YouTube said Wednesday that it was banning the accounts of several prominent anti-vaccine activists from its platform, including those of Dr. Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as part of an effort to remove all content that falsely claims approved vaccines are dangerous.
In a blog post, YouTube said it would remove videos claiming that vaccines do not reduce rates of transmission or contraction of disease, and content that includes misinformation on the makeup of vaccines. Claims that approved vaccines cause autism, cancer or infertility or that the vaccines contain trackers will also be removed.
The platform, which is owned by Google, already had a similar ban on misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. But the new policy expands the rules to misleading claims about long-approved vaccines, such as those against measles and hepatitis B, as well as to falsehoods about vaccines in general, YouTube said.