The move, coming from the country which voted for Brexit and a government famous for gutting its National Health Service, has been dubbed pretty dumb by almost everyone.  After all when you are locked down in a self-imposed virus epidemic you need your communications systems up and running.

It appears that YouTube has finally decided that it is not a good idea to allow contact which spreads conspiracy theories about 5G and the coronavirus.

The online video company will actively remove videos that breach its policies, it said. But content that is simply conspiratorial about 5G mobile communications networks, without mentioning coronavirus, is still allowed on the site. So it is ok to have a conspiracy about 5G causing cancer but not mention the coronavirus.

YouTube said those videos may be considered "borderline content" and subjected to suppression, including loss of advertising revenue and being removed from search results on the platform.

"We also have clear policies that prohibit videos promoting medically unsubstantiated methods to prevent the coronavirus in place of seeking medical treatment, and we quickly remove videos violating these policies when flagged to us", a YouTube spokesperson said. "We have also begun reducing recommendations of borderline content such as conspiracy theories related to 5G and coronavirus, that could misinform users in harmful ways."

YouTube says that since early February, it has manually reviewed and removed thousands of videos that spread dangerous or misleading coronavirus information.