Elon Musk owned Twitter has stopped enforcing a policy intended to prevent the spread of Covid misinformation. Musk who has previously clashed with US officials over pandemic safety rules continues to remake its content moderation policies. This policy comes right after the billionaire reinstated a slew of accounts on the social media network that had previously been banned for violating its content rules.
Many celebrities have bid farewell to the micro-blogging website after the Twitter controversies. In recent weeks, half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers have announced they are suspending or have otherwise “seemingly stopped advertising on Twitter”. Though Musk says Twitter is seeing record high engagement with him at the helm, his approach has startled the company’s major money-maker.
Elon Musk Lifts Rule Against Covid Misinformation
Elon Musk’s Twitter has lifted its rule against Covid misinformation policies. “Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the Covid-19 misleading information policy,” read a message posted at a Twitter transparency web page.
During the pandemic, Twitter took to labelling misleading tweets about Covid and booting users who persisted in spreading such misinformation. Banned content included statements intended to influence people to violate health authority guidelines, along with bogus cures or denial of scientific facts, according to a Twitter blog.
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Is Musk A ‘Free Speech’ Absolutist?
As of September of this year, Twitter had suspended 11,230 accounts under the policy, the blog stated. Musk, who also runs Tesla, clashed with officials in 2020 over pandemic safety orders which temporarily shut down the electric car giant’s plant in California, calling shelter in place orders “fascist” and “an outrage” that infringed on personal freedom.
Under Musk, who calls himself a “free speech absolutist,” Twitter has begun reinstating roughly 62,000 accounts in what is being referred to internally as “the Big Bang,” according to Platformer news blog. Since taking over the platform last month, Musk has cut around half of Twitter’s workforce, including many employees tasked with fighting disinformation, while an unknown number of others have voluntarily quit.
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