As part of a new set of policies aimed at cutting down on anti-vaccine content on the Google-owned site, YouTube will ban any videos that claim that commonly used vaccines approved by health authorities are ineffective or dangerous.
The company previously blocked videos that made those claims about coronavirus vaccines, but not ones for other vaccines like those for measles or chickenpox.
Misinformation researchers have for years said the popularity of anti-vaccine content on YouTube was contributing to growing skepticism of lifesaving vaccines in the United States and around the world.
In July, President Biden said social media companies were partially responsible for spreading misinformation about the vaccines, and need to do more to address the issue.
As the companies increasingly come under fire from regulators, lawmakers and regular users for contributing to social ills - including vaccine skepticism - YouTube is again changing policies that it has held onto for months.
YouTube didn't act sooner because it was focusing on misinformation specifically about coronavirus vaccines, said Matt Halprin, YouTube's vice president of global trust and safety.
Mercola, an alternative medicine entrepreneur, and Kennedy, a lawyer and the son of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy who has been a face of the anti-vaccine movement for years, have both said in the past that they are not automatically against all vaccines, but believe information about the risks of vaccines is being suppressed.
https://www.technocracy.news/kaboom-youtube-bans-all-anti-vaccine-content/
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