Elon Musk scraps Twitter's misinformation policy in latest U-turn following takeover
29 November 2022, 15:12 | Updated: 29 November 2022, 15:28
Elon Musk has scrapped Twitter's misinformation policy in the latest drastic U-turn since buying the social media platform.
The Covid-19 misinformation policy was initially implemented on the platform in 2020, however, eagle-eyed users spotted the rollback on Twitter's 'transparency' page.
It's but the latest controversial move by the billionaire, who bought Twitter for $44 billion in October.
The rollback follows a wave of major overhauls by the Tesla founder, who continues to push his 'pro-free speech' agenda on the platform.
The page read: 'Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misinformation policy.'
This is a battle for the future of civilization. If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 29, 2022
Read more: Covid lab blunder where positive cases were reported as negative ‘could have led to 20 deaths’
Read more: Christians have become a minority in England and Wales for the first time, official data shows
Recent weeks have seen Musk run a poll on whether to reinstate banned accounts - including that of former President Donald Trump, before actioning the results.
Musk also rolled out a pay-for-verification scheme, allowing Twitter users to pay $8 a month for a blue verification check mark that doesn't require them to verify their identity.
Twitter first developed the Covid-19 rules in 2020 to prevent 'harmful misinformation' being spread about COVID and vaccines.
The rules allowed the social media platform to censor and label tweets flagged as containing misleading information, with more than 11,000 accounts suspended to-date for breaking the rules.
It's also allowed 100,000 pieces of content to be removed.
It follows the axing of nearly half of Twitter's global workforce following the takeover, with nearly 1,400 Twitter workers joining rival organisation Blind following the mass-redundancies.
The change to the coronavirus misleading information policy follows rising Covid numbers on both sides of the Atlantic, with a recent covid lab blunder in the UK which saw positive cases reported as negative.
