Twitter Expands Use of Enforcement System to Covid-19 Falsehoods

Twitter Inc. is expanding the use of its strike system to include users who spread misleading information about Covid-19 and its vaccines, the social-media platform’s latest attempt to curb the spread of potentially harmful content.

The new rules, disclosed Monday in a corporate blog post, are an update of plans the company rolled out last year to help tamp down coronavirus misinformation and amplify authoritative sources during the pandemic.

Twitter said it would begin applying labels to posts pertaining to vaccines that include conspiracy theories and rhetoric unfounded in research or credible reporting. Similar to the company’s election-integrity policy update in January, Twitter said it would permanently suspend users who violate its Covid-19 misinformation policy five times.

The first strike will result only in a warning, but subsequent strikes would result in accounts being locked either for 12 hours or seven days. Users can appeal locks or suspensions, the company said.

The company said it has removed more than 8,400 tweets and challenged 11.5 million accounts globally since issuing the earlier guidelines about Covid-19 posts.

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