Twitter stopped enforcing the COVID-19 Misinformation Policy on November 23. The company first worked on the Covid misinformation policy in the year 2020. The policy was instituted to prevent the mass dissemination of misinformation about the COVID-19 virus. However, the company has announced that this policy is no longer being enforced on users. The COVID Misinformation Policy was last updated in January 2021. The decision was taken weeks after Elon Musk took over the social media company.
In a blog post, the company said, “Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer implementing the COVID-19 Misleading Information Policy.” The development was first reported by CNN.
Global cases of COVID-19 have declined. However, China reported its highest number of cases last week. The misinformation policy stopped being implemented at the same time Twitter was seeing an exodus of employees, which could be one of the factors behind the decision to stop implementing it.
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Twitter’s workforce has been reduced by more than half since Elon Musk took over the micro-blogging platform. In the first wave of layoffs, he laid off more than 50 percent of the workforce without prior notice. He later also removed about 80 percent of contract workers, most of whom were believed to be engaged in content moderation. Musk then issued an ultimatum to the rest of the employees. He asked them to either stay back and give Twitter long and intense hours or take severance pay and take a break. Many employees chose the latter option, further reducing the company’s workforce.
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Twitter’s former head of trust and security, Yoel Roth, also said in an interview that Twitter is not secure under Elon Musk. He claimed that Twitter does not have the staff to keep it safe. Roth worked with Musk in the first week after the acquisition. He also released a post claiming that Twitter was somehow safer after Musk took over. So far, Roth hasn’t been replaced, which is driving advertisers away from the platform. Big companies like Apple, Volkswagen and even clients of the biggest advertising agencies are staying away from the platform.
