YouTube starts mass takedowns of videos promoting ‘harmful or ineffective’ cancer cures

YouTube will take away content material that promotes “most cancers remedies confirmed to be dangerous or ineffective” or which “discourages viewers from searching for skilled medical therapy,” the video platform announced today. The enforcement comes as YouTube is making an attempt to streamline its medical moderation pointers primarily based on what it’s discovered whereas making an attempt to deal with misinformation round subjects like covid-19, vaccines, and reproductive well being.

Going ahead, Google’s video platform says it should apply its medical misinformation insurance policies when there’s a excessive public well being danger, when there’s publicly out there steerage from well being authorities, and when a subject is liable to misinformation. YouTube hopes that this coverage framework might be versatile sufficient to cowl a broad vary of medical subjects, whereas discovering a stability between minimizing hurt and permitting debate.

In its weblog submit, YouTube says it could take motion each towards remedies which are actively dangerous, in addition to these which are unproven and are being prompt instead of established options. A video couldn’t, for instance, encourage customers to take vitamin C dietary supplements as a substitute for radiation remedy.