YouTube to remove all videos spreading vaccine falsehoods
YouTube will remove all videos spreading misinformation on vaccines, moving beyond its existing ban on Covid jab falsehoods.
The company said it would block content such as claims the flu vaccine causes infertility or that the MMR jab against measles can cause autism.
This marks a step up from the platform’s previous policy of demoting content that featured misinformation about non-Covid vaccines or promoted vaccine hesitancy. Now, instead of just being hidden from viewers, videos will be blocked.
A ban on Covid vaccine misinformation last year has resulted in the removal of 130,000 pieces of content.
In total, YouTube, has removed 1m videos for spreading general Covid falsehoods since the beginning of the pandemic.
Users will be allowed to post content about vaccine policies, new vaccine trials and “ historical vaccine successes or failures,” the company said in a blog post.
It said content creators could also post their own “personal testimonials relating to vaccines,” as long as their channel “doesn’t show a pattern of promoting vaccine hesitancy.”
The firm told The Guardian it was also banning a number of channels associated with prominent anti-vaccine activists including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Joseph Mercola.