Twitter Inc. has stopped enforcing a policy aimed at curbing the spread of Covid-19 misinformation on its platform in the company’s latest move to loosen moderation guidelines on the site.
The social-media company announced the change by placing a notice on its website, saying it was no longer policing Covid-19 misinformation as of Nov. 23.
Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Twitter’s policy change makes it an outlier among major social-media companies on curbing Covid-19 misinformation. Facebook and Instagram, both owned by Meta Platforms Inc., have policies for removing false or misleading content related to Covid-19. TikTok, owned by ByteDance Ltd., has a similar policy.
Snap Inc.
has outlined its approach to preventing the spread of false information related to Covid-19.
Twitter began policing Covid-19 misinformation in 2020. In a blog post from July 2020, the company said it would remove posts that contained false or misleading claims about Covid-19 that could lead to harm.
“Accounts that break this rule repeatedly may be permanently suspended,” Twitter said in the blog post.
As of September, Twitter has suspended more than 11,200 accounts for spreading Covid-19 misinformation, according to the company. Twitter also said it removed nearly 98,000 pieces of content that violated the Covid-19 misinformation policy.
Twitter’s new owner,
who has described himself as a free-speech absolutist, has made changes to Twitter’s content-moderation policies, saying the company should generally intervene only to comply with local laws. Mr. Musk said last week he would reinstate suspended accounts, bringing back users that previously had been banned for posting hate speech, inciting violence or engaging in other behavior that violated its policies.
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Twitter also reinstated former President
‘s account earlier this month. Twitter, under its old ownership, had banned Mr. Trump’s account, citing the risk of further incitement of violence following the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Mr. Musk has also said
Apple Inc.
has threatened to remove Twitter from its App Store and criticized the tech giant for what he called censorship. Apple has strict policies regarding user-generated content on apps in the App Store. Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Who else has Apple censored?” Mr. Musk said in a tweet on Monday.
Write to Joseph De Avila at joseph.deavila@wsj.com
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