According to Twitter, it is no longer enforcing its rules against spreading false information regarding coronavirus.
On Wednesday, November 23, the firm stopped taking action against tweets that violated its Covid regulations, according to the company’s website.
As of September of this year, Twitter had already acknowledged suspending more than 11,000 accounts for spreading false information about Covid.
Without a corresponding notification stating that they will no longer be enforced, Twitter’s other policies regarding incorrect information are still available on the website.
According to Twitter’s Covid-specific rules, accounts that posted “demonstrably inaccurate or misleading” content that could “lead to considerable risk of injury,” such exposure to Covid or harm to public health systems, were subject to a “five-strike system.”
There would be no repercussions for accounts that tweeted false information once. Repeat offenders, however, may have their accounts terminated for a few hours, days, or even permanently if they obtain five strikes against them.
Dr. Stephen Griffin of The University of Leeds School of Medicine notes that although though the Covid reporting system on Twitter was never perfect, it was comforting to know that hundreds of accounts disseminating misinformation have been deleted since 2020.
Musk consents to amnesty
Some of those who broke the rules are now visiting the website again.
For instance, Twitter has unbanned Marjorie Taylor Greene’s personal account after it was suspended in January.
In response to the overwhelming support for the reinstatement of blocked accounts in a Twitter poll, CEO Elon Musk tweeted: “The people have spoken… amnesty begins next week.”
The people have spoken.
Amnesty begins next week.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022
Following his $44 billion (£37 billion) acquisition, the CEO of Tesla has vowed to turn Twitter into a focal point for internet free speech.
Who Is Elon Musk?
Elon Reeve Musk FRS is a business tycoon and investor who was born on June 28, 1971. He also founded The Boring Company, co-founded Neuralink, and OpenAI, served as president of the Musk Foundation, and was the owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc. He is the founder, CEO, and chief engineer[b] of SpaceX, an angel investor, as well as Tesla, Inc.’s CEO and product architect.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and Forbes’ real-time billionaires list, Musk will be the richest person in the world as of November 18, 2022, with an estimated net worth of over $181 billion.
South African city of Pretoria is where Musk was raised. Prior to relocating to Canada at the age of 17, where he later attained citizenship through his mother, he attended the University of Pretoria.
He enrolled at Queen’s University two years later and subsequently went to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned bachelor’s degrees in both economics and physics.
He relocated to California in 1995 with plans to enroll at Stanford University, but left after just two days to pursue a career in business. He and his brother Kimbal co-founded the online software company Zip2, which was later purchased by Compaq for $307 million in 1999.
Musk was a co-founder of the online bank X.com, which merged with Confinity to establish PayPal the following year. PayPal was purchased by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion.
