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YouTube is erasing vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories from the popular video-sharing platform.
The vaccine misinformation ban, announced in a blog post on Wednesday, comes as countries around the world continue to offer free vaccines for COVID-19 to a somewhat hesitant public. Public health officials have struggled to counter a constant stream of online misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine since vaccine development first began last year.
YouTubeThe new rules will prohibit misinformation about any vaccine that has been approved by health authorities such as the World Health Organization and is currently being administered. The platform began cracking down on false claims about the COVID-19 vaccine late last year.
YouTubeGoogle will delete videos that claim vaccines are dangerous or cause health problems like cancer, infertility or autism. On Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Popular anti-vaccine accounts, including those run by YouTube, have been kicked out of YouTube.
“We have consistently seen false claims about coronavirus vaccines spread to misinformation about vaccines in general, and we are now at a point where it is more important than ever to expand the work we started with COVID-19 to other vaccines.” YouTube said in a prepared statement.
The new rule will apply to statements about specific vaccines, such as those issued for measles or flu, as well as general claims about vaccines.
Claims about vaccines being tested will still be allowed. Personal stories about vaccine responses will be allowed as long as they don’t come from an account with a history of promoting vaccine misinformation.
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Associated Press writer David Klepper of Providence, Rhode Island contributed to this report.
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