YouTube removed a video featuring a barrister’s legal submissions at the Covid Inquiry, where she highlighted the stigma and censorship faced by those injured by coronavirus vaccines. The platform later reinstated the video but admitted it had “made a mistake”.
Anna Morris KC, representing family groups affected by vaccine injuries, told the inquiry that her September 2023 submissions to Baroness Hallett, in which she described the mistreatment of vaccine-injured individuals, had been taken down by the social media giant. Addressing the inquiry on Tuesday during the opening of Module 4, which examines vaccines and drugs, she said:
“The inquiry must understand the stigma and censorship for the vaccine injured and bereaved. Doctors were instructed to keep their concerns from the public, including their own patients. A poll of all family members found 74 per cent have been censored when talking about vaccines on social media. YouTube removed my submissions to you in 2023.”
Ms. Morris criticised the way vaccine-injured individuals had been “dismissed, ignored, censored”, and treated with “hostility” when seeking help or attempting to speak publicly about their experiences. “For too long, they have been ignored. They are not just an unfortunate statistic or collateral damage,” she said.
She added that the inquiry would hear “powerful evidence” exposing the “uncomfortable truth” that injury and death from vaccines were part of the pandemic story for thousands. Morris also reminded the inquiry that those she represents are “neither anti-science nor anti-vaccine” and called for reforms to the vaccine damage payment scheme.
The scheme, which has received over 17,500 applications, has paid out to just 188 claimants, requiring individuals to meet a stringent “60 per cent disabled” threshold. In an impact film shown to the inquiry, the story of John Cross, a pharmacist who took his own life after suffering vaccine-related complications and being denied a payout, was shared.
Hugo Keith KC, counsel to the inquiry, acknowledged the distress caused by the payment scheme and emphasised the need to examine whether the benefits of vaccination outweighed the risks for some people. “The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the UK’s Covid-19 vaccines successfully protected the public against a virus that was killing and liable to kill hundreds of thousands of people,” he said, adding that adverse reactions were “rare” and typically only identified after widespread use.
YouTube, which had removed Ms. Morris’s submissions citing a violation of its medical misinformation policy, said the video is now live and admitted it “sometimes makes mistakes”.
Ms Morris’s remarks foreground a broader issue of ongoing Big Tech censorship. “Unfortunately, this censorship has continued years after the pandemic and into our engagement with this inquiry,” she told the judge. “YouTube cited a violation of its medical misinformation policy as grounds for removal.”
This is not the first time YouTube has faced criticism for removing legitimate content under the guise of combating ‘misinformation’. In 2021, the platform terminated TalkRADIO’s channel after it aired discussions critical of lockdown policies, only reinstating it after widespread backlash. Ian Murray, executive director of the Society of Editors, called the ban a “worrying turn of events”, and warned of the growing power of digital giants to “censor genuine news and debate carried by the mainstream media”.
Videos of a Senate hearing led by Senator Ron Johnson, which explored early treatments for COVID-19, were also removed for allegedly violating community guidelines.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford Professor and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, experienced similar censorship when YouTube suppressed discussions advocating for focused protection of vulnerable populations over blanket lockdowns. These views, dismissed out of hand by public health technocrats at the time, have since gained traction and could shape public health policy under the incoming Trump administration. Dr. Bhattacharya has been nominated to a senior public health role, pending Senate confirmation.
In Germany, YouTube was fined more than €100,000 by a court for unjustly removing a video of a lockdown protest, further highlighting the tech platform’s tendency to conflate dissenting opinions about public health policies with harmful misinformation.
The controversy over YouTube’s removal of ‘health misinformation’ serves as a reminder that truth is best served not by censorship undertaken by a single arbiter, but by the open exchange of ideas – an exchange stifled when legitimate voices are silenced. As John Milton observed in Areopagitica, “Let her [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?”
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