YouTube Announces New Policies on Eating Disorder Content

San Francisco: Google-owned YouTube has announced that it will update its approach to eating disorder-related content in the coming weeks to make room for community, recovery and resources while protecting viewers. YouTube said in a blogpost, “We have long had policies in place to remove content that promotes eating disorders. Going forward, we’re also updating our Community Guidelines to also prohibit content about eating disorders that reflects exemplary behavior, or behavior that we’ve worked with experts to determine which may lead at-risk audiences to copycat.

The company has collaborated with NEDA (National Eating Disorder Association) and other organizations to deepen understanding of exemplary behavior, its potential manifestations in content and its impact on vulnerable audiences as part of the development of its new policies . In addition, to ensure appropriate content is viewed, the Company has implemented ‘age restrictions’ on certain content discussing disordered eating behavior in the context of recovery as they may not be appropriate for all ages. Some videos may not be available to viewers under the age of 18 if you are signed out or if the video is embedded on another website, the company said. The Eating Disorder Crisis Resource Panel is currently available at the top of search results related to eating disorder in the US, UK, India, Canada, Japan, Korea, Mexico, France and Germany.