YouTube bans Sky News Australia for spreading ‘Covid misinformation’

YouTube has banned Sky News Australia from uploading news and other shows for seven days, purportedly for violating the American company’s Covid misinformation policy. Sky News Australia, which has 1.85 million subscribers on YouTube, cannot upload livestreams either.

The Guardian quoted a YouTube spokesperson as claiming that the social media giant had removed “numerous” offending videos uploaded by Sky News Australia but didn’t specify which shows or news programmes they were from.

The spokesperson claimed that they “don’t allow content that denies the existence of Covid or that encourages people to use hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin to treat or prevent the virus”.

Responding to the ban, Sky News Australia, which is run by a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, said in a statement that while YouTube had the right to enforce its policies, the media organisation “rejects that any host has ever denied the existence of Covid as was implied, and no such videos were ever published or removed”.