YouTube said in a blog post on Wednesday that it will restrict all anti-vaccine content, expanding its ban on incorrect information on the COVID vaccines to include content that contains misinformation about other licensed vaccines.
According to YouTube’s policy, statements that the flu vaccine causes infertility and that the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps, and rubella, can cause autism are examples of content that will not be allowed.
According to a YouTube representative, the online video firm owned by Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) is also deleting channels affiliated with anti-vaccine advocates such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Joseph Mercola.
A press email for Mercola’s website said in a statement: “We are united across the world, we will not live in fear, we will stand together and restore our freedoms.”
Kennedy said in a statement: “There is no instance in history when censorship and secrecy have advanced either democracy or public health.”
YouTube and other digital firms such as Facebook Inc. (FB.O) and Twitter Inc. (TWTR.N) have been chastised for failing to do enough to combat the spread of misleading health information on their platforms.
Even as YouTube takes a firmer stand against misinformation, it is seeing pushback from users all across the world. The German-language channels of Russian state-backed broadcaster RT were removed from YouTube on Tuesday, citing a violation of YouTube’s COVID-19 disinformation policy.
Russia slammed the action as “unprecedented information aggression” on Wednesday, threatening to stop YouTube.
