2023-08-17 16:37:04
YouTube had already hardened its fight against false medical information in 2021, during the Covid 19 pandemic. Stock Adobe
The platform announced new measures on Tuesday, including the removal of all content with false medical information.
The American video giant goes to war against medical misinformation. During the Covid-19 pandemic, online platforms found themselves at the heart of the fight against false medical information. Public authorities and digital giants were then required to cooperate in order to curb the dissemination of this content. A fight against “the infodemic” related to health that continues today.
This Tuesday, the online video-sharing platform YouTube announced in a ticket they blog the implementation of new measures against this scourge. These provisions will ensure that the images do not contain “disturbing and potentially dangerous information» on medical topics “having been the subject of numerous scientific studies and reached a consensus”.
Specifically, YouTube intends to remove any content that “contradicts” the instructions “local health authorities or the World Health Organization (WHO).“. The American company is particularly targeting the dissemination of false information related to the prevention and transmission of certain pathologies, or to “safety and efficacy of licensed vaccines». Medical treatments are also affected: videos promoting remedies whose medical properties have not been scientifically proven, or even which dissuade the user from consulting a health professional, will be removed from YouTube. Finally, any contentwhich denies the existence of certain pathologies“, including those “denying that people have died from COVID-19” will also be deleted.
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Misinformation about cancer treatments
These rules apply to videos, their descriptions, comments, live streams, external links, as well as “any other YouTube product or feature”, according to the regulations of the platform. A broad approach, which devotes particular attention to false information on cancers and their treatments, due to a “high public health risk”, this disease is among the main causes of death in the world, according to the WHO. YouTube will remove, from Tuesday and for the next few weeks, “any content that promotes cancer treatments deemed dangerous or ineffective, or discourages viewers from consulting a healthcare professional.” Thus, videos claiming to have found an alternative to guaranteed and proven cancer treatments, such as “garlic cures canceror those advising totaking vitamin C instead of radiation therapy“will be removed, illustrates the press release.
The platform nevertheless specifies that the context of the video will be taken into account. “We always pay close attention to context and allow content that provides sufficient context for educational, documentary, scientific or artistic purposes.” If this one is useful enough to“general interest”, it will not be deleted, even if it does not theoretically respect the regulation on false medical information. This exception may concern videos showing for example “comments made by a campaigning national political candidate challenging health authority guidelines.” Users testifying about their personal experience or discussing a medical study may also be exempt from these rules in certain cases. Finally, adding context when processing medical information is possible, but “does not guarantee its continued use on YouTube» however. The platform can for its partdisplay an information panel below these videos to provide context for viewers».
YouTube had already toughened up its fight against false medical information in 2021, essentially targeting campaigns “antivax“, and had then indicated to have removed more than a million videos propagating from the “dangerous misinformation about the coronavirus” since the start of the pandemic. YouTube which, recalled that behind an impressive number of content deletions, many videos actually counted very few views.
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