Twitter steps up enforcement in the face of coronavirus misinformation

Twitter is sick and tired of your coronavirus misinformation bullshit. 

Late Wednesday afternoon, the social media giant was forced to “expand” its already existing safety rules in the face of content that could directly put people’s lives at risk from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. An updated blog post laying out the new guidelines made clear that Twitter, at least in theory, will no longer tolerate this specific type of dangerous medical misinformation on its platform.  

“Update: we’re expanding our safety rules to include content that could place people at a higher risk of transmitting COVID-19,” read the announcement. 

Notably, those changes include: “Denial of expert guidance,” “Encouragement to use fake or ineffective treatments, preventions, and diagnostic techniques,” and “Misleading content purporting to be from experts or authorities.” 

The ban on “Encouragement to use fake or ineffective treatments” is of particular note as it follows a tweet by Elon Musk, a prominent Twitter user with over 32 million followers as of the time of this writing, loosely suggesting treatments for COVID-19. 

Musk, of course, is neither a medical doctor nor an epidemiologist despite what his seemingly authoritative tweets on the coronavirus might suggest. 

Twitter, however, was kind enough to provide us with examples that don’t involve Elon “let’s keep the Tesla plant open during a shelter-in-place emergency” Musk. 

Under Twitter’s updated rules, people posting versions of the following will be “required to remove” said tweets: 

• “social distancing is not effective”

• “coronavirus is not heat-resistant – walking outside is enough to disinfect you”

• “use aromatherapy and essential oils to prevent COVID-19”

• “drinking bleach and ingesting colloidal silver will cure COVID-19”

• “COVID-19 does not infect children because we haven’t seen any cases of children being sick”

• “coronavirus is a fraud and not real – go out and patronize your local bar!!”

• “the news about washing your hands is propaganda for soap companies, stop washing your hands”

• “ignore news about COVID-19, it’s just an attempt to destroy capitalism by crashing the stock market”

• “The National Guard just announced that no more shipments of food will be arriving for 2 months – run to the grocery store ASAP and buy everything!”

• “if you can hold your breath for 10 seconds, you do not have coronavirus”

• “if you have a wet cough, it’s not coronavirus – but a dry cough is”

•  “you’ll feel like you’re drowning in snot if you have coronavirus – it’s not a normal runny nose”

• “people with dark skin are immune to COVID-19 due to melanin production”

• “reading the Quran will make an individual immune to COVID-19”

• “avoid businesses owned by Chinese people as they are more likely to have COVID-19”

One would hope that during a pandemic such rules wouldn’t be necessary in the first place, but we know that not to be the case. 

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If you happen to be looking for real, actual information about the coronavirus, try heading over to the World Health Organization’s dedicated coronavirus page. 

Your health, and Twitter’s content moderators, will thank you.