Inside YouTube’s new “Medical Misinformation Policy”

Kit Knightly

A few days ago YouTube amended their Covid19 Misinformation policy, changing it so it now applies to all things medical.

The original policy was put in place in the early days of the pandemic, May 2020, and outlawed content in the video sharing platform that “contradicted the WHO or local health authorities” concerning the pandemic:

Over the years it’s been regularly updated, outright banning all “vaccine misinformation” in late 2021.

The latest revamp is the biggest so far. The new “medical misinformation policy” – no longer just “covid19 misinformation” – now addresses cancer treatments, abortion and non-Covid vaccines, according to CNN.

A YouTube spokesman told the media that the new policy will be focusing on three key areas: “Prevention, treatment and denial”:

• Videos promoting alternative medicine or dietary tips that claim to prevent disease – gone.
• Videos sharing alternative or natural treatments – gone.
• Videos claiming establishment treatments (eg. radiation or chemotherapy) do more harm than good – even from people who have had those treatments – gone.
• Videos claiming X disease does not exist – gone.

In short, YouTube will no longer allow any medical content at all that isn’t simply parroting government policy or promoting big pharma products.

Tellingly, it’s all about approval from authority, not accuracy of the information. In fact, nowhere in the entire document is there any kid of differentiation made between “accuracy” and “authority”.

In YouTube world something is “information” if it’s confirmed by the government, and “misinformation” if it is not. Reality is subject to the approval of the state, and the state is always right.

Which tells you everything you need to know.