YouTube suspends Rand Paul's account for COVID-19 mask misinformation

YouTube has suspended Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., from posting for one week over a video he made falsely claiming that most masks are ineffective in combatting COVID-19.

YouTube has suspended Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky from uploading content for one week after he posted a video claiming most masks are ineffective in combatting COVID-19, making him the second GOP lawmaker this week to be disciplined by a social media platform for misinformation. Public health experts have said masks, even cloth masks, which Paul took particular issue with, offer protection against COVID-19 transmission, which in turn prevents infection. But Paul claimed in the video, "cloth masks don’t work," and that most over-the-counter masks “don’t prevent infection,” according to YouTube, which it said violated its policies against spreading COVID-19 medical misinformation. "This resulted in a first strike on the channel, which means it can't upload content for a week, per our longstanding three strikes policy," a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. "We apply our policies consistently across the platform, regardless of speaker or political views, and we make exceptions for videos that have additional context such as countervailing views from local health authorities." According to YouTube, it will remove content that includes claims that masks don’t work to prevent contracting or spreading COVID-19 in order to protect users from content that poses real-world harm.