YouTube

YouTube Cracks Down on Anti-Vaccine Misinformation, Bans Major Accounts

The video-sharing platform deleted the accounts belonging to some of the most notable propagators of vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories

YouTube logo
Aytac Unal/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

YouTube is wiping vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories from its popular video-sharing platform.

The ban on vaccine misinformation, announced in a blog post on Wednesday, comes as countries around the world continue to offer free immunizations for COVID-19 to a somewhat hesitant public. Public health officials have struggled to push back against a steady current of online misinformation about the COVID-19 shot since development of the immunization first got underway last year.

YouTube's new rules will prohibit misinformation about any vaccine that has been approved by health authorities such as the World Health Organization and are currently being administered. The platform had already begun to crack down late last year on false claims about the COVID-19 vaccine.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, will delete videos that falsely claim vaccines are dangerous or cause health issues, like cancer, infertility or autism — a theory that scientists have discredited for decades but has endured on the internet. As of Wednesday, popular anti-vaccine accounts, including those run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., were kicked off YouTube.

“We’ve steadily seen false claims about the coronavirus vaccines spill over into misinformation about vaccines in general, and we’re now at a point where it’s more important than ever to expand the work we started with COVID-19 to other vaccines,” YouTube said in a prepared statement.

In an emailed statement to The Associated Press, Kennedy criticized the ban: “There is no instance in history when censorship and secrecy have advanced either democracy or public health.”

YouTube declined to provide details on how many accounts were removed in the crackdown.

“The concept that vaccines harm — instead of help — is at the foundation of a lot of misinformation,” said Jeanine Guidry, a media and public health professor at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.

She added that, if enforced properly, the new rules could stop bad information from influencing a new parent who is using the internet to research whether or not to vaccinate their child, for example.

But, as is common when tech platforms announce stricter rules, loopholes remain for anti-vaccine misinformation to spread on YouTube.

Despite tech companies announcing a string of new rules around COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation during the pandemic, falsehoods have still found big audiences on the platforms.

In March, Twitter began labelling content that made misleading claims about COVID-19 vaccines and said it would ban accounts that repeatedly share such posts. Facebook, which also owns Instagram, had already prohibited posts claiming COVID-19 vaccines cause infertility or contain tracking microchips, and in February announced it would similarly remove claims that vaccines are toxic or can cause health problems such as autism.

Yet popular anti-vaccine influencers remain live on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, where they actively use the platforms to sell books or videos. On Facebook and Instagram alone, a handful of anti-vaccine influencers still have a combined 6.4 million followers, according to social media watchdog group the Center for Countering Digital Hate. And COVID-19 vaccine misinformation has been so pervasive on Facebook that President Joe Biden in July accused influencers on the platform of “killing people” with falsehoods about the COVID-19 vaccine.

Other platforms have taken a harder line. Pinterest, for example, prohibited any kind of vaccine misinformation even before the pandemic began. Now, if users search for content about vaccines on the site, they are directed to visit authoritative websites operated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the WHO.

The new rule will apply to general claims about vaccines as well as statements about specific vaccines, such as those given for measles or flu.

Claims about vaccines that are being tested will still be allowed. Personal stories about reactions to the vaccine will also be permitted, as long as they do not come from an account that has a history of promoting vaccine misinformation.

Associated Press writers David Klepper in Providence, Rhode Island, and Barbara Ortutay in Oakland, California, contributed to this report.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
Contact Us