YouTube has removed 1 million videos with dangerous Covid-19 misinformation

YouTube’s Chief Product Officer Neal Mahon said that YouTube has removed more than a million videos that spread dangerous COVID-19 misinformation since February 2020.

“Misinformation has moved from the marginal to the mainstream. No longer contained to the sealed-off worlds of Holocaust deniers or 9-11 truthers, it now stretches into every facet of society, sometimes tearing through communities with blistering speed’’, Mahon said.

At the same time, the Youtube executive claimed that "bad content" makes up a small portion of all YouTube content. “Bad content represents only a tiny percentage of the billions of videos on YouTube (about .16-.18% of total views turn out to be content that violates our policies),” Mahon wrote. He added that YouTube removes almost 10 million videos each quarter, “the majority of which don’t even reach 10 views.”

Mahon also said that removing misinformation is only one aspect of the company's approach. YouTube is working on “ratcheting up information from trusted sources and reducing the spread of videos with harmful misinformation.”