BERLIN (AP) – Google says it has banned a major German user from its video platform on YouTube, which has repeatedly posted false claims about the coronavirus outbreak.
Google said on Friday that a YouTube channel known as KenFM is no longer available and that the person who operates it will not be allowed to start another one.
“We have long-standing community policy policies that indicate that strikes are issued when our systems are notified of a violation of the policy on how to behave on YouTube,” the company said in a statement.
“KenFM channel videos violated our COVID-19 policies and the channel was removed from YouTube after receiving the third strike for a 90-day video on November 19, 2020,” he said.
KenFM was operated by Ken Jebsen, a former journalist who was fired by the German public broadcaster rbb after anti-Semitic comments he made surfaced.
YouTube and other countries have pledged to curb the spread of misinformation about coronavirus by users of their sites.