Twitter to Apply ‘Strikes’ Against Fake News on COVID-19 Vaccines

Twitter will flag tweets containing misinformation and warn its users that the content uploaded “may be misleading”.

Twitter will now label misinformation around COVID-19 vaccine

(File Photo: IANS)

Microblogging platform Twitter has announced that it would start applying label warnings to tweets that contain misleading information that could disrupt the roll out of COVID-19 vaccination.

The social media platform will flag tweets containing misinformation and warn its users that the content uploaded “may be misleading”. Twitter in a blog post informed that these tweets will be reviewed by both human and automatic moderation review systems.

“We will begin with English-language content first and use this same process as we work to expand to other languages and cultural contexts over time”,announced Twitter in a blog post.

What Will be Considered as Violation?

Twitter has labeled five categories which will be flagged under misleading and false information. Here are the details:

• False or misleading information about the nature of the virus.
• False or misleading information about the efficacy and/or safety of preventative measures, treatments, or other precautions to mitigate or treat the disease.
• False or misleading information about official regulations, restrictions, or exemptions pertaining to health advisories.
• False or misleading information about the prevalence of the virus, or risk of infection or death.
• False or misleading affiliation

What Won’t be Considered As a Violation?

Twitter has also released categroies which wont fall under policy violation. Below are the details:

• Strong commentary, opinions, and/or satire, provided these do not contain false or misleading assertions of fact
• Counterspeech
• Personal anecdotes or first-person accounts
• Public debate about the advancement of COVID-19 science and research

How The New Strike System Works

The social media platform has introduced a new strike system which is modeled to determine accounts that are particularly spreading misinformation about the vaccines. These accounts will be given punishment based on the severity of violation of the new policy. Here are Twitter’s various punishments for the different number of strikes :

• One strike: no account-level action
• Two strikes: 12-hour account lock
• Three strikes: 12-hour account lock
• Four strikes: 7-day account lock
• Five or more strikes: permanent suspension