Google is once again the target of a class action lawsuit. A YouTuber claims to have been censored by YouTube, owned by the web giant, for publishing “inaccurate medical information” according to the platform.
Éloïse Boies, who presents herself as an “artist who works on her own account”, accuses the most popular content distribution platform of having censored her.
In January 2021, she published a video called “La Censure” in which she denounced the health measures of the Quebec government and what she described as censorship on the part of platforms like Facebook, Amazon and YouTube which would decide ” of what is allowed to be said or not”.
In this video, she also argued that there was “systematic smearing of people who criticize health measures, who are treated, for example, as conspirators”. Another video released in August criticized, among other things, “provaccine propaganda.”
The platform removed this content which, according to its criteria, conveyed “incorrect medical information contradicting that of local health authorities or the World Health Organization (WHO) concerning COVID-19”.
In her request, Éloïse Boies argues that the withdrawal of these videos “constitutes a serious attack on freedom of expression”. These videos transmit “information and opinions of a political and philosophical nature” of “capital importance” in a democratic society, according to her.
If the class action request is accepted, the plaintiff intends to claim the sum of $1,000 in compensatory damages and $1,000 in punitive damages. The same would apply to all users of the platform whose videos have been removed for similar reasons.
She also intends to seek the issuance of an injunction that would order YouTube to “cease the censorship that it exercises illegally”, can we read in the request.