YouTube announced it will begin cracking down on abortion “misinformation” by removing videos with “false” claims.
“Starting today and ramping up over the next few weeks, we will remove content that provides instructions for unsafe abortion methods or promotes false claims about abortion safety under our medical misinformation policies,” the company tweeted on Thursday.
YouTube said that it would also launch an “information panel,” which will provide “viewers with context and information from local and global health authorities.” The panel will include links to “learn more” as well as instructions to “consult your local medical authority for advice. The information panel will appear above relevant search results and below videos related to abortion.
Giving an example of how the panel will appear, the platform showed the National Library of Medicine’s definition of abortion.
“Like all of our policies on health/medical topics, we rely on published guidance from health authorities,” YouTube said on Thursday. “We prioritize connecting people to content from authoritative sources on health topics, and we continuously review our policies & products as real-world events unfold.”
In recent months, YouTube’s parent company Google has been criticized by legislators for its failure to censor search results that mislead people looking for abortion services to pro-life reproductive care centers.
