Thursday, November 26, 2020

YouTube suspends and demonetizes One America News for a week for falsely claiming COVID has cure

YouTube has barred the right-wing One America News Network from posting new content for a week after it shared a video promoting a fake cure for COVID-19.The Google-owned social media giant also temporarily blocked OANN - a favorite channel of President Donald Trump - from making money off of existing videos, YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi said Tuesday.

She said the video that was taken down claimed that hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug touted by Trump despite a lack of scientific evidence, could cure COVID-19.Several Twitter users posted links to a video believed to be the one cited by YouTube, in which a California doctor said he'd 'cured' 1,700 patients with hydroxychloroquine in early October.

According to YouTube policy, OANN has two more strikes before being kicked off the social media platform.

To resume making money on its videos OANN will have to reapply to the YouTube Partner Program, which will require the outlet to prove that the issues that led to the suspension have been rectified.

Since February YouTube has pulled 200,000 dangerous or misleading videos on the subject, the company said.

OANN responded to the suspension by saying it would abide by YouTube's policies going forward but added that it 'will not let YouTube's arbitrary rules infringe upon our First Amendment editorial rights to inform the public'.

YouTube initially added a note below the video, which racked up more than 470,000 views, stating that the election results were not final and linking to a Google search on official vote tallies.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8984319/YouTube-bans-far-right-wing-OAN-channel-week.html 

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