The video-sharing platform YouTube announced on Tuesday that it will be increasing its censorship efforts against content that it determines to be “medical misinformation.”
As reported by the Daily Caller, YouTube’s existing censorship policy will be streamlined to three different categories, ahead of an expected long-term effort to silence information that medical “experts” disagree with. The three categories will be Prevention, Treatment, and Denial. Content will be removed if it “contradicts health authority guidance.”
“Starting today and ramping up in the coming weeks, we will begin removing content that promotes cancer treatments proven to be harmful or ineffective, or content that discourages viewers from seeking professional medical treatment,” the announcement reads.
“Our goal is to ensure that when it comes to areas of well-studied scientific consensus,” the statement continues. “YouTube is not a platform for distributing information that could harm people.”
The tech giant, along with its parent company Google, is currently facing a lawsuit from presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. In the complaint filed on August 2nd, Kennedy states that YouTube has removed several of his videos due to alleged “vaccine misinformation.”
Since “YouTube does not allow people to say anything ‘that contradicts local health authorities’ (LHA) or the World Health Organization’s (WHO) medical information about COVID-19,’” Kennedy’s lawsuit states, then YouTube essentially parrots whatever the current government talking points may be, implying a level of collusion between the platform and the government.