Twitter has confirmed that will not apply previous guidelines to counter disinformation about Covid. The news was reported by CNN and marks yet another change of pace decided by the new leadership led by Elon Musk.
As we have had the opportunity to report on these pages, last year Twitter had taken the hard way to counter fake news about Covid, complete with a ban for accounts that offered disinformation and conspiracy posts, which will now be allowed and will not involve any type of penalty.
Between January 2020 and September 2022, Twitter has suspended more than 11,000 accounts for violating the rules on disinformation related to the Coronavirus, and removed over 100,000 posts that violated internal policy. The decisions had been welcomed by the scientific community, engaged at the forefront of the vaccination campaign and the fight against Covid.
The change of course took place on 23 November 2022 when, as explained in a note, it was decided that “Twitter will no longer enforce COVID-19 fake news policy”.
This is yet another decision destined to cause discontent and controversy, especially from advertisers, already disturbed by the decision to restore Donald Trump’s Twitter and Kanye West accounts.
