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Report: YouTube deleted 6 SKY News videos

Videos from Outsiders and Jones & Richo reportedly led to a 7 day ban from YouTube.

YouTube deleted 6 videos from a SKY News account, ruling they violated the site’s medical misinformation policies.

Neither YouTube nor SKY News have confirmed which videos led to a 7 day upload ban, but Guardian Australia reports six videos by hosts Alan Jones, Rowan Dean and Rita Panahi violated YouTube policies by advocating the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin as treatments for COVID-19.

Four of the six videos were from Outsiders, in which they promoted hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin as treatment for COVID-19.

A fifth features Jones in April 2020 on the Jones & Richo show, speaking to billionaire Clive Palmer after he had secured 32m doses of hydroxychloroquine for Australia.

The sixth, also from Outsiders, sees Dean calling an incident about the removal of a family from a flight after their two-year-old child could not be fitted with a mask, “evil” and “authoritarianism”.

Media watchdog the Australian Communications & Media Authority -which cannot investigate YouTube editorial- is following due process of the broadcaster first handling any viewer complaints.

“Since the beginning of 2020, the ACMA has received 23 complaints about SKY’s coverage of the COVID pandemic,” an ACMA spokesman said. “Most recently, the ACMA received seven complaints relating to a broadcast on 12 July 2021 of a segment on the Alan Jones program featuring Mr Jones and Craig Kelly MP.

“The complainants were referred to SKY in the first instance and the ACMA will consider the matter and take the broadcaster’s actions to correct and remove the segment into account if any of the complainants refer their complaint back to the ACMA.”

Chair of the Senate Inquiry into Media Diversity Senator Sarah Hanson-Young will also move for YouTube’s seven-day ban on SKY News to be investigated.

A SKY News spokesperson said, “We support broad discussion and debate on a wide range of topics and perspectives which is vital to any democracy.

“We take our commitment to meeting editorial and community expectations seriously.”

6 Responses

      1. How exactly is it not censorship if someone is silenced for expressing the wrong viewpoint. Censorship of certain information or viewpoints is still censorship.

  1. Would have been ‘Jones & Co’ in 2020, with Richo’s health battles reducing his co-hosting time before being dropped for Jones’ solo stripped show this year.

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