A new Gallup poll shows that Democrats can pinpoint with more accuracy the alleged effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines than Republicans.
As The Free Press reported about the poll earlier this week, Gallup explained that “one possible reason is that Democrats are more consistently exposed to information that favorably portrays vaccine efficacy” – such as news outlets that do little to challenge the government’s claims.
Now, YouTube has made sure that that window has closed even more, deciding, perhaps not so surprisingly, to regurgitate the government’s message rather than allowing a free debate.
On Wednesday, the platform announced that it is blocking “anti-vaccine” content posted on its site. The initiative, according to the company, is to curtail the flow of “medical misinformation.”
One of the nation’s leading anti-vaxxers, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., condemned the move, saying in a statement, “There is no instance in history when censorship and secrecy have advanced either democracy or public health.”
The notice, posted on YouTube’s official blog, acknowledged that creating policy around medical misinformation features inherent challenges and tradeoffs, such as balancing new research claims with actual personal experience.
“Vaccines in particular have been a source of fierce debate over the years, despite consistent guidance from health authorities about their effectiveness. Today, we’re expanding our medical misinformation policies on YouTube with new guidelines on currently administered vaccines that are approved and confirmed to be safe and effective by local health authorities and the WHO [World Health Organization],” said YouTube.
“We’ve long removed content that promotes harmful remedies, such as saying drinking turpentine can cure diseases. At the onset of COVID-19, we built on these policies when the pandemic hit, and worked with experts to develop 10 new policies around COVID-19 and medical misinformation. Since last year, we’ve removed over 130,000 videos for violating our COVID-19 vaccine policies,” the post continued.
But in trying to balance its commitment to an open platform with the need to remove “egregious harmful content,” YouTube chose censorship.
“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,” the company said.
In short, YouTube said it was fighting back against content that “falsely” claims approved vaccines are dangerous and cause chronic health effects, that claims vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction of disease, or that contains misinformation on the substances contained in vaccines.
“This would include content that falsely says that approved vaccines cause autism, cancer or infertility, or that substances in vaccines can track those who receive them. Our policies not only cover specific routine immunizations like for measles or Hepatitis B, but also apply to general statements about vaccines,” YouTube said.
Breitbart News noted that YouTube’s ban was announced about a week after the conservative group Project Veritas released a whistleblower’s video of a doctor disputing the effectiveness of the vaccine.
In the video, Dr. Maria Gonzales, identified as an ER physician with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said the government wanted to shove bad news about possible COVID-19 vaccine side effects and “under the mat,” and was withholding information “because the government doesn’t want to show that the darn vaccine is full of s–t.”
YouTube remarked that its policy was developed with medical authorities and is “backed by medical consensus.”
And the company noted that exceptions exist.
For example, YouTube will permit content about vaccine policies, new vaccine trials, and historical vaccine successes or failures, as well as personal testimonials about vaccines, so long as the video doesn’t violate its Community Guidelines, and as long as “the channel doesn’t show a pattern of promoting vaccine hesitancy.”
“All of this complements our ongoing work to raise up authoritative health information on our platform and connect people with credible, quality health content and sources,” said YouTube.
Which means Dr. Anthony Fauci is safe no matter how often he’s wrong or says something that contradicts his previously held positions.
The policy update, YouTube argued, “is an important step to address vaccine and health misinformation on our platform, and we’ll continue to invest across the board in the policies and products that bring high-quality information to our viewers and the entire YouTube community.”
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