For two Michigan candidates for governor, it turns out the YouTube videos on their campaign websites are linking people to places they probably didn't intend to go.
With so many social media platforms, it's not unheard of for things to fall through the cracks in political campaigns. Running a statewide race in the social media age is a huge undertaking. Tweeting, posting on Facebook, putting gorgeous photographs on Instagram and developing alluring individual websites are all important to attract the most attention and to raise the most money.
Current Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's team put together a 90-second campaign video and uploaded it to YouTube. He posted it on his website BillSchuette.com. Once a visitor plays the entire video, YouTube will then offer the viewer more videos on Schuette's site and it turns out it's providing videos of Schuette's competitor, Michigan Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley. Calley is shown on Detroit ABC affiliate WXYZ announcing his campaign bid and shown doing an interview with CNN.
YouTube's algorithms will often serve suggestions to people based on what they've previously watched. In our look at the situation, we didn't use a login to test what suggestions were presented. Six times in a row on different computers in "incognito" mode, we received the same suggested video results with Calley appearing on Schuette's site.
Ironically, Calley's web site, BrianCalley.com, has a similar situation, but, perhaps, a more embarrassing result.
Calley uploaded a video to YouTube and linked it to his site just like Schuette. After playing the 75-second video, several times in a row we got the same suggested YouTube videos to appear. A couple of the links had sexually suggestive themes. Other links had everything to do with popular culture but nothing to do with politics including the video titled "The real reason we don't hear about actor Joe Pesci anymore."
Michigan State University Political Science Professor Matt Grossman says it is a risk for candidates to use a third party provider for video but he acknowledges many are taking the risk because it's a free video platform.
"Maybe they just decided the risk is worth taking," Grossman said. "[These links popping up] is just a general attribute of how YouTube works and not necessarily a mistake by the campaigns."
As for unknowingly linking to a competitor in a political race, Grossman says there's not much evidence people come to a candidate's web site to convince them to vote for the individual. Often people go to campaign's web site to make donations or to fortify their support in that particular person.
Calley and Schuette are the only ones who have the issue at the moment. Other candidates in the race, including Democrats Gretchen Whitmer and Shri Thanedar and Republican Dr. Jim Hines all use video players but don't allow a myriad of links to other videos to come after the video is finished.
We reached Schuette's campaign spokesperson John Sellek who told us he would look into the linking issue. We could not reach Calley's campaign before our deadline.
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