Sky defiant after Covid misinformation ban

CANBERRA: Pandemic misinformation broadcast by Sky News Australia is among thousands of Australian videos removed from YouTube for violations of the platform’s code.

Testifying to a federal parliamentary inquiry yesterday, Sky News chief executive Paul Whittaker criticised YouTube as ‘‘frankly ridiculous’’.

‘‘Why do they get to decide what is and isn’t news?’’ he said.

YouTube owner Google, also giving evidence, said 23 Sky News videos had been deleted, among more than 5000 items of Australian misinformation.

The barred material included the promotion of ‘‘cures’’ and the denial that Covid19 was a pandemic.

Sky News Australia was suspended from YouTube for seven days in August for material that ‘‘could cause realworld harm’’, under the platform’s threestrikes policy.

The media giant issued an apology in July after broadcaster Alan Jones and then Liberal MP Craig Kelly dismissed vaccines and claimed the Delta variant was less dangerous than the first strain.

Mr Whittaker said host Cory Bernardi was spoken to about his private tweet claiming ‘‘ivermectin will set you free’’, which the former conservative senator subsequently deleted.

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd said Sky News and News Corp cochairman Lachlan Murdoch ‘‘have a case to answer’’ over vaccine hesitancy and the promotion of ‘‘quack medicine’’.

Half a million Australians have petitioned parliament for a royal commission into the media giant.

Mr Rudd said it was ‘‘utterly spineless’’ of Mr Murdoch to decline to face the inquiry, given his level of control over the ‘‘raw meat’’ being served up by Sky News.

Mr Whittaker told the hearing it was in the public interest that the drugs ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were discussed, particularly last year when there were no vaccines available.

‘‘It’s a scientific debate that continues to this day,’’ he said.

Committee chairwoman Senator Sarah HansonYoung also grilled Google on the ‘‘Covid lies’’ she said Sky News had been spreading for more than a year, including on social media.

Google enforces its own Covid19 misinformation code and says it has worked with health and media authorities in Australia and around the world. — AAP