Media top headlines May 27
USA Today changing 'male' to 'transgender' in a female athlete's column on competing against transgender females and more round out today's top media headlines
YouTube removed a conservative account's video of a Georgia mother emotionally criticizing her local school board's mask mandates last month, saying it spread medical misinformation because she said the virus doesn't affect children.
Courtney Ann Taylor called on suburban Atlanta's Gwinnett County school board to stop requiring children to wear masks, saying her 6-year-old daughter and other school-age kids were being forced to "carry a burden that was never [theirs] to carry."
Grabien's Tom Elliott was informed by YouTube Thursday that he had violated community guidelines and the "medical misinformation policy" by posting the video of Taylor. Other versions of the viral speech are still on YouTube.
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A YouTube spokesperson told Fox News, "YouTube has clear Community Guidelines in place to prevent COVID-19 medical misinformation. In accordance with our policies, we removed this video for including the claim that children are not affected by COVID-19."
Taylor said during the speech, "every one of us knows that young children are not affected by this virus."
While children can get the disease, they are far more likely to have mild or no symptoms. There have been about 300 deaths attributed to coronavirus for people aged 0-17 in the U.S., or about 0.05 percent of the nearly 600,000 total fatalities. According to YouTube, it removes videos that contradict the Centers for Disease Control by stating children cannot contract the virus, unless there is additional context to refute the comments.
Taylor's remarks chiefly focused on mask requirements and were in line with World Health Organization guidance, which YouTube also cites in its COVID information policy.
The WHO's guidance opposes mask requirements for children aged 5 and under, and it offers conditional advice on masks for children ages 6 to 11. They include taking into account "potential impact of wearing a mask on learning and psychosocial development, in consultation with teachers, parents/caregivers and/or medical providers."
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Part of Taylor's argument was that school board members weren't considering the emotional and social well-being of students who no longer wanted to wear masks.
"Shame on us! My 6-year-old looks at me every month before I come here, she says, ‘Are you going to tell them tonight? Tell them I don’t want to wear this anymore.’ And I say, ‘Baby, it’s not time to fight that battle yet. I try to explain that there’s so many things, that it’s April 15th, 2021, and it’s time. Take these masks off of my child," she said.
YouTube's owner Google came under fire last month for removing a video of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, R., and public health experts saying children did not need to wear masks in school.
A spokesperson for YouTube told FOX Business that it has clear policies around COVID-19 related medical misinformation to support the safety of users.
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"We removed this video because it included content that contradicts the consensus of local and global health authorities regarding the efficacy of masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19," the spokesperson said.
Fox Business' Brittany De Lea contributed to this report. This article was updated with comment from YouTube.
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