During the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, major social media platforms blacklisted users for criticizing vaccines or promoting ivermectin.

Posted by The Health Ranger Report, Oct 22, 2026Checked Nov 2, 2026

Polygraph verdictTrue

Sources: 6 support2 context
Said: 1 time·
Confidence: 80%

The Health Ranger ReportOct 22, 2026

Sources show that during 2020-2021 YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter removed or suspended accounts and content for COVID vaccine misinformation and for promoting ivermectin, so the core claim holds.

Our two reads of who says this, and how, disagree, so it counts as the post's own claim.

What was said

… So the Democrats are going to go after open source AI, but, on top of that, you're going to see a very aggressive new wave of censorship across big tech platforms that will remind you of the COVID era censorship. Yeah, that's what's coming. Remember, in the early year of COVID, there was massive deplatforming of almost everybody, including myself, blacklisted off all the major platforms. You couldn't criticize vaccines or you lose your YouTube channel. If you criticize vaccines or if you promoted ivermectin, for example, you would be kicked off of Facebook. You would be blacklisted off of Google search results, etc. All of that is coming back, probably beginning in 2027, but it'll take a while for the Democrats to push that through, but not very long. …

The Health Ranger Report · Oct 22, 2026· from the transcriptPost →

What we found

Supports. Reuters reports that YouTube announced in October 2020 a policy banning COVID vaccine posts that contradicted health-authority consensus, and that Joseph Mercola's content was removed from YouTube, a case that shows removal of a vaccine critic's account.[1]

Supports. Facebook began removing posts by the FLCCC, a group promoting ivermectin, in November 2020 for violating its guidelines, and later removed groups promoting ivermectin as COVID treatment.[3]

Supports. The AP reports that Twitter's COVID misinformation policy led to more than 11,000 account suspensions from 2020 to 2022, and an MRC database tallies 808 COVID-related censorship cases across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other platforms.[2][4][5]

Supports. Cochrane's Instagram account was shadowbanned for repeatedly posting content the platform deemed false about COVID-19 or vaccines, and a Cochrane ivermectin review post was removed.[7]

Context. The platform actions targeted content labeled false or misleading about COVID and vaccines, so 'criticizing vaccines' is an imprecise description of what was actioned; the sources do not show bans for general criticism alone.[1][6][8]

Sources

8 sources: 2 fact-checkers, 4 primary, 2 not rated

1Google sued by anti-vax doctor over YouTube banreuters.com · fact-checker · cited for: supports, context
2Twitter ends enforcement of COVID misinformation policyapnews.com · fact-checker · cited for: supports
3Ivermectin: COVID-19 "miracle cure?": A case study on public health communication to combat disinformationscholarworks.wmich.edu · primary source · cited for: supports
4[PDF] CensorTrack Documents Over 800 Cases of Big Tech Censoring ...docs.house.gov · primary source · cited for: supports
5Twitter stops enforcing Covid-19 misinformation policycongress.gov · primary source · cited for: supports
6Research note: Examining how various social media ...misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu · primary source · cited for: context
7Trusted information needs to be protected on social media ...cochrane.org · not rated · cited for: supports
8It-which-must-not-be-named: COVID-19 misinformation ...frontiersin.org · not rated · cited for: context

Where this claim was made

Said in 1 published post

The Health Ranger Report · Oct 22, 2026Post →

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