It’s election day in the United States. From candidates launching their campaigns to debating issues that matter to voters, you’ve come to YouTube to hear directly from the candidates and follow the midterm election.
Now it’s time to make your voice heard. If you haven’t already cast your ballot, head to Google and search “where to vote” to find your voting location and make your voice heard.
As polls close, tune into YouTube, where these news organizations will bring you live election results coverage throughout the evening:
In just two days, Americans will tune in for the final Republican debate before the 2016 primary season officially kicks off in Iowa, and we’re teaming up with Fox News Channel to make sure every citizen can get the most out of it. To help people get informed before heading to the polls, we’re integrating three new components into the debate: a way to hear directly from candidates on Google; real-time Google Trends data; and questions from some of YouTube’s most prominent voices.
Hear from candidates directly, right on Google Political search interest spikes 440 percent on average during live televised debates as people turn to the web to learn more about the candidates and their platforms. Now people will have a new way to hear directly from candidates themselves, in real-time—right in Google Search results. This experimental feature helps voters make more informed choices, and levels the playing field for candidates to share ideas and positions on issues they may not have had a chance to address during the debate. By publishing long-form text, photos and videos throughout the debate, campaigns can now give extended responses, answer questions they didn’t get a chance to on stage, and rebut their opponents. As soon as the first debate begins at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday, search “Fox News debate” to find campaign responses.
Dig into issues with Google Trends Throughout the debate, we’ll also spotlight key insights from Google Trends that offer interesting insights about the candidates, issues, and debate topics—anything from questions asked about key issues to trending terms and rankings like the below minute-by-minute view of which candidate was searched most during the last debate.
You’ll also be able to answer polling questions about the issues that matter to you directly on Google Search when you search “Fox News debate.” Fox News will cover responses to these questions on air after the debate.
Watch YouTube creators engage with the candidates Finally, three prominent YouTube creators—Nabela Noor, Mark Watson, and Dulce Candy—will join the moderators in the debate to ask the candidates a question on an issue that matters to them and their communities. Bringing new voices from YouTube to political debates is something we’ve been doing since the 2008 election, and it can lead to personal and powerful interactions between candidates and voters.
The debate begins at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday, with the prime time debate starting at 9 p.m. ET. So tune in to Fox News Channel to learn more about your presidential candidates on Google!
Posted by Danielle Bowers, Google News Lab IMAGE URLDanielle Bowers AUTHOR TITLEGoogle News Lab
Now you can watch the candidates debate on YouTube, too.
Next month, we’ll join together with NBC News to present the final DNC sanctioned Democratic presidential debate before the first caucus and primary votes are cast—with the action live streamed on YouTube. The NBC News-YouTube Democratic Candidates Debate, hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus Institute and moderated by Lester Holt, will take place on Sunday, January 17, 2016, in Charleston, S.C., airing on NBC from 9-11 p.m. ET and streamed live on the NBC News YouTube channel.
With so many YouTube fans following this election closely, of course there will be an opportunity for you to get involved. Along with Google Trends data, the debate will feature questions from the YouTube community. Look out for more information on how you can engage in the coming weeks.
Since 2005 you’ve made YouTube a home for global politics, and today you watch more than 5 million hours of news on YouTube every day. Over the course of 2016, you’ll be able to find all of the major election moments unfold on YouTube—tune in to the NBC News YouTube channel January 17 to kick off the election year.
Posted by Brandon Feldman, YouTube News, and Steve Grove, Google News Lab IMAGE URLAUTHOR NAMEAUTHOR TITLEAUTHOR TEAM
Last year Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp, accused Google of creating a "less informed, more vexatious level of dialogue in our society." Given the tone of some of your publications, that made quite a few people chuckle.
This week you were at it again. One of your newspapers, The Wall Street Journal, accused Google of wielding undue political influence. Blimey! More seriously, given the inaccuracies that have been published, we wanted to give our side of the story. Here goes. Wall Street Journal:
“The findings [from the Bureau of Competition] stand in contrast to the conclusion of the FTC’s commissioners, who voted unanimously in early 2013 to end the investigation”. Google: As theFTC made clear this week: “... the Commission’s decision on the search allegations was in accord with the recommendations of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, Bureau of Economics, and Office of General Counsel” (something the Journal has chosen not to report). Wall Street Journal: “Since Mr. Obama took office, employees of the Mountain View, Calif., company have visited the White House for meetings with senior officials about 230 times … In comparison, employees of rival Comcast Corp., also known as a force in Washington, have visited the White House a total of about 20 times … Google’s knack for getting in the room with important government officials is gaining new relevance as scrutiny grows over how the company avoided being hit by the FTC with a potentially damaging antitrust lawsuit”. Google: Of course we’ve had many meetings at the White House over the years. But when it comes to the information the Journal provided to Google about these meetings, our employment records show that 33 of the White House visits were by people not employed here at the time. And over five visits were a Google engineer on leave helping to fix technical issues with the government’s Healthcare.gov website (something he’s been very public about). Checking through White House records for other companies, our team counted around 270 visits for Microsoft over the same time frame and 150 for Comcast. And the meetings we did have were not to discuss the antitrust investigation. In fact, we seem to have discussed everything but, including patent reform, STEM education, self-driving cars, mental health, advertising, Internet censorship, smart contact lenses, civic innovation, R&D, cloud computing, trade and investment, cyber security, energy efficiency and our workplace benefit policies. For example:
Several visits were advertising industry meetings attended by Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and others. Yes, Microsoft, the main complainant in the FTC’s antitrust investigation;
Over a dozen visits were for production crews covering the YouTube interviews with the President following the State of the Union and photographing the White House art collection for Google’s Art Project;
One of the meetings specifically called out by the Journal was actually a meeting with our Chairman, Eric Schmidt, and Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, with several other technology companies to discuss copyright legislation (the draft SOPA/PIPA laws that were ultimately dropped by Congress).
As the FTC has said, the Journal "makes a number of misleading inferences and suggestions about the integrity of the FTC's investigation. The article suggests that a series of disparate and unrelated meetings involving FTC officials and executive branch officials or Google representatives somehow affected the Commission's decision to close the search investigation in early 2013. Not a single fact is offered to substantiate this misleading narrative". We understand you have a new found love of the regulatory process, especially in Europe, but as the FTC’s Bureau of Competition staff concluded, Google has strong pro-competitive arguments on our side. To quote from their report “... the record will permit Google to show substantial innovation, intense competition from Microsoft and others, and speculative long-run harm”. And the FTC was not alone when it comes to search ranking and display. The Texas and Ohio Attorneys General closed their comprehensive competition investigations into Google in 2014. And courts in Germany and Brazil found that there is no basis in the law for Google competitors to dictate Google’s search results.
by Rachel Whetstone, SVP Communications and Policy
