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In a blog posted on Wednesday, Sept. 29, YouTube, which is owned by Google, announced that it will be expanding medical misinformation policies with new guidelines specifically regarding vaccines.
Moving forward, the policies will be expanded regarding currently administered vaccines that are federally approved and have proven to be safe and effective by local and international health officials.
Prior to the latest announcement, YouTube guidelines did prohibit certain types of medical misinformation that have been making the rounds since the pandemic struck in March 2020.
YouTube also confirmed it would remove the channels of "several well-known vaccine misinformation spreaders" under the new policy, including one belonging to the Children's Health Defense Fund.
Officials noted that since last year, more than 130,000 videos have been removed for violating YouTube’s COVID-19 vaccine policies.
“Crafting policy around medical misinformation comes charged with inherent challenges and tradeoffs,” YouTube leaders posted. "Scientific understanding evolves as new research emerges, and firsthand, personal experience regularly plays a powerful role in online discourse.
“Vaccines, in particular, have been a source of fierce debate over the years, despite consistent guidance from health authorities about their effectiveness.”
Specifically, Youtube will be targeting “content that falsely alleges that approved vaccines are dangerous and cause chronic health effects, claims that vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction of the disease, or contains misinformation on the substances contained in vaccines will be removed.”
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 will still permit videos about vaccine policies, new vaccine trials, and historical vaccine successes or failures to foster debate and discussion on the matter. Personal testimonials relating to vaccines will also be allowed.
"As with our COVID guidelines, we consulted with local and international health organizations and experts in developing these policies,” they stated.
“Today’s policy update is an important step to address vaccine and health misinformation on our platform, and we’ll continue to invest across the board in the policies and products that bring high-quality information to our viewers and the entire YouTube community.”
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