YouTube will block all anti-vaccine content material, transferring past its ban on false details about the COVID vaccines to incorporate content material that incorporates misinformation about different accepted vaccines, it stated in a weblog submit on Wednesday.

Examples of content material that will not be allowed on YouTube embody claims that the flu vaccine causes infertility and that the MMR shot, which protects in opposition to measles, mumps, and rubella, could cause autism, in keeping with YouTube’s insurance policies.

The on-line video firm owned by Alphabet can also be banning channels related to a number of outstanding anti-vaccine activists together with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Joseph Mercola, a YouTube spokesperson stated.

A press e mail for Mercola’s web site stated in an announcement: “We are united across the world, we will not live in fear, we will stand together and restore our freedoms.”

Kennedy stated in an announcement: “There is no instance in history when censorship and secrecy has advanced either democracy or public health.”

The moves come as YouTube and other tech giants like Facebook and Twitter have been criticised for not doing enough to stop the spread of false health information on their sites.

But even as YouTube takes a tougher stance on misinformation, it faces backlash around the world. On Tuesday, Russian state-backed broadcaster RT’s German-language channels were deleted from YouTube, as the company said the channels had breached its COVID-19 misinformation policy.

Russia on Wednesday called the move “unprecedented data aggression,” and threatened to block YouTube.