YouTube will take down all anti-vaccine videos that promote false information regarding coronavirus vaccinations. The video streaming giant says this step is being implemented to remove all incorrect information posted as videos during the covid-19 pandemic.
It could be remembered that YouTube has already banned covid jab falsehood videos earlier; however, that seems not to be enough as the video streaming giant will take down content containing misinformation on coronavirus from Wednesday. The targeted content to be purged include Videos alleging that any authorized vaccine is harmful, causes chronic health problems, or does not prevent virus spread.
According to the preceding criteria, videos that communicated disinformation regarding non-Covid vaccines or advocated vaccine hesitation were earlier degraded, effectively hidden from the public view.
Consequently, YouTube enforced a restriction on Covid vaccination disinformation videos last year, resulting in the removal of 130,000 pieces of content. Since the outbreak of the Covid epidemic, Google-owned YouTube has deleted a record of 1 million videos for spreading generic Covid misinformation.
YouTube’s global head of trust and safety, Matt Halprin, says that vaccine disinformation is a worldwide issue that has expanded due to the transmission of misleading information about Covid vaccines.
He went on to say that “misguided information about vaccines can be found globally, in every country and culture.”
Falsehoods about the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, which has been incorrectly linked to autism, are one kind of misinformation that YouTube will tackle.
“A lot of the world population are still in doubt on MMR, to know if it can cause autism or not,” he says. And, as we all know, scientific finding shows that vaccines are not responsible for autism.”
The crackdown, according to Halprin, also would be directed to videos that say vaccines cause cancer, infertility, or include microchips, the latter of which has garnered notoriety as a hoax about Covid immunizations.
Amid a pre-Covid spike in vaccination skepticism, fueled by social media and anti-government sentiment, significant research published in 2019 confirmed no connection between autism and MMR.
Furthermore, a study published in the American College of Physicians Annals of Internal Medicine revealed “zero support for the concept of higher risk for autism upon MMR vaccination in a countrywide unselected cohort of Danish children.”
According to Halprin, Personal testimony about vaccines, discussions of vaccine regulations, and references to previous vaccine failures will all be permitted under the new standards, as long as the content does not contain general disinformation or promote vaccine reluctance. The rules will further be directed to public statements on false vaccines misinformation about immunizations for severe diseases like Hepatitis.
On Wednesday, a Google search for “MMR vaccination autism” returned a page of rejoinders to any link between both the vaccine and autism, including a video titled “Vaccines and Autism: How the Myth Began.” Meanwhile, the page also includes a televised interview with actor Robert De Niro, during which he claims that Andrew Wakefield’s documentary Vaxxed is accurate – one of the primary figures in promoting the unproven link between MMR and autism – is a video that “people should see.” After a backlash against Vaxxed, De Niro was interviewed in 2016 after his Tribeca film festival canceled the film’s screening.
Following Facebook‘s action last year to eliminate bogus claims regarding Covid vaccinations after public health experts discredited them, YouTube has taken the same step.
This story is attributed to Nelson Ikechukwu Nworie. Nelson is a specialist in digital marketing and business development. He is highly skilled in content creation, social media designing, lead generation, and identifying new digital ideas. Nelson is a team player, an active thinker, and an open-minded personality who tackles work with a positive mindset.
