“We can imagine viewers then potentially extrapolating to Covid-19,” We wanted to make sure that we’re covering the whole gamut.”
Matt Halprin, YouTune VP for Trust and Safety
(CMR) YouTube will block all anti-vaccination content it announced in a blog post on Wednesday. This new expansion of its policy will include removing contesting questioning any approved medical vaccine, not just those for COVID-19. Thus far, YouTube has allowed people to broadcast almost anything about vaccines. The new policy takes effect today.
YouTube began enforcing their new policy Wednesday morning b taking down multiple channels of the Russian broadcaster RT – which Moscow promising retaliatory measures including blocking access entirely in that country to YouTube.
YouTube has faced some pressure for its handling of health information. Many critics claim that YouTube has inadequate policing in place for vaccine skepticism and falsehoods. Now, after consulting with health experts they have made a decision to update their policy.
The ban will include any media that claims vaccines are dangerous or lead to chronic health outcomes such as autism, said Matt Halprin, YouTube’s vice president for trust and safety. The division of Alphabet Inc.’s Google announced Wednesday that it will extend its policy against misinformation to cover all vaccines that health authorities consider effective.
A year ago, YouTube banned certain videos critical of Covid-19 vaccines. The company said it has since pulled more than 130,000 videos for violating that rule. But many videos got around the rule by making dubious claims about vaccines without mentioning Covid-19. YouTube determined its policy was too limited.
Anti-vaccine activists will have their accounts removed entirely from the platform. Already included Joseph Mercola in that batch are a vaccine skeptic that has almost half a million YouTube subscribers and Children's Health Defense, a group affiliated with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The ban has some notable exceptions in that it will allow “scientific discussion” which includes videos about vaccine trials, results and failures. It will also continue to allow personal testimonials such as a parent discussing their own experiences. However, if these testimonials are used to propagate misinformation and make generalizations they will be removed.
YouTube has already taken down more than 1 million videos since February 2020 for misinformation related to all aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also reduce the visibility of certain health videos they deem borderline by reducing their appearance in search engines.
In February, Facebook said that it would ban accounts that repeated conspiracies about vaccines and has tried taking a stronger approach to combat vaccine misinformation and hesitancy.
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