YouTube Is Banning All Anti-Vax Content, Which Is Gr8 For The Non-Nicki Minajs Of The World

youtube anti-vax ban

In hugely good news for people with a working brain or who aren’t named Nickimy cousin’s friend’s swollen testiclesMinaj, YouTube says they’re blocking all anti-vax content from their platform. 

A blog post shared by the platform this morning stated that YouTube will revise its medical information policies and is moving beyond a general ban on false information on COVID vaccines to misinformation about other vaccines. 

“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,” a spokesperson said in a statement per NBC. 

According to Reuters, some of the claims made in these videos include “that the flu vaccine causes infertility and that the MMR shot, which protects against measles, mumps, and rubella, can cause autism”. 

It’s no secret that social media, particularly video-based platforms, has been the main spreader of misinformation during this pandemic. However, according to NBC senior reporter Brandy Zadrozny, anti-vax content has thrived on YouTube since 2008.

“Really for over a decade, anti-vax creators have moved there after traditional media decided to no longer cover them,” she said in a video interview.

“The content was so rampant that pro-vaccine advocacy organisations, they were actually forced off the platform as far back as 2008. The difference now is obviously COVID.”

Back in July, a study found that 71% of YouTube videos that were flagged for misinformation were recommended by the bloody algorithm. BRB, never looking at those soft ASMR cat massage videos the same way ever again.

That suggests that there’s a systemic problem with the spread of genuinely accurate information on the platform, and makes me wonder whether this ban will be enough. For now, we can have a big sigh of relief though and cherish the fact we might not have to argue with our anti-vax cousins at Christmas. 

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