Musk dumps Twitter’s Covid disinformation policy
Elon Musk has abandoned Twitter’s Covid disinformation policy in a grand push for free speech.
“Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the Covid-19 misleading information policy,” a notice on its website reads.
The new owner of the social media firm axed the former “Covid-19 misleading information policy” page, outlining rules surrounding Covid related content.
“Content that is demonstrably false or misleading and may lead to significant risk of harm (such as increased exposure to the virus, or adverse effects on public health systems) may not be shared on Twitter,” the page previously said.
Twitter were not immediately available for comment on this change.
However, the news comes as both staff and advertisers leave Twitter en masse.
According to analysis from the Washington Post, more than a third of Twitter’s top 100 marketers have not advertised on the site in the last two weeks.
Since Musk took the reins in late October, household names like General Motors, Kellogg and Mondelez have all paused their adverts on the site, as fears over potential content moderation changes and blue tick verification mount.
Although Musk has seemingly brushed it off, Musk tweeted last night that Apple was now threatening to remove Twitter from its App Store.
“Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why,” he said.
Epic Games, the maker of popular online video game Fortnite, backed Elon Musk’s criticisms of Apple, calling the company a “menace to freedom”.
Responding to a thread, Tim Sweeney wrote: “Apple blocked Fortnite within a few hours of Epic defying their policy. Would they nuke Twitter? Spotify? Facebook? Netflix? At what point does the whole rotten structure collapse?”
“Apple is a menace to freedom worldwide. They maintain an illegal monopoly on app distribution,” he said in a separate tweet.
The rivalry between the firms runs deep, as Epic continues to fight Apple in a US court after it put restrictions on apps, including Epic’s, that have other in-app purchasing methods.