The World Health Organization and YouTube merge into a dystopian one-size-fits-all medical misinformation paradigm where “prevention” equals vaccination or mammography, but step away from your vitamin cabinet or using food as medicine because that’s no longer acceptable according to their new policies.
On August 15th, YouTube announced it is adopting WHO’s medical misinformation policies, ushering in a “one world, one narrative” digital governance structure which will render free speech, and by implication – informed medical choice – non-existent for users on its already heavily censorship prone platform.
From this point onward, any content that contradicts or diverges from the WHO’s official health guidance may be deemed “harmful content” in violation of YouTube’s “Community Guidelines” and will now be subject to censorship or removal.
In a post titled, “A long term vision for YouTube’s medical misinformation policies,” YouTube shared its “thinking about the future of medical misinformation policies, including removing cancer misinformation.”
YouTube stated:
Moving forward, YouTube will streamline dozens of our existing medical misinformation guidelinesto fall under three categories – Prevention, Treatment, and Denial. These policies will apply to specific health conditions, treatments, and substances where content contradicts local health authorities or the World Health Organization (WHO).
Organized into a tripartite framework, it proposed the following guidelines:
Prevention misinformation: We will remove content that contradicts health authority guidance on the prevention and transmission of specific health conditions, and on the safety and efficacy of approved vaccines. For example, this encompasses content that promotes a harmful substance for disease prevention.
Treatment misinformation: We will remove content that contradicts health authority guidance on treatments for specific health conditions, including promoting specific harmful substances or practices. Examples include content that encourages unproven remedies in place of seeking medical attention for specific conditions, like promoting caesium chloride as a treatment for cancer.
Denial misinformation: We will remove content that disputes the existence of specific health conditions. This covers content that denies people have died from COVID-19.
Read More: WHO’s “Take Over” of YouTube Portends Orwellian Medical Dystopia
