YouTube accused of ‘censorship’ for removing video claiming Covid-19 could 'burn out' before vaccine

YouTube has been accused of ‘censorship’ after removing a video of a former World Health Organisation chief saying coronavirus could ‘burn out’ before a vaccine is found.

Professor Karol Sikora, the former director of the WHO Cancer Programme and Dean of Medicine at the University of Buckingham, described the decision by the tech giant to remove his ‘measured discussion’ on the Unherd podcast as a ‘worrying development’.

YouTube has since said the deletion was an error and that the video had been reinstated.

It comes after the video platform has been under increasing pressure to crack down on misinformation relating to the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this month, YouTube banned the conspiracy theorist David Icke after a broadcast on the platform where he claimed 5G mobile phone signals can spread the virus. 

However, the decision to remove the UnHerd podcast episode was met with shock by the programme’s host, Freddie Sayer, the former editor in chief of the polling company YouGov. 

On Twitter he said: “YouTube has taken down our interview with Prof. Karol Sikora - Professor of Medicine at the University Of Buckingham, former advisor to WHO - presumably for sounding too optimistic about Covid-19. This really is getting sinister.”

He later added: “Judge for yourself if this is dangerous misinformation that the public need to be shielded from, or a highly reputable expert reflecting on the pandemic.”

In the podcast, Prof. Sikora explained his view that coronavirus could “burn out” naturally as more people acquired immunity to it.

The eminent oncologist has previously argued levels of immunity are underestimated and that as the spread of the virus slows due to social distancing measures it could peter out before a vaccine is developed.

Following the deletion of the video, Prof Sikora said: “Disappointed to hear that Youtube has removed my interview with UnHerd (no reasons given). I thought it was a measured discussion. 

“We need to have a balance, that involves listening to differing opinions and not banning them. This censorship is a worrying development.”

Following the incident, YouTube said that it was sifting through massive numbers of videos on its site looking for harmful fake news and occasionally its algorithms made mistakes.

It said its team moved quickly to reinstate the UnHerd episode when they realised it had been removed.

The error comes as tech giants are facing increased scrutiny over how they deal with coronavirus fake news. Earlier this week, MPs demanded Facebook, Twitter and Googe, which owns YouTube, return to parliament after they failed to explain how they were combating dangerous misinformation.

Over 60 phone masts were burned and attacked across the UK after theories claiming that 5G signal spread the virus circulated on social media last month.

However, MPs on the culture select committee were angered at a hearing earlier this month when representatives from the three tech companies refused to give clear answers as to how they were finding and removing such theories.

In an open letter this week, Julian Knight, the chair of the committee, demanded all three companies send their top ranking UK executives to a second session.

He said: “This time we expect the companies to demonstrate the importance they attach to this issue by sending senior executives who have knowledge of their policies and can be held accountable for them.”

Meanwhile, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the company’s record combating Covid-19 misinformation saying it removed all content which "puts people in imminent risk of physical harm".

But he argued that freedom of expression was a factor around other content, such as posts around the anti-vaccination movement, which he called a more "sensitive topic" and did not, therefore, need to be completely removed.