Twitter Quietly Removes COVID-19 Misinformation Policy, Elon Musk Wants Users to Freely Speak!

Elon Musk wants his free speech on Twitter to be maintained. (photo: dock. twitter)

JAKARTA - Twitter has reportedly ended its policy to suppress misinformation or misleading about COVID-19. It is claimed, this is part of the polarizing mission of Twitter's new CEO, Elon Musk, to remake the social network as a place to speak without moderation.

By removing the rule, the company will no longer apply the label to posts that contain lies about the virus or provide additional corrective information as before.

Apparently, the new rules will also no longer remove inaccurate tweets or ban offending accounts. This move was implemented by the company in secret which started on November 23 and was uploaded on Twitter's original blog.

Twitter first established its COVID misinformation policy in April 2020, and has since undergone a number of changes. At the time, the rules were a way to help people connect with others and find reliable updates, while keeping misleading information off the platform.

Launching The Independent, Wednesday, November 30, the rules were introduced along with a number of other updates, including a special section on the site to find updates from officials and experts.

A key part of the policy allows Twitter to remove posts that engage in harmful misinformation. If an account repeatedly shares the post, that account may also be suspended entirely.

These potentially problematic posts are evaluated using three metrics. They must be assertions of fact and not opinion, make claims that are disproved, and do so in a way that would do harm if people believed them.

Some posts are also given a special label or warning if they are still misleading but are less likely to cause harm if people believe them. Such posts will also be made less visible.

According to Twitter data, more than 11.000 accounts have been suspended and more than 97.000 misleading content has been removed since Twitter introduced its COVID policy in January 2020 until it ended last week.

Musk himself has been criticized for his postings about COVID-19 on Twitter, even though by the rules he is not criticized. He said the panic over COVID-19 was "stupid" and said children could not catch the virus.