Alphabet Inc’s YouTube said on Wednesday it would remove videos from YouTube containing misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, expanding its current rules against falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the pandemic.
“A Covid-19 vaccine may be imminent, therefore we’re ensuring we have the right policies in place to be able to remove (related) misinformation,” Youtube said in a statement to BBC. YouTube said it had already removed 200,000 dangerous or misleading videos about the virus since February.
Youtube said the new rules would be enforced over the next few days but some ads would still run in the meantime. It further said that it was launching a campaign to provide users with information about the flu vaccine, including where to get flu shots in the US.
Conspiracy theories and misinformation about the new coronavirus vaccines have proliferated on social media during the pandemic, including through anti-vaccine personalities on YouTube and through viral videos shared across multiple platforms.
Although drugmakers and researchers are working on various treatments, vaccines are at the heart of the long-term fight to stop the new coronavirus, which has killed more than a million people, infected more than 38 million and crippled the global economy.
In its email, YouTube said it had removed over 200,000 videos related to dangerous or misleading COVID-19 information since early February.