Good morning. Ahead of Election Day tomorrow, we dedicated all three stories in today’s send to how creators have impacted this year’s election season.

We’ll be back on Wednesday with more news from around the creator world. In the meantime, if you live in the US, don’t forget to vote if you haven’t already! 

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

How Jubilee’s Founder Wants to Change Political Debates

Media company and YouTube channel Jubilee, known for its human-interest videos on hot-button topics like politics and religion, released a video yesterday that featured US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg debating undecided voters.

It’s part of their new series Surrounded, where one notable figure (like conservative personality Charlie Kirk and political commentary creator Dean Withers) debates 25 other participants with different opinions from the main subject.

Eight episodes in, the series has received over 52 million views, with 21 million views on a single video—the fourth best-performing video in Jubilee’s 14-year history.

“I think the content is doing so well because what you’re seeing is ordinary people have real conversations about political issues today,” Jubilee founder Jason Y. Lee told us.

Providing a venue for discourse comes with its challenges, too. Many comments complain about who gets featured in the videos, and some call for more hosted moderation.

“I don’t think it’s a perfect mechanic,” Lee said. “We spend a lot of time testing these formats and we want to figure out what is the best, equitable place.”

Zoom in: Jubilee is focused more on understanding than persuasion.

• “We’re not trying to change people’s minds on a particular issue—we’re trying to teach an entire generation, ‘How do you have real discourse?” Lee said. 

• “What we’ve found is there’s an intense desire to break from polarization and have civil discourse,” he continued. “And the discourse on Jubilee isn’t always civil—I think there are some examples of bad discourse, too, that we have to learn from, but then juxtaposing that with examples of great discourse is really important.”

Big picture: With more eyes turning away from traditional media spaces and toward YouTube, Jubilee wants to be the future venue for political debate.

“We’re in talks with both [political] sides, so I think that there’s a lot of interest, and that’s why I’d say by 2028, there should be a presidential debate on Jubilee on YouTube,” Lee said. “I’m really optimistic about traditional campaigns understanding how important it is to reach young people through a digital space.”

Creators Cover the Election’s Final Stages

Political and news commentary creators have been zeroing in on the US election over the last couple of weeks. A brief roundup →

• Hasan Piker has devoted his six-to-nine hour daily Twitch streams to covering the election, which has included analysis of new polling data and highlighting voter guides.

• V Spehar launched an Under the Desk News Substack publication, where she’s written newsletters on topics such as rally crowd sizes and went live with podcasters Pantsuit Politics to discuss social media’s impact on elections.

• Cody Johnston explained on his Some More News YouTube channel how several under-the-radar, non-presidential races could impact the next four years.

• Joe Rogan welcomed vice presidential candidate JD Vance and Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman onto his chart-topping podcast.

Big picture: Viewers (particularly young voters) will continue to tune into their favorite political and news commentary creators for coverage of future elections, Recount Media host and Snapchat creator Grace Weinstein told us last week.

“As [viewers] develop that media literacy skill and audience focus and comprehension, I think audiences will get smarter, which will force content creators to get better,” Weinstein said.

Election Misinformation Ramps Up on YouTube

In 2020, YouTube pledged to remove all content that suggested election results were false—then walked back those moderation policies in 2023.

So what’s happened since? The New York Times verified research from nonprofit watchdog organization Media Matters, which tracked 30 of the most popular conservative-leaning YouTube channels this year from May through August.

• Those 30 channels posted 286 videos containing election misinformation—and reached 47 million views on YouTube.

• YouTube generated revenue by placing ads on over a third of those videos, according to researchers.

YouTube’s response? “The ability to openly debate political ideas, even those that are controversial, is an important value—especially in the midst of election season,” a company spokeswoman said in a statement.

Still, she told The Times that “most” of the 30 channels are “ineligible for advertising,” with some having violated the platform’s content guidelines previously.

FYI: Even as voting experts have consistently found systematic voter fraud did not occur in the 2020 election, according to a Washington Post poll from December 2023, only 62% of US adults believe Joe Biden was legitimately elected president—down from 69% in the same poll from December 2021.

👀 Creator Moves

• Sound engineering creator Offshore Audio is hiring a freelance video editor to edit YouTube videos.

• Andy Cooks is looking for a digital producer to help with YouTube and short-form content.

• Brandon William is hiring a YouTube producer to film and lead the creative process for video concepts.

Looking to bring on new team members? You can post opportunities on our (free) job board here.

🔥 Press Worthy

• Video essay creator Maximise is hosting a 90-second video competition.

• Kamala Harris appears on Doctor Mike’s channel.

• Your all-in-one AI brainstorming partner just launched in the EU. See how Spotter Studio can help you today.*

• Anthpo’s Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest is spoofed on SNL.

• Russia is suing Google with a 35-digit fine for blocking Russian state media channels on YouTube.

• Gaming streamer Quackity releases a real-time language translation tool.

_{*This is sponsored advertising content.}