YouTube revealed that it is expanding its misinformation policy to place bans on videos and YouTube accounts spreading false information about approved vaccines.
The policy, according to CNN, will see the video sharing platform ban prominent anti-vaccine accounts, including Joseph Mercola’s channel and an account belonging to the Children’s Health Defense Fund, a group affiliated with controversial anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Users who post misinformation about any “currently administered vaccines that are approved and confirmed to be safe and effective by local health authorities and the WHO” will have their videos taken down, and will be subject to YouTube’s strike policy and could face removal, the company said in the blog post.
“This would include content that falsely says that approved vaccines cause autism, cancer or infertility, or that substances in vaccines can track those who receive them,” YouTube said.
YouTube pulled ads from anti-vaccination content in 2019, and said in October 2020 that it would remove videos that pushed misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines.
The new policy expands to block misinformation around other vaccines, including the flu shot, the HPV vaccine, and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
Kennedy pushed back on YouTube’s decision, telling CNN in a statement: “There is no instance in history when censorship has been beneficial for either democracy or public health.”
The new YouTube policy will allow videos that include people sharing their personal experiences with vaccination. It will remove that content if the channels they are on “demonstrate a pattern of promoting vaccine misinformation.” The guidelines say that the platform will also allow videos with information violating the policy if that video includes other context, like statements from medical experts.
The move from Youtube follows a similar ban introduced by Facebook in February, targeting false claims that vaccines are not effective or cause autism, among others.
The following month, Twitter announced that users who repeatedly shared misinformation about vaccines would be banned from the platform.