YouTube suspends Republican Sen. Ron Johnson over COVID-19 misinformation

On Nov. 12, 2021, YouTube instituted a one-week ban on Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) account for violating COVID-19 misinformation policy. This was Johnson’s second suspension, which follows a trend of conservative public figures violating YouTube’s anti-vaccine content policy. 

Key Players

YouTube is a video-sharing platform owned by Google, the second-most popular social media platform in the world, with approximately 2.3 billion monthly active users. 

Ron Johnson has represented Wisconsin in the U.S. Senate since 2010. He is a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and has notably hosted Senate hearings promoting unproven COVID-19 treatments and vaccine skepticism, according to The New York Times. 

Further Details

The video that led to Johnson’s brief ban was a roundtable discussion in which he claimed that COVID-19 vaccines were unsafe.

“The updated figures today are 17,619,” said Johnson. “That is 225 times the number of deaths in just a 10-month period versus an annual figure for the flu vaccine. These vaccine injuries are real.”

The numbers he was citing came from the Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System, a self-reporting database for vaccine side effects. The Centers for Disease Control has warned about the unreliability of this system, since anyone can contribute, creating data that could be easily skewed by anti-vaccine activists seeking to prove a point, according to The Hill. 

Another participant in the discussion violated the misinformation policy by saying the vaccines did not prevent death, contradicting guidance from health authorities based on scientific studies. 

YouTube has had a long-standing three-strike rule in which an account is first suspended for a week if it violates content policy. If the account posts prohibited content again within 90 days, a two-week suspension takes place. A third violation in that time frame results in  permanent removal, according to Newsweek. 

This is Johnson’s second time having his account temporarily suspended for violating YouTube’s COVID-19 misinformation policy, with the two violations not falling in the same 90-day window, according to The Hill. He was previously suspended for a week in June 2021 for posting a video endorsing unproven alternative therapies to COVID-19, including hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, which had been touted by President Trump. 

After Johnson’s first suspension, YouTube cited a blog post, explaining it would not tolerate content that “contradicts local health authorities’ (LHA) or the World Health Organization’s (WHO) medical information about COVID-19.” A YouTube spokesperson corroborated this message to The Hill, following Johnson’s second suspension.

“We craft our policies to reduce the risk of real-world harm, updating them as official guidance evolves, and we consider the context of a video to make exceptions that balance open discussion of people’s experiences with preventing the spread of harmful misinformation,” the spokesperson said.

Outcome

Johnson decries YouTube and Biden administration for alleged censorship

Echoing his statement from his first suspension, Johnson slammed YouTube. 

“Once again, big tech is censoring the truth,” Johnson said in a statement. “Why won’t they let the vaccine injured tell their stories and medical experts give a second opinion? Why can’t we discuss the harmful effects of mandates? Apparently, the Biden administration and federal health agencies must not be questioned. How many more lives will be needlessly destroyed?”

On Nov. 19, 2021, Johnson’s second suspension expired.