YouTube book-burners: Social media monolith bans COVID vaccine dissent

Google-owned YouTube Wednesday announced it is removing all “harmful vaccine content” from its platform that question the COVID-19 vaccines, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and osteopathic physician Joseph Mercola. YouTube will ban videos that suggest the vaccines are ineffective or dangerous.“We’ve steadily seen false claims about the coronavirus vaccines spill over into misinformation about vaccines in general, and we’re now at a point where it’s more important than ever to expand the work we started with COVID-19 to other vaccines,” YouTube wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.Mainstream media headlines ranged from approval of the move to zealous approval, with the Guardian calling censored content "misinformation", and the Huffington Post relieved that YouTube "finally" banned what they called "anti-vaccine content".Apparently addressing younger audiences, USA Today said YouTube is removing "videos with lies about all vaccines".ABC News said YouTube banned "false vaccine claims" to fight a "wave of misinfo".CNN said YouTube will remove videos "spreading misinformation on its platform about any approved vaccine, not only those aimed at preventing Covid."