Google says it has banned a prominent German user of its YouTube video platform who had repeatedly posted false claims about the coronavirus outbreak.
Google said Friday that a YouTube channel known as KenFM was no longer available and that the person operating it would not be allowed to start another.
“We have long standing community guidelines policies that strikes are issued when our systems are notified of a policy violation of the rules for how to behave on YouTube,” the company said in a statement.
“Videos on the channel KenFM violated our COVID-19 policies and the channel was removed from YouTube after receiving the third strike for a video within 90 days on November 19th, 2020,” it said.
KenFM was operated by Ken Jebsen, a former journalist who was fired by Germany’s public broadcaster rbb after anti-Semitic comments he had made came to light.
YouTube and others have vowed to crack down on the spread of misinformation about the coronavirus by users of their sites.
