Faizel Patel – 02/03/2021
Social media platform Twitter says it will start labelling misleading tweets about COVID-19 vaccines and boot users who persist in spreading such misinformation.
AFP reports the messaging service has introduced a “strike system” that will gradually escalate to a permanent ban after the fifth offending tweet.
In a blog post, Twitter says it believes the strike system will help to educate the public on the platforms policies and further reduce the spread of potentially harmful and misleading information on Twitter.
“Particularly for repeated moderate and high-severity violations of our rules.”
Twitter says users will be notified when a tweet is labelled as misleading or needs to be removed for breaking the platform’s rules, earning a strike.
“The second and third strikes will each result in the violating account being blocked for 12 hours. With a fourth violation, an account will be sidelined for seven days. A fifth strike will get accounts permanently suspended.”
Twitter late last year began calling on users to remove dangerously misleading COVID-19 claims, including suggestions that vaccines are used to harm or control people.
Since then, Twitter has removed more than 8,400 tweets and notified some 11.5 million accounts worldwide about violations of its COVID-19 information rules.
The strike system is similar to what Twitter applies to election-related misinformation, which led to former US president Donald Trump being permanently banned for repeated violations, including language that the platform said could incite violence and questioning the integrity of the voting process.
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