YouTube deletes 30,000 vaccine misinfo videos

YouTube has removed more than 30,000 misleading Covid-19 vaccination videos in the past five months, it said.

A YouTube spokeswoman said the videos contradicted vaccine information from the World Health Organization (WHO) or health authorities such as the NHS.

In October, it banned vaccine misinformation in a bid to clamp down on attempts to discredit the jabs.

It added that in the past year, it had removed more than 800,000 videos for coronavirus misinformation.

That figure covers more than just vaccines, but wider “medically unsubstantiated” claims about the virus.

It includes false claims that the vaccine kills people, causes infertility, or contains a secret microchip that will be implanted into recipients.

In the early stages of the pandemic, YouTube was home to many conspiracy theories about the disease and even false claims of non-existent “cures”.

Despite its ban on such content, finding and deleting it remains a struggle for YouTube and other social platforms.