This quote really sums up how ridiculous Google is being:
> What Google is asking of Podcast Addict would be comparable to Google asking a web browser app to remove references to all the websites and social media posts that reference the coronavirus unless the reference comes from an official government entity or public health organization.
Except usually a web browser doesn't include a index of sites, You go to a another site (Google/Bing) for that. If a browser does include "recommended sites" the landing pages of those sites best keep to Google's and Apples rules. For an extreme example, If Firefox was promoting PornHub on the new tab page we could understand why Google or Apple would tell them to cut it out, but it doesn't stop you from visiting the site.
I'm not saying I agree with what Google have done here (IMO they should re-instate Podcast Addict), Just that I can see why Google could think "recommended podcasts" and podcast indexes come under the "included content" of an app.
EDIT: As others has said here, It's more like Google banning YouTube because it contains video's about covid 19 which don't come from "approved sources" (Though Google did demonetize people for talking about it and de-rank non "approved sources")
It's beyond fucked up what Google is doing.
In my case, I once made the bad decision to watch a Jordan Peterson video. By itself it wasn't crazy, he was mildly provocative, a little paternalistic, not my cup of tea. But geez, the trash that then ended up appearing in the side bar after that was awful. I find that if I watch some "bad" videos, I have to spend a fair amount of time culling shit out of the subsequent recommendations.
Another way to keep your feed from being polluted is simply to create "garbage user" that you toggle to if you want to view potentially garbage content.
What I really wish youtube did was to allow users to filter out videos that contain keywords we choose, like twitter's somewhat effective "muted words" list.