YouTube would reduce the amount of content spreading conspiracy theories about links between 5G technology and COVID-19 that it recommends to users, it has said, as four more attacks were recorded on cellphone masts within 24 hours.
The online video company will actively remove videos that breach its policies, it said.
However, content that is simply conspiratorial about 5G mobile communications networks, without mentioning the coronavirus, is still allowed on the site.
YouTube said those videos might be considered “borderline content” and subjected to suppression, including loss of advertising revenue and being removed from search results on the platform.
“We also have clear policies that prohibit videos promoting medically unsubstantiated methods to prevent the coronavirus in place of seeking medical treatment, and we quickly remove videos violating these policies when flagged to us,” a YouTube spokesperson said. “We have also begun reducing recommendations of borderline content such as conspiracy theories related to 5G and coronavirus, that could misinform users in harmful ways.”
The company’s decision to reduce the visibility of content linked to the false theory came as Vodafone said that two of its own masts in the UK, and two it shares with O2, were targeted.
Three other masts were subjected to arson attacks last week.
“It beggars belief that some people should want to harm the very networks that are providing essential connectivity to the emergency services, the NHS and the rest of the country during this lockdown period,” Vodafone UK chief executive Nick Jeffery said.
British boxer Amir Khan on Sunday became the latest celebrity to share the debunked theory in a series of Instagram videos.
The theory, which has been described as “dangerous nonsense” by Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove, has also been promoted by actor Woody Harrelson and British television star Amanda Holden.
One video, removed by the site after the Guardian flagged it, featured a man claiming to be a former executive at a UK mobile network falsely stating that coronavirus tests were actually used to spread the virus, and that the pandemic was created to hide deaths from the mobile technology, but variations of the video have been available on the site for weeks.
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