My understanding is that YouTube is still considered to be a platform...as opposed to the alternative which is a publisher. They need to be considered an open platform in order to maintain immunity from litigation for posted content. Being a platform does not prevent them from doing some moderation and removing content, the key however is that the moderation be done in an even-handed way...they can't for instance start picking political sides.
On the topic of social media and Covid postings...I think YT removing any content that contradicts the WHO's perspective (I'm aware this is their stated position but not actually sure how much content is actually being removed) was unfortunate. What if, for instance, someone had posted that there was human-to-human transmission when the WHO said it wasn't possible. Allowing some postings for Covid discussion and pulling others seems to be a messy path to go down IMO.
I'm also aware of FB removing pages of people who posted video of reopen protests which I think is also unfortunate. One in particular is an influencer of sorts for the firearm world...based in NC...went to a reopen protest in NC, posted video of it, and his FB page was promptly removed.
My preference would be to keep everything open as much as possible, but managing these behemoths is a huge challenge and they will never make everyone happy. If YT left everything open, including videos instructing people to drink aquarium cleaner and turn off their 5G phone, I'm sure they'd get accused of giving dummies a platform (which is part of hosting a platform) and thus endangering the public.