YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

First they came for the Republicans, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Republican.

Then they came for the antivaxers, and I did not speak out— Because I was not an antivaxer.

Then they came for the antimaskers, and I did not speak out— Because I was not an antimasker.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

— adapted from Martin Niemöller

I'm not sure how familiar you are with anti-vaccination campaigns but they're far from credible.

"Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recognized as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law by the United Nations."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/principle

It is hard to sympathize with people who sow disinformation that costs people lives.

But it is also hard to watch principles being ignored for immediate benefit.

Principles are tested not when it is convenient for you to follow them.

What I think is needed is people spending more time to figure out how it is possible to reconcile fight against misinformation with preserving basic human right which is ability to express your opinion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

"In the United States, some categories of speech are not protected by the First Amendment. According to the Supreme Court of the United States, the U.S. Constitution protects free speech while allowing limitations on certain categories of speech.[1]

(...)

Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment (and therefore may be restricted) include obscenity, fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, speech that violates intellectual property law, true threats, and commercial speech such as advertising. Defamation that causes harm to reputation is a tort and also an exception to free speech."

So in short. There are existing laws that can be used to decide what is and what is not protected by freedom of speech.

These laws should in my opinion be applied by judicial system, not invented on the spot by corporations.

People should understand they are responsible for what they say online just as if they used other methods of communication.

And if the exceptions to free speech are incorrect or incomplete, we should demand that the law is corrected in a democratic process rather than having companies act on their own.

> I assume 20% of the US population can't take the vaccine or something, because they are kids. That suggests YouTube is coming out as a political opponent of ~25% of their customer base. This is an unwise course of action.

Are you counting those children as political opponents? I don't think they have a political interest because they can't get it due to regulation yet, and they're also children.

This is so dumb, vaccine proponents doesn't have anything to hide (like censoring information from vaccine opponents gives the impression of).