YouTube will let creators who spread covid misinformation back on the site – The Verge

Google has announced it will reverse a major content moderation decision: YouTube will offer channels that were banned for spreading covid and election misinformation in 2020 a pathway back onto the platform. In a letter sent to the House Judiciary Committee, Alphabet’s lawyers claimed that the Biden administration had previously “pressed the Company” to remove user-generated Covid-19 content that had not violated Alphabet’s policies, and that the “political atmosphere” had forced their hand. “It is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden Administration, attempts to dictate how the Company moderates content,” they wrote. Back in 2020, during the height of the pandemic and during the first Trump administration, YouTube implemented a “medical misinformation policy” that blocked content promoting covid conspiracy theories and eventually banned them outright. After the January 6th riots in the U.S. Capitol, YouTube temporarily suspended channels, including Donald Trump’s own YouTube channel, that claimed that the election was “stolen” from Trump. They continued to crack down on high-profile MAGA influencers for violating those policies, such as demonetizing and removing videos from Steven Crowder’s channel in 2021. Stating that YouTube’s Community Guidelines around election integrity and covid-19 content had evolved significantly since 2020, Alphabet said that
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