YouTube Suspends Trump-Touted OANN After It Hawks Unproven Cure For COVID

INDIA - 2020/02/09: In this photo illustration a popular video-sharing website YouTube logo seen displayed on a smartphone. (Photo Illustration by Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
INDIA - 2020/02/09: In this photo illustration a popular video-sharing website YouTube logo seen displayed on a smartphone. (Photo Illustration by Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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YouTube has banned One America News Network (OANN) from uploading new videos and livestreaming for one week, after the Trump-friendly media outlet promoted a fake cure for COVID-19. The news was first reported by Axios on Tuesday.

“After careful review, we removed a video from OANN and issued a strike on the channel for violating our COVID-19 misinformation policy, which prohibits content claiming there’s a guaranteed cure,” a YouTube spokesperson told CNBC.

YouTube did not immediately respond to TPM’s request for comment.

The YouTube spokesperson also told CNBC that in light of OANN’s “repeated violations of our Covid-19 misinformation policy and other channel monetization policies,” the right-wing news outlet’s channel is suspended from the YouTube Partner Program, which links up advertisers with channels that have large followings. Because of the ban, OANN won’t be able to monetize its YouTube videos.

YouTube did not specify the specific problematic content that hyped an unproven COVID-19 cure that ultimately led to the tech giant’s decision.

Axios reported that YouTube, unsurprisingly, does not consider OANN an authoritative news source.

YouTube told CNBC that companies will only be readmitted to platform’s partnership program after they’ve resolved the issues that led to the suspension.

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Notable Replies

  1. YouTube has banned One America News Network (OANN) from uploading new videos and livestreaming for one week, after the Trump-friendly media outlet promoted a fake cure for COVID-19.

    Promoting a “fake cure” for a fatal illness gets you a one-week ban?

    What gets you a two-week ban?

  2. Trump leaving will be a proven cure for COVID.

  3. Avatar for ericr ericr says:

    Promoting two fake cures, I think.

    Let’s see if they try that after YouTube reinstates their account.

  4. Have you noticed how Twitter, Facebook, and now Google have suddenly started putting notices and bans on Trump and the trumpanzees’ crap? They’ve been saying this kind of stuff for years, fomenting violence, lying, etc., but that was ok. Now in about the last three weeks they’ve started cracking down.
    What changed?

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

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