Even though the World Health Organization failed the globe, YouTube has decided to trust their guidelines and recommendations. In fact, the social media platform is pulling any and all Wuahn coronavirus content that isn't "authoritative" or comes directly from leading health care organizations.
"We've served billions of impressions across our network that come from all the different public health organizations and made sure that people understand what are the resources," Wojocki explained. "... We've seen a 75 percent increase in the news coming from authoritative sources since the beginning of 2020 so we've seen a lot of demand there."
According to the CEO, YouTube is actively working to push "authoritative information" and removing information that's deemed "problematic."
"Of course, anything that is medically unsubstantiated – so people saying take Vitamin C, take Turmeric, those will cure you – those are the examples of things that would be a violation of our policy. Anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations would be a violation of our policy and so remove is another really important part of our policy," she explained.
Stelter said YouTube removing “the lie” is a “pretty aggressive” action. Wojocki reminded him that the social media platform removes videos that violate their policies, even in the pre-pandemic days.
“We’ve had community guidelines since the very beginning of YouTube and anything that is a violation of our policy we do remove,” she explained. “What was really unique about this was just how fast-moving the COVID-19 crisis was and so we’ve had to make numerous policy changes, all within a really short period of time, to make sure we stayed abreast of the changes.”
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One of the so-called conspiracy theories YouTube recently removed was based on the rumor that the Wuhan coronavirus began because of 5G technology.
“I think in many ways we’ve seen an acceleration in our digital lives,” the CEO said.
Wojocki used the example of kids now attending online classes. In the past, that was always seen as a far-out reality or considered part of a Sci-Fi movie.
“I think with public health we probably would have gotten there in a couple years but certainly it’s been a big acceleration of realizing the important need of working with established public health organizations to get the right information online to users and we’re seeing that opportunity,” she explained.
Keeping the spread of misinformation isn't a bad thing but the WHO has become highly incredible. Taiwan attempted to alert the WHO about the Wuhan coronavirus back in December. Instead of heeding the warning, the WHO turned their back on Taiwan (and the world for that matter). A month later the organization parroted the Chinese Community Party's talking points, particularly that the virus was not transmissible through human-to-human interaction. When President Trump halted all flights from China, the WHO completely disagreed with the move. Looking back now, that decision has been credited with the lower-than-projected number of cases in the United States.
It's hard to take a health organization seriously when they put a communist regime's public image and PR needs above the health and well-being of citizens around the world.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcocki says users are using the platform during the coronavirus crisis.
— Reliable Sources (@ReliableSources) April 19, 2020
It started with basic information but now users “want to know about life under quarantine... like exercise at home. How do I fix my freezer? How do I give myself a haircut.” pic.twitter.com/p8jxTUBRte
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