Twitter is no longer enforcing its COVID misinformation policy, in another blow to advertiser brand safety.
In a quietly updated blog post, the company said:
“Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy.”
The blog post was originally posted in April 2020 and had last been updated on 12 January last year.
It isn’t clear why Twitter abandoned its covid disinformation policy but there has been a mixed reaction online. Some right-wing commentators, such as Steven Crowder who had his YouTube channel suspended in October for violating its policy on harassment, threats, and cyberbullying, have celebrated the move.
Now that Twitter stopped enforcing its COVID “misinformation” policies, I can finally tell you that the vaccine doesn’t work, masks are useless, & the lockdowns did more harm than good. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
— Steven Crowder (@scrowder) November 29, 2022
However, epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding and others are not so thrilled.
Bad news—it seems @Twitter just updated its misleading info policy that #COVID19 misinformation will no longer be enforced. The 11k accounts that were suspended under the old policy will soon be restored. ➡️Stay folks—do NOT cede the town square to them! https://t.co/aBxPYyvpna pic.twitter.com/7zYnVqj0id
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) November 29, 2022
Twitter has quietly changed their policies to allow COVID-19 misinformation. This change will literally kill people.https://t.co/qtNS6Xeq7A pic.twitter.com/8AEXiAPS9V
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) November 29, 2022
Twitter boss Elon Musk has been on a tear recently, having picked a fight with Apple and claiming the iPhone maker uses its “monopoly” position to “censor” free speech.
Plus, despite the father of eight having said that “removing child exploitation is priority #1” for Twitter, the company’s child safety team has been halved with just 10 employees remaining.
Musk’s continued outcries about brands choosing to abandon their spending on his platform seem to run contrary to his own actions.
