YouTube announced Thursday it will begin to crack down on abortion-related “misinformation” spreading in the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
The company said the policy will go into effect Thursday and be “ramping up” over the following weeks. The new misinformation policy will remove content that provides instructions on unsafe methods of abortion or promotes “false claims about abortion safety.”
1/ Starting today and ramping up over the next few weeks, we will remove content that provides instructions for unsafe abortion methods or promotes false claims about abortion safety under our medical misinformation policies. https://t.co/P7A27WPYuD
— YouTubeInsider (@YouTubeInsider) July 21, 2022
The changes will be a part of the video platform’s medical misinformation policies, which includes guidelines for flagging or removing content related to COVID-19 and vaccines.
YouTube said it will rely on “published guidelines from health authorities,” although it did not specify which authorities it will be consulting to determine what is misinformation and what isn’t.
Abortion-related videos will also have an “information panel” underneath them going forward, providing viewers with additional context from local and global health authorities.
“We believe it’s important to connect people to content from authoritative sources regarding health topics, and we continuously review our policies and products as real world events unfold,” YouTube spokesperson Elena Hernandez said. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Big Tech Censored Dozens Of Doctors, Over 800 Accounts For COVID-19 ‘Misinformation,’ Study Shows)
Members of both sides of the political aisle have complained about YouTube’s misinformation policies in the past, with conservatives typically arguing that the platform censors right-of-center political viewpoints, while liberals complain that harmful disinformation isn’t censored enough. The company’s misinformation policy also covers election-related content and “manipulated” videos.