By Aaron Miller-
Elon Musk has abandoned Twitters Covid-19 misinformation policy after vowing to make the site a free speech champion.
A post on the ‘transparency’ page of the company’s website which said: ‘Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misinformation policy.
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“Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the Covid-19 misleading information policy,” a notice on its website reads.
A page on Twitter’s website titled “Covid-19 misleading information policy” now redirects users to Twitter’s user help homepage.
That page previously said: “Content that is demonstrably false or misleading and may lead to significant risk of harm (such as increased exposure to the virus, or adverse effects on public health systems) may not be shared on Twitter.”
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Other, more generalised policies on posting deliberately false or misleading information on Twitter are still listed on the company’s website and appear to be being enforced.
Mr Musk has pledged to make Twitter a bastion of free speech since buying the social network for $44bn in October.
His move to stop enforcing Covid misinformation policies at Twitter is likely to further aggravate Mr Musk’s opponents, who have accused him of slashing and burning safeguards on the social media site that prevent users being exposed to harmful and misleading information.
His decision to outlaw the coronavirus misleading information policy comes as America still faces over 2,000 deaths a week, according to the CDC.users will be restored as long as they have not broken the law or spammed people on the social media site.
He has also made a huge number of other changes at Twitter to misinformation policies and procedures.
One change announced days ago was that suspended Twitter accounts will be offered an ‘amnesty’ from this week after a poll revealed a landslide of users support the move.
The poll posted online asked: ‘Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?’
Of those who participated in the poll, 72.4 percent of voters said yes, while 27.6 percent said no. There were 3,162,112 votes cast during the 24-hour poll.
Musk said on Thursday: ‘The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei.’ The Latin phrase means ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’.
Musk has already re-instated the accounts of Donald Trump, Kanye West, Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson and Marjorie Taylor Green’s accounts. It is believed the re-instating of other accounts may follow.
The radical move by the world riches man has already sparked concerns that his platform could become a haven for reckless and provocative views, potentially accommodating hate speech.
Critics of his very liberal platform believe it could be a recipe for disaster, but will wait to see how things turn out.
However, the major transition from a platform which heavily doctored the expression of its users will be welcome by many of its users who wish to speak as they please.
Covid misinformation was a serious issue of contention at the height of the pandemic, with views about vaccination highly contentious.
The billionaire has come under fire for his past comments about vaccination.
In 2020, he described fears of the virus were ‘dumb’ and falsely claimed that children were ‘essentially immune’ before branding lockdowns ‘fascist.’
The following year, he expressed and unflinching support for vaccines, saying on Twitter: ‘I do support vaccines in general and covid vaccines specifically’ and said that ‘rare’ allergic reactions can be ‘easily addressed.’
He wrote: ‘To be clear, I do support vaccines in general & covid vaccines specifically. The science is unequivocal.
The controversial billionaire also added fuel to fire on the topic of vaccination by claiming that the second dose of the vaccine could be harmful.
Musk has been celebrated by leading autistic researchers who have been keen to point out that he is autistic, and that autistic people think differently.
Outstanding writer, Daniel Oberhaus pointed out that Musk has been subjected to abuse, revealing that a Twitter executive referred to him as “literally special needs” and “a looney tune”.
Some analysts believe Musk may have harboured a grudge against the executive in question, and even seized the opportunity of his take-over of the giant social media platform to completely transform the platform and get rid of many of the platform’s powerful decision makers.
International human rights groups have warned that Musk’s decision to eradicate the company’s content moderation team makes Twitter susceptible to being unwittingly complicit in mass atrocities in foreign countries like India, where artificial intelligence is incapable of detecting hate speech propagated in local languages including Hindi, Marathi or Tamil
Musk’s new policies will be under continuous scrutiny and open to plenty of discussion and debate now, and in the future.
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