Twitter will no longer enforce a policy that effectively bans misinformation about COVID-19 on the social media platform.

The decision is part of a big change planned by Elon Musk, who announced a new version of user authentication tokens a few days ago.

Regarding the cancellation of the above policy, it should be recalled that in 2020, Twitter developed an extensive set of rules aimed at prohibiting “harmful disinformation” about the virus and vaccines.

Between January 2020 and September 2022, Twitter suspended over 11,000 accounts for violating coronavirus misinformation rules and removed nearly 100,000 messages that violated those rules, according to statistics released by the social media platform.

In fact, this policy was then approved by medical professionals.

According to a CNN report, Twitter has not officially announced the repeal of this policy. However, some Twitter users on Monday night noticed a note added to a Twitter website page outlining its coronavirus policy.

As of November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing its COVID-19 misinformation policy.

It is noted that Elon Musk has already promised to restore many previously blocked Twitter accounts. So it is possible that among these accounts there will be some of the 11,000 accounts that were banned under the previous rules.

After all, the Twitter CEO himself has reacted to policy decisions against COVID-19 in the past.

In particular, in March and April 2020, Musk used the social media to downplay the crisis and express his dissatisfaction with the way the pandemic was handled.

He repeatedly called for an end to remote work, despite public health officials pushing for it at the time.

“I would call it ‘forcibly confining people in their homes’ against all their constitutional rights and violating people’s freedoms in terrible and wrong ways,” he said during a teleconference.

When it comes to getting vaccinated against the coronavirus, Elon Musk has said he’s in favor, though he doesn’t think vaccines should be mandatory.

However, in an interview with the New York Times podcast in 2020, he indicated that he was not going to get vaccinated because “neither he nor his children are threatened by the coronavirus.”

Source: CNN