YouTube has said that it will delete anything that conveys misinformation about all authorized vaccinations, expanding on a previous restriction on misleading claims for the Covid-19 vaccine.
Videos that claim that authorized vaccinations are harmful and cause autism, cancer, or infertility will be removed, according to the corporation.
Anti-vaccine influencers’ accounts will be terminated as part of the policy.
Tech behemoths have been chastised for failing to do more to combat misleading health information on their platforms.
President Joe Biden of the United States said in July that social media platforms were primarily to blame for people’s skepticism about vaccinations by disseminating disinformation, and he urged them to solve the problem.
Since last year, when YouTube instituted a restriction on content propagating disinformation about Covid vaccinations, 130,000 videos have been deleted from the platform, according to YouTube, which is owned by Google.
The firm claimed in a blog post that misleading statements concerning Covid vaccinations have “spill over into disinformation about vaccines in general.” The new regulation applies to vaccinations that have been licensed for a long time, such as those for measles and hepatitis B.
“We’re expanding our medical misinformation policies on YouTube with additional recommendations on presently given vaccinations that have been licensed and verified to be safe and effective by local health authorities and the WHO,” the post read.
Personal vaccination testimonials, vaccine policy information, new vaccine studies, and historical films regarding vaccine triumphs and failures will be permitted to stay on the site, according to the firm.
The decision comes after Facebook implemented a similar restriction in February, which targeted misleading claims that vaccinations are ineffective or cause autism, among other things. However, the firm has had difficulty enforcing it since then.
Twitter stated in March that individuals who regularly spread vaccination disinformation would be removed from the network.
