Twitter rolls back COVID misinformation policy

Twitter Inc. has rolled back a policy aimed at tackling misinformation related to COVID-19 on the social media platform, lending itself to the risk of a potential surge in false claims even as cases rise in China and some parts of the world.

The move also comes amid concerns about Twitter’s ability to fight misinformation after it let go of about half of its staff, including those involved in content moderation, under new boss Elon Musk.

Twitter logo and a photo of Elon Musk are displayed through magnifier in this illustration taken October 27, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/

“Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy,” according to an update on its blog page. CNN first reported the update on Tuesday.

The specific measures that Twitter will drop were not immediately clear, and the company did not immediately respond to a request to share more information.

At the onset of COVID in 2020, Twitter instated several measures including labels and warning messages on tweets with disputed information about the health crisis and a framework to have users remove tweets that advanced harmfully false claims related to vaccines.

FILE PHOTO: A view of the Twitter logo at its corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 18, 2022. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo/File Photo

Meta Platforms Inc-owned Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s YouTube services employed similar measures, which are currently in place.

Early this year, Twitter said that since March 2021, it had stopped enforcing a “civic integrity policy” related to lies about the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Billionaire Musk took over Twitter on Oct. 27, paying $44 billion for the company, and has moved quickly to initiate several changes to product and staff. Musk said on Oct. 29 he would set up a content moderation council with “widely diverse viewpoints.”