Silhouettes of laptop and mobile device users are seen next to a screen projection of the YouTube logo.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
YouTube on Tuesday announced a recent policy for combatting medical misinformation on the video-sharing platform, according to a blog post.
The corporate said it can streamline its existing guidelines to fall under three categories: prevention, treatment and denial. In doing so, YouTube will remove content that contradicts well-established guidance from health officials about topics equivalent to Covid-19, reproductive health, cancer and harmful substances, amongst others.
“While specific medical guidance can change over time as we learn more, our goal is to make sure that when it comes to areas of well-studied scientific consensus, YouTube is just not a platform for distributing information that would harm people,” the corporate said.
YouTube, which is owned by Google, has historically struggled to moderate the content that’s uploaded on its platform. A former YouTube moderator sued the corporate in 2020, alleging that many content moderators remain of their positions for lower than a 12 months and that the corporate is “chronically understaffed.”
In consequence, the corporate is usually playing catch-up, racing to remove posts that violate its established guidelines.
YouTube said it can determine whether a condition matches inside its recent medical policy by assessing whether it is a high public health risk that is often prone to misinformation. The corporate pointed to cancer for example since people often turn to guidance from platforms equivalent to YouTube after learning of a diagnosis.
This implies content that daunts effective treatment or promotes unproven treatment shall be removed, according to the blog post.
But YouTube said content that’s of public interest may remain available, even when it violates the brand new policy. As an illustration, if a politician disputes official health guidance or a public hearing takes place that features inaccurate information, YouTube may not remove it.
The corporate said it can work to add additional context to videos for viewers in these instances.