YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. | Noam Galai/Getty Images Technology YouTube CEO: Politicians can break our content rules

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said today that content by politicians would stay up on the video-sharing website even if it violates the company's standards, echoing a position staked out by Facebook this week.

"When you have a political officer that is making information that is really important for their constituents to see, or for other global leaders to see, that is content that we would leave up because we think it's important for other people to see," Wojcicki told an audience at The Atlantic Festival this morning.


Wojcicki said the news media is likely to cover controversial content regardless of whether it's taken down, giving context to understand it. YouTube is owned by Google.

A YouTube spokesperson later told POLITICO that politicians are not treated differently than other users and must abide by its community guidelines. The company grants exemptions to some political speech if the company considers it to be educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic in nature.

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Social media firms have seen their policies for reviewing and removing content come under fire in recent years, particularly when such content endorses hate-filled views or incites real-world violence. The issue is even more prickly when it involves world leaders like President Donald Trump, who has used bullying or violent language in social media posts.

Wojcicki's remarks came a day after Facebook's global affairs chief Nick Clegg told the same conference in Washington that political leaders would be allowed to break the social network's content rules. Earlier this year, Twitter announced it would label and demote, but not remove, content from politicians that violates its standards.

YouTube also allows certain content to violate its rules if it is educational, documentary, scientific or artistic in nature, the CEO said.

This article tagged under: YouTube