Additional videos about eating disorders will be removed from YouTube, including anything that depicts or talks about imitable behavior, the firm said today.
YouTube currently prohibits videos that praise or promote eating disorders, but this policy change broadens the restrictions to include anything that illustrates or explains audience-imitable eating disorder behaviors.
The Content will be Kept Online but with Restrictions
Under the new guidelines, videos that depict or discuss weight-based bullying in the context of eating disorders would also be prohibited.
The modifications follow heightened scrutiny of social media networks’ effects on users’ mental health, particularly that of young people.
Lawmakers criticized Instagram and YouTube in 2021 for encouraging teenage users to follow profiles with content showing severe weight loss and diets.
YouTube will permit the content to stay on the website, but only for those who are logged in and are at least 18 years old.
The National Eating Disorder Association and other nonprofit organizations were consulted during the development of the new policies.
Additionally, TikTok has come under fire from an online safety organization that claimed the app exposed kids to material related to eating disorders (although the platform has disputed the study’s findings).
They also adhere to many changes made by YouTube in recent years to the way it addresses false content about health-related topics like abortion and vaccinations.
Read more: Raising Awareness: The link between HPV and Cancer
Youtube’s Plans
In nine countries with ambitions to expand to more, YouTube aims to add panels referring viewers to crisis resources under content connected to eating disorders in addition to banning or age-restricting select videos.
Additionally, YouTube’s Global Head of Healthcare Garth Graham stated that YouTube will provide producers with advice on how to produce content that is less likely to hurt other viewers when a creator’s video is taken down for breaking its eating disorder policy.
However, like with many social media standards, the difficulty typically lies in enforcing them, which YouTube may find difficult to do when determining whether videos are, for example, pro-recovery.
In the upcoming weeks, YouTube said it will begin enforcing the policy globally and has plans to utilize both human and automatic moderation to examine videos and their context.
Read more: Tax credits: Refundable vs. non-refundable and maximum potential refunds from the IRS?