YouTube Has Now Banned Vaccine Misinformation

To ensure that the anti-vaccine misinformation is not getting out of hand, YouTube has announced that it will not allow videos that claim that the vaccines approved by health authorities are dangerous or do not work. The video streaming and sharing platform also banned prominent anti-vaccine accounts, including Joseph Mercola's channel and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-linked Children’s Defense Fund.

YouTube Decides to Purge All Anti-Vaxxer Channels and Starts Blocking Vaccine Misinformation Content. 

Back in 2019, YouTube pulled ads from anti-vaccination content, and back in October 2020, it said that the service would also remove videos that pushed misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines. The new policy also expands to block misinformation around other vaccines, including the flu shot, the HPV vaccine, measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine. Videos that inaccurately claimant that the MMR vaccine causes autism or that flu shots cause infertility will not be allowed on the platform under the new policy.

However, there are some exceptions in place. For instance, YouTube will show videos that include people sharing their personal experiences with the vaccination. But it will remove content if the channel they are on "demonstrates a pattern of promoting vaccine misinformation." The guidelines say that the platform will also allow videos with information that violates the policy if that video includes other contexts, such as statements that are from medical experts.

YouTube has also started terminating channels of all the significant anti-vaxxers, including Joseph Mercola, Children’s Defense Fund., Erin Elizabeth, and Sherri Tenpenny. If you go over to the platform and look for these channels, you will only find videos related to them and not the channels.

YouTube also expanded its vaccine policies after noting that misinformation surrounding all the vaccines could result in mistrust around the COVID-19 vaccines, which have been proven effective time and again.

With the COVID-19 vaccines out there and the mass hysteria caused by the anti-vaxxers, YouTube has done a great job of purging all the misinformation out as it will create a safer space for everyone now.

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