On Wednesday, the Google-owned company announced it broadened its medical misinformation policies. The updated guidelines prohibit all content that propagates false claims or information about the Covid-19 vaccines as well as all other vaccines.
The policies were updated to cover all misinformation about previously approved vaccines like the measles vaccine and hepatitis B vaccine. Furthermore, the accounts of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and osteopathic physician Joseph Mercola, in addition to the accounts of several other prominent anti-vaccine activists, were banned from the site because of their content.
Throughout the last year of the pandemic and while developing new misinformation policies, Youtube removed more than 130,000 videos that violated their Covid-19 vaccine guidelines. The subjects of the removed videos range from claiming the vaccine does not reduce transmission or contraction of the Corona Virus to claims that it causes autism, cancer, or infertility. Youtube continues to remove videos from the site with those topics.
Despite the updated guidelines in a recent blog post, Youtube stated that they “will continue to allow content about vaccine policies, new vaccine trials, and historical vaccine successes or failures.” They will also allow users to continue to share their personal experiences with vaccines as well as scientific discussions as long as they haven’t published any previous anti-vaccine content.
