YouTube is cracking down on anti-vaccine videos — and not just those related to COVID-19.

The social media giant announced Wednesday that it is expanding its medical misinformation policy to cover content about all currently administered vaccines that are confirmed to be safe and effective by local health authorities and the World Health Organization.

YouTube, which is owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., began removing content that made false claims about COVID-19 early in the pandemic and says it has taken down more than 130,000 videos for violating its COVID-19 vaccine policies. 

“Working closely with health authorities, we looked to balance our commitment to an open platform with the need to remove egregious harmful content,” YouTube said in a blog post Wednesday. “We’ve steadily seen false claims about the coronavirus vaccines spill over into misinformation about vaccines in general, and we're now at a point where it's more important than ever to expand the work we started with COVID-19 to other vaccines.”

YouTube says videos will be removed if they falsely alleged that approved vaccines are dangerous and cause chronic health effects, claim that vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction of a disease, or contain misinformation about the substances used in vaccines. 

“This would include content that falsely says that approved vaccines cause autism, cancer or infertility, or that substances in vaccines can track those who receive them,” the blog post said. 

The company said it worked with local and international health organizations and experts in developing the expanded policy.

“Today’s policy update is an important step to address vaccine and health misinformation on our platform, and we’ll continue to invest across the board in the policies and products that bring high quality information to our viewers and the entire YouTube community,” YouTube said.

The new rules take effect Wednesday, but the company acknowledged it will take time to “ramp up enforcement.”

The YouTube channels belonging to leading anti-vaccine voices Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Joseph Mercola, however, had already been removed as of Wednesday morning.

In a statement emailed to Spectrum News, Mercola said: "The world is becoming increasingly aware of the rampant corruption in the media, and are rising up against tyrannical governments and the pharmaceutical industry that are coordinating this assault on our freedom and civil rights. Anyone who asks questions or challenges the hard sell is immediately censored on social media."

"Independent media platforms that defend freedom of speech and the rights of Americans to speak out against the global tyranny will defeat the censorship extremists," he added.

Spectrum News has also reached out to Kennedy for comment.

Wanting to preserve the ability to be a forum for public discussion and debate about the scientific process, YouTube is making some exceptions. It says it will continue to allow content about vaccine policies, new vaccine trials, and historical vaccine successes or failures. Personal testimonials about vaccines will also be allowed as long as the video does not violate YouTube’s community guidelines and the user’s channel does not show a pattern of anti-vaccine rhetoric, the company said.

YouTube and other social media companies have come under fire from the Biden administration and other Democrats for allowing medical misinformation to run rampant during the pandemic. They argue that the false claims have hurt COVID-19 vaccination efforts and are prolonging the pandemic in the U.S.