Twitter will now ban users who continuously share misinformation on Covid 19 vaccine

The coronavirus vaccines are rolling out gradually all over the world. In a bid to curb misinformation, Twitter is rolling out a strike system policy that can permanently ban users if they continuously share misleading posts about the COVID 19 vaccine. The strike system is being rolled out to determine if further enforcement action other than a label is necessary on a misleading Tweet. According to Twitter, repeated violations of the COVID-19 policy are enforced based on the number of strikes an account will attract for violations of the policy.

One strike would not attract any account-level action, two and three strikes would attract a 12-hour account lock, four strikes, and Twitter would lock an account for 7 days, five or more strikes can lead to a permanent suspension of an account. The individuals will be notified directly when a label or required Tweet removal results in additional account-level enforcement.

"Our goal with these product interventions is to provide people with additional context and authoritative information about COVID-19," the company said in a blog post. "Through the use of the strike system, we hope to educate people on why certain content breaks our rules so they have the opportunity to further consider their behavior and their impact on the public conversation."

Twitter noted that it has removed over 8,400 Tweets and challenged 11.5 million accounts worldwide since the time it introduced COVID 19 guidelines on misinformation, last year. Twitter will first apply labels to misinformation posts if they violate their policy. These posts will further be required to inform automated tools to identify and label similar content across the service. Twitter will use both automated and human reviews to address content that violates its COVID-19 vaccine misinformation rules. As an expansion to its already existing COVID 19 misinformation policy which was brought about last year, Twitter added policies in 2021 that spread a false narrative around the COVID vaccine.

These include false claims that suggest immunisations and vaccines are used to intentionally cause harm to or control populations, including statements about vaccines that invoke a deliberate conspiracy, false claims which have been widely debunked about the adverse impacts or effects of receiving vaccinations, and false claims that COVID-19 is not real or not serious, and therefore that vaccinations are unnecessary. Twitter also extended its policy to label or place a warning on Tweets that advance unsubstantiated rumors, disputed claims, as well as incomplete or out-of-context information about vaccines.