Since the outbreak of the epidemic in COVID-19, there have been various news on the Internet, and even much unconfirmed fake news has been spread by netizens everywhere, forming a bad cycle. In addition, many people who advocate anti-vaccine express their opinions on the Internet to avoid people being vaccinated. YouTube, the world’s largest video sharing network platform, announced on Wednesday (29th) that it would block all anti-vaccine content. So far, 130,000 videos have been deleted.
The measures not only deal with COVID-19 but also include common vaccines such as Leprosy Gill Vaccine (MMR), Varicella, HPV vaccine, etc. As long as the content involves the chronic health consequences caused by vaccines and the fake news of taking a walk against vaccine components, it will be removed.
According to Matt Halprin, vice president of global trust and security affairs at YouTube, they also blocked the channels of well-known anti-vaccine campaigners, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr and Joseph Mercola.
Examples of vaccine content not allowed for distribution:
- claims that vaccines cause chronic side effects such as cancer and diabetes
- claims that vaccines do not reduce the risk of contracting infectious diseases
- claim that the vaccine contains substances that are not on the list of vaccine components, such as biological substances from the fetus (e.g. fetal tissue, fetal cell lines) or animal by-products
- claims that the vaccine contains substances or devices that can track or identify persons who have received the vaccine
- claim that the vaccine changes a person’s genetic makeup
- claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism
- claim that vaccines are part of population reduction programmes
- claim that flu vaccines cause chronic side effects such as infertility
- claims that HPV vaccines cause chronic side effects such as paralysis
