YouTube to prohibit cancer treatment misinformation

New Delhi: With an ongoing effort to build out its medical misinformation policy, the Google-owned video-sharing platform- YouTube announced on Tuesday that it will begin removing content that promotes cancer treatments proven to be harmful or ineffective, or content that discourages viewers from seeking professional medical treatment.  

This includes content that promotes unproven treatments in place of approved care or as a guaranteed cure, and treatments that have been specifically deemed harmful by health authorities. For instance, a video that claims “garlic cures cancer,” or “take vitamin C instead of radiation therapy” would be removed.

"When cancer patients and their loved ones are faced with a diagnosis, they often turn to online spaces to research symptoms, learn about treatment journeys, and find community. Our mission is to make sure that when they turn to YouTube, they can easily find high-quality content from credible health sources," stated Dr Garth Graham, head of YouTube Health. 

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"And as part of our ongoing work to increase the amount of high-quality health content on YouTube, we’re publishing a playlist of engaging, informative cancer-related videos from a range of authoritative sources, and we’re collaborating with Mayo Clinic on new video content to share information on a variety of cancer conditions," he added.

YouTube will streamline dozens of existing medical misinformation guidelines to fall under three categories – Prevention, Treatment, and Denial. These policies will apply to specific health conditions, treatments, and substances where content contradicts local health authorities or the World Health Organization (WHO).

"To determine if a condition, treatment or substance is in the scope of our medical misinformation policies, we’ll evaluate whether it’s associated with a high public health risk, publicly available guidance from health authorities around the world, and whether it’s generally prone to misinformation," said Graham.

Here’s what the framework will look like:

Prevention misinformation: YouTube will remove content that contradicts health authority guidance on the prevention and transmission of specific health conditions and the safety and efficacy of approved vaccines. For example, this encompasses content that promotes a harmful substance for disease prevention.

Treatment misinformation: Removal of content that contradicts health authority guidance on treatments for specific health conditions, including promoting specific harmful substances or practices. Examples include content that encourages unproven remedies in place of seeking medical attention for specific conditions, like promoting caesium chloride as a treatment for cancer.

Denial misinformation: It will remove content that disputes the existence of specific health conditions. This covers content that denies people have died from COVID-19.

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