Elon Musk's Twitter Takes Another U-Turn After Abandoning its Covid Misinformation Policy

Elon Musk has taken another U-turn in Twitter after abandoning its COVID-19 misinformation policy, according to a report by WSJ.

"Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy," the social media company said in a blog update.

Misinformation Policy

In a blog post from April 2020, Twitter initially described its current Covid misinformation policy; since then, there have been a lot of adjustments.

It claimed at the time that its purpose was to facilitate connections between people and the discovery of trustworthy updates while preventing the proliferation of false information on the platform.

It was unveiled together with several additional upgrades, one of which was the addition of a specific section on the website where users could find official and expert updates.

The main provision of the policy gives Twitter to delete posts that spread harmful false information. An account may also be permanently suspended if it frequently shares misleading or false information.

Harmful posts were examined using three metrics. They had to make an obviously untrue claim, be an assertion of fact rather than an opinion, and do it in a way that would be harmful if others believed it.

If a post was still false but less likely to hurt individuals if they believed it, it was also given a specific label or warning. Additionally, such posts would become less noticeable.

The new Chief Twit himself has been under fire for his previous posts about coronavirus on Twitter, even though he has not received a formal penalty under their rules.

For example, early in the pandemic he called concern over the coronavirus "dumb" and asserted that children could not contract the virus.

"Kids are essentially immune, but elderly with existing conditions are vulnerable. Family gatherings with close contact between kids & grandparents probably most risky," Musk wrote in a tweet in March 2020.

The claim was of course misleading since the Center for Disease Control and Prevention explained at the time that children can still acquire the virus even though adults account for most of the cases.

At the time, Twitter stated that it considers such comments in light of its whole "context and conclusion" and eventually decided that the billionaire did not violate its rules.

"Infodemic"

The World Health Organization issued a call to action at the end of 2020 to combat what it dubbed the "infodemic," to mitigate "harm from health disinformation" that can spur mistrust, public paranoia, and misunderstanding amid disease outbreaks.

This recent move follows Musk's free speech campaign on Twitter, which has always been his goal for taking over Twitter. He has also reinstated controversial figures such as former US President Donald Trump and Kanye West, who were both suspended from the platform for supposedly violating Twitter's guidelines.

Musk has also imposed a "general amnesty" on every banned account, effectively reversing Twitter's earlier efforts to prevent influential figures from spreading misinformation and hate speech on the platform.