By Martin Cole-
Sky News Australia has complained about an attack on free speech, after its platform was barred from uploading new content on Youtbe for a week, saying it had breached rules on spreading Covid-19 misinformation.
Youtube issued a “strike” under its three-strike policy, the final of which leads to permanent removal.
YouTube did not identify specific statement s of misinformation by Sky News, but expressed opposition to material that “could cause real-world harm”. The global media platform should have fulfilled its duty of clearly identifying where Sky News Australia allegedly overstepped the mark in its expression.
However, comments by veteran Sky presenter Alan Jones, have sometimes been controversial in Australia.
In one 12 July broadcast with MP Craig Kelly, both men claimed the Delta various was not as dangerous as the original virus, and that vaccines would not help. Sydney radio host Ray Hadley criticized some of Jones’s comments as having “allowed conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxers… to gain support from a minority who think the virus is nothing more than a dose of flu”.
The TV channel’s digital editor criticized the decision from Youtube to suspend Sky News Australia as a disturbing attack on the ability to think freely.
Free thought and free speech are a basic human right, but not so much in these pandemic times when spoken content can be very damaging to lives. The deciding factor has to be on whether a provable falsehood that can be really damaging has been publicly made, not just a disputed opinion.
Youtube and other platforms censoring views expressed on public platforms are expected to at the very least engage the alleged offenders in communication first before suspending their services.
However, where the breach of established guidelines are clear, such communication may not be necessary. The channel would still deserve a written explanation of exactly where the breach had occurred.
A YouTube statement to The Eye Of Media.Com said it had “clear and established Covid-19 medical misinformation policies based on local and global health authority guidance”. It added that it did not allow content that denies the existence of Covid-19″ or which encouraged people “to use hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin to treat or prevent the virus”. Neither has been proven to be effective against Covid.
The videos in question “did not provide sufficient countervailing context”, the spokesperson said.
Sky News Australia told The Eye Of Media.Com that none of its host had ever denied the existence of Covid 19 , while admitting it had found old videos that did not comply with YouTube’s policies. It added that took its “commitment to meeting editorial and community expectations seriously”.
A spokesperson also said that ”governments cannot be left to their own devices on all matters covid related, without exploring issues broadly”.
Another insider at Sky News Australia told this publication that ”covid -19 and vaccinations must not be allowed to stifle free speech to the extent that people cannot freely express an a genuinely and reasonably held opinion, even if the opinion may be wrong”.
Lockdown
The Australian government recently sent its army to enforce lockdown in some of its cities where resistance had been put up.
Millions of Australians are currently in lockdown to prevent the spread of the contagious Delta variant, while fewer than 15% of the population are fully vaccinated. There couldn’t be a worse time for misinformation than the present, making it more crucial for all media outlets to be very careful about its written and spoken content.
Serious issues surrounding covid 19 and vaccines need to be very carefully considered and weighed up before being put out there because of the seriousness of the issue. Guidelines from social media platforms are important and open to discussion from media outlets wherever necessary.