Twitter is no longer enforcing its COVID-19 misinformation policy, scrapping it less than a month after Space Karen Elon Musk acquired the company. I’m shocked. This is my shocked face.
“As the global community faces the COVID-19 pandemic together, Twitter is helping people find reliable information, connect with others, and follow what’s happening in real time,” Twitter’s Transparency Center still states. Though that sentence still remains, it is now immediately followed by a new note: “Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy.”
Said policy has also disappeared from Twitter’s Help Center, unceremoniously discarding important safeguards the platform gradually developed over literal years.
Mashable has reached out to Twitter for comment, which is just a formality at this point considering Musk has fired pretty much everyone who might have responded.
COVID-19 misinformation has been a rampant and dangerous problem throughout the pandemic, with many social media platforms struggling to manage it. As such, Twitter attempted to address the issue by making several updates to its policies, including expanding its safety rules to prohibit tweets that may put people at higher risk of transmitting the coronavirus. Such tweets included encouraging fake treatments, spreading misleading content claiming it was from authorities, or denying expert guidance.
Twitter attached warnings labels to tweets which went against public health experts’ advice. It updated its policy to specifically address baseless conspiracy theories that falsely spread a connection between 5G technology and COVID-19. It also began banning users for repeatedly posting COVID-19 misinformation.
Now all of these safety measures are no longer in force, meaning Twitter users ostensibly are free to advise others to cure themselves of COVID-19 by injecting themselves with bleach. (Very important side note: Do not do this.) Musk has also said that Twitter will reinstate all suspended accounts that haven’t broken the law or engaged in egregious spam, meaning Twitter could soon be host to countless more spreaders of COVID-19 misinformation.
The swift destruction of Twitter’s coronavirus safety measures unfortunately isn’t surprising. Musk himself has been known to post tweets flirting with Twitter’s COVID-19 misinformation policy, writing that it’s “Maybe worth considering chloroquine for C19” and that “Hydroxychloroquine [is] probably better.” Neither of these drugs are recommended by health experts to treat COVID-19, with studies concluding that they are ineffective.
Even so, Twitter determined that Musk’s tweets somehow weren’t in violation of its policy, allowing Elon “the coronavirus panic is dumb” Musk to continue sharing his galaxy-brained coronavirus thoughts with millions of followers.
Clearly, Twitter’s COVID-19 misinformation policy wasn’t perfect. But with absolutely nothing now in place, the microblogging platform is now in a prime position to sink to previously unexplored depths.
