YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki recently spoke of how YouTube will remove content that goes against the World Health Organization(WHO) recommendations. Wojcicki said that this policy is an attempt to crack down on misinformation regarding the coronavirus. This is not, however, the first time that the tech giant attempted to dispel ‘misinformation’. For example, although the site did not remove videos questioning climate change, it put fact checks around the videos. These ‘fact checks’ repeat the left’s view that climate change is settled science. Even when content creators accept climate change but disagree on its severity and how to deal with it the YouTube fact check can still appear. YouTube is demonstrating through the climate change example along with the recent move to censor anti-WHO information that it has an ideological bias. It is propping up the mainstream establishment narrative and censoring dissent, mainly from conservatives.
One problem with YouTube’s plan is that the WHO has shown it is not trustworthy. Back in January, the organization parroted the Chinese government’s claim that there was no human to human transmission. Later when President Trump banned travel from China, the WHO joined leftist pundits in criticizing his action. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised China’s action early on. He said: “China has done many good things to slow down the virus. The whole world can judge. There is no spinning here.” Ghebreyesus failed to mention how the Chinese government suppressed information about the disease and did not restrict travel until it was too late. The WHO also deflected blame for the pandemic away from China by telling people not to call the virus ‘Chinese Virus’ or ‘Wuhan Virus’.
The change in YouTube policy is also problematic because it could result in older videos being removed. People can only speculate about certain issues, and use the best available information at the time. If YouTube is serious about the new proposal, the site will likely censor smaller content creators but leave mainstream outlets such as CNN alone. This is because the tech sites prefer to defend the establishment and consider establishment critics to be misinformed. YouTube, along with any other tech site, is not all-knowing and ought to allow people to debate serious issues on its platform.
