YouTube has announced that it will ban all content that spreads false information or fear relating to any approved vaccine for illnesses, such as measles, flu, and Hepatitis — drastically expanding the scope beyond COVID-19 vaccines. YouTube, along with other social and sharing platforms with millions of daily users, has served as the key source for spreading vaccine-related misinformation across the world. Multiple studies and medical experts have linked vaccine hesitancy to misleading content shared online, stressing the need to urgently police potentially life-threatening hoaxes about vaccines and their side effects.
Even though platforms have taken punitive steps such as suspending accounts and pulling hazardous content, the dissemination of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation continues to be a major problem for almost every name in the social game. For example, TikTok now has over one billion downloads under its belt and research recently suggested that the TikTok Sounds feature continues to be abused for spreading COVID-19 misinformation and anti-vaccine discourse. This is in spite of the company claiming tight restrictions on such content. A key lesson to be learned here is that social platforms will continue to struggle against vaccine-related misinformation issues in the future, with COVID-19 serving as the best example of that phenomenon.
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Going forward, YouTube will remove all content that promotes false information about approved vaccines. The new policy, which goes into effect starting today, covers all misleading claims, including vaccines are dangerous, that they lead to chronic health effects, their 5G origins and tracking power, and that they aren’t effective at stopping the transmission of diseases. In addition, clips that talk about vaccines causing serious illnesses such as cancer, autism, or infertility will be removed from the platform as well.
YouTube says it consulted with health organizations at local and international levels while drafting the new content moderation policy around vaccines. However, the company is leaving two exceptions to the enforcement of its vaccine policy that actually sound like loopholes waiting to be abused. First, YouTube will allow videos that talk about the research around vaccines, trials for new ones, and past successes or failures. In a nutshell, YouTube wants to broadly exclude discussions and debates with an academic flavor or scientific intention. Second, the world’s biggest video-sharing platform won’t remove content in which people talk about their personal experience with vaccines, as long as it doesn’t breach guidelines. However, if the channel that uploads the video has a history of promoting misinformation or fueling vaccine hesitancy, punitive action will be taken.
These rules leave a lot of space for both voluntary and involuntary violations. For example, users who suffer a medical condition unrelated to COVID-19 vaccines after getting the jab might link it to the vaccination procedure and call it a side effect based on their personal experience. As Bloomberg explains, there are videos that YouTube considers ‘borderline’ and although these videos might not be outright removed from YouTube, they are typically demoted in search results and recommendations.
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