Online video sharing platform YouTube has suspended Sky News Australia’s channel for seven days. The social media website says that the news organisation breached the platform’s rules on spreading COVID-19 misinformation by posting numerous videos that denied the existence of the virus and encouraged people to use hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin.

The suspension comes as a part of YouTube’s three-strike policy. Upon a third strike, the channel can be removed permanently. 

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YouTube in a statement said that it had clear and established COVID-19 medical misinformation policies based on local and global health authority guidance. 

“We apply our policies equally for everyone regardless of uploader, and in accordance with these policies and our long-standing strikes system, removed videos from and issued a strike to Sky News Australia’s channel,” the spokesperson added. 

A spokesperson told the Guardian that the platform “did not allow content that denies the existence of COVID-19 or which encouraged people to use hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin to treat or prevent the virus”.

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Establishing that neither has been proven to be effective against the virus, the spokesperson added that the videos in question did not provide sufficient countervailing context. 

The Sky News Australia YouTube channel has 1.85m subscribers. The suspension was imposed a day after the Daily Telegraph axed Alan Jones’s regular column after reports saying that right-wing commentator called the New South Wales chief health officer Kerry Chant a village idiot on his Sky News program broke.

The details of the Sky News videos removed have not been released. Sky News Australia is owned by a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. 

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In a broadcast on July 12 with MP Craig Kelly, Sky News Australia anchors claimed Delta was not as dangerous as the original and vaccines would not help, BBC reports. 

Australia has been trying to curb the Delta variant. Only about 14% of the Aussie population is vaccinated, the Guardian reports. 

“The only way to beat the Delta strain is to move quickly, to be fast and to be strong. The war has changed,” Queensland’s deputy premier, Steven Miles said after lockdowns across the country were announced.