Although the report has nothing to do with India's EVMs, it carries the same information panel. According to EC sources, this is because the video refers to alleged fraud regarding voting machines. The disclaimers are visible to viewers in India. According to YouTube, the “Context” panel is added to videos on topics “prone to misinformation”. “When you search or watch videos related to topics that are prone to misinformation, such as the moon landing, you may see an information panel at the top of your search results or under a video that you're watching. Information panels show basic background info, sourced from independent, third-party partners, to give more context on a topic…These information panels will be shown regardless of what opinions or perspectives are expressed in a video,” YouTube says in its ‘Why am I seeing this’ tab on the information panel. Speaking at an international conference last January, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar had asked social media companies to use algorithm and Artificial Intelligence to detect deepfakes. He said the spreading of “deepfake narratives” had become common during elections across the world. In a memorandum to the EC on August 9 last year, the INDIA bloc had said EVMs seemed to be “susceptible to manipulation”. Responding to this, the EC updated its “FAQs” section on August 23, to answer some of the questions. Not satisfied with the response, the INDIA bloc has made repeated requests for a meeting with the EC, most recently by Ramesh on December 30. Last month, the Opposition alliance also passed a resolution demanding 100% counting of VVPAT slips, as opposed to the current 2% verification. Responding to Ramesh on Friday, the EC said it had “full faith” in the EVMs and referred to its updated FAQ page once again.
