YouTube suspends Rand Paul over COVID-19 video disputing cloth masks
YouTube suspended Sen. Rand Paul's account for seven days Tuesday due to a video from the Kentucky Republican saying cloth masks are not effective in protecting against COVID-19.
“We removed content from Senator Paul’s channel for including claims that masks are ineffective in preventing the contraction or transmission of COVID-19, in accordance with our COVID-19 medical misinformation policies," YouTube said in a statement. “We apply our policies consistently across the platform, regardless of speaker or political views.”
During the seven-day suspension, Paul will be unable to post new videos to his YouTube account.
The latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says studies show wearing cloth masks helps prevent infection and reduce the spread of COVID-19.
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"Research supports that mask-wearing has no significant adverse health effects for wearers," the CDC's guidance also says.
Paul responded to YouTube's actions Tuesday evening in a tweet by calling the move a "badge of honor...leftwing cretins at Youtube banning me for 7 days for a video that quotes 2 peer reviewed articles saying cloth masks don’t work."
He included a link to an article that eventually allows readers to view the video on Rumble, a competitor to YouTube that has become popular with conservatives. Paul has said he will post videos moving forward to Rumble, as it allows "uncensored news."
Under YouTube's "Community Guidelines," users who receive a second strike within the same 90-day period as the first strike are not allowed to post content for two weeks.
Three strikes in the same 90-day period result in a channel getting permanently removed from YouTube, and the company notes deleting the content "will not remove a strike."
Paul's office said in a Tuesday news release that YouTube's decision "is a huge disservice to the thousands of Kentuckians who visit his page for regular updates on the work he does for Kentucky in the Senate."
"I think this kind of censorship is very dangerous, incredibly anti-free speech and truly anti-progress of science, which involves skepticism and argumentation to arrive at the truth,” Paul said in the news release. “As a libertarian leaning senator, I think private companies have the right to ban me if they want to, so in this case I’ll just channel that frustration into ensuring the public knows YouTube is acting as an arm of government and censoring their users for contradicting the government.”
Paul has been an outspoken critic of masks and government-issued mandates that have been aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic, which has recently seen the delta variant fuel a surge in new cases and hospitalizations mainly among unvaccinated residents both in Kentucky and states around the country.
Paul has also repeatedly clashed with the nation's infectious diseases chief and top White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci over COVID-19 theories and "gain-of-function" research.
This is not the first time Kentucky's junior senator has run afoul of YouTube's rules.
In February 2020, before the pandemic spread throughout the world, YouTube removed a video of the Kentucky Republican reading a controversial question that named an alleged whistleblower during President Donald Trump's first impeachment trial.
The concern over the delta variant and other virus variants has led to businesses and state governments reinstituting universal mask mandates for the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike.
This story has been updated.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Reach Billy Kobin at bkobin@courierjournal.com.