Twitter stops enforcing Covid misleading information policy

Twitter has paused support for enforcing Covid-19 misleading information policy on its platform. As per an update on the company’s blog, “Twitter is no longer enforcing the Covid-19 misleading information policy”. Under its Covid misinformation policy, Twitter removed “demonstrably false or potentially misleading content that has the highest risk of causing harm.”

However, it is still not clear why Twitter has taken this action, as Covid is not gone yet and countries like China are reeling under its after effects. The move, according to reports, can lead to a surge in conspiracy theories around vaccines on the platform like “vaccines now kill more people than Covid”. In December 2020, Twitter announced to remove tweets making false or misleading claims about Covid-19 vaccinations and label such fake claims, prioritising the removal of the most harmful misleading information.

Twitter later labelled Tweets that contained misleading information around Covid vaccinations and permanently suspended repeated offenders. The micro-blogging platform introduced a strike system against such misleading tweets and five or more strikes will result in permanent suspension of the account.

According to Twitter, the expanded policy included false claims that suggest immunisations and vaccines are used to intentionally cause harm to or control populations and statements about vaccines that invoke a deliberate conspiracy.