Youtube Bans Sky News Australia From Uploading Videos, What's The Cause?

Youtube bans Sky News from uploading videos for violating regulations. (photo: unsplash)

JAKARTA - YouTube has banned Sky News Australia from uploading new content for a week, arguing it violated the rules on the spread of misinformation about Covid-19. It issues "strikes" under its three-strike policy, the latter of which means permanent deletion.

YouTube did not point to specific items but said it was against material that "could cause harm in the real world".

The TV channel's digital editor said the decision was a disturbing attack on freedom of thought.

Sky News Australia is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp subsidiary and has 1.85 million YouTube subscribers. The ban could affect its revenue stream from Google.

A YouTube statement said it had "clear and established a COVID-19 medical misinformation policy based on the guidance of local and global health authorities".

A spokesperson told the Guardian that Youtube, "does not allow content that denies the existence of Covid-19" or that encourages people "to use hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin to treat or prevent the virus". Both have not been proven effective against Covid.

"The video does not provide sufficient balancing context," the spokesperson said.

Sky News Australia said it had discovered old videos that did not comply with YouTube policies and took its "commitment to meeting editorial and community expectations seriously". But his party denied that any of their hosts or broadcasters had ever denied the existence of Covid-19.

Millions of Australians are currently under lockdown to prevent the spread of the infectious Delta variant, while less than 15% of the population is fully vaccinated. Comments by veteran Sky presenter, Alan Jones, actually sparked debate in Australia.

In a July 12 broadcast with lawmaker Craig Kelly, the two men claimed the Delta variant of COVID-19 was not as dangerous as the original and a vaccine would not help. The Sky News website finally issued an apology.

Sydney radio host Ray Hadley said Jones's show had "allowed conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxers ... to gain support from the minority who thought the virus was nothing more than a dose of the flu".

Australia's Daily Telegraph last week also ended the column that Jones had written for them, for more or less the same reason.

In an article on the Sky News Australia website, digital editor Jack Houghton said that if the conversation about Australia's Covid-19 policy stalls, "our political leaders will be free to act with impunity, without justification and a lack of adequate public scrutiny".

YouTube has issued dozens of bans over the past two years, some because of COVID but mostly because of hate speech.