Last Wednesday, Twitter announced that it would remove tweets about false or misleading assertions about COVID-19 vaccinations.
Tweets claiming that vaccines “intentionally cause harm to control populations” or invoke conspiracy theories will be removed. Tweets that wrongly suggest that COVID-19 doesn’t exist or support “widely debunked” claims will also be removed. The implementation of the new policy will begin next week.
Twitter will also label or give warnings on tweets pushing vaccine conspiracy theories starting next year. The labeled tweets can link to authoritative public health information, parallel to how Twitter directed users to verified voting information in the 2020 election.
“We will enforce this policy in close consultation with local, national, and global public health authorities around the world, and will strive to be iterative and transparent in our approach,” the blog post stated.
Twitter’s new rule comes as health workers in the US have started receiving COVID-19 vaccinations after the FDA authorized using a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. The vaccinations are a target of numerous conspiracy theories, also the false allegations that the vaccinations contain microchips or can be used to alter DNA.
The new policies expand on coronavirus related policies put by Twitter early this year. Last March, Twitter rolled out a COVID-19 tab in its Explore page and partnered with establishments like the World Health Organization to supply reputable coronavirus information on its platform.
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