PM Jacinda Ardern acknowledged that social media platforms can do ‘a huge amount of harm’ if misused and hopes that new owner Elon Musk will stick to his ‘principal of transparency'. Video / NZ Herald
Twitter has quietly dropped its efforts to police misinformation about the pandemic.
While the platform has made no official announcement, over the past few hours users have noticed an update on Twitter’s website, posted at an unknown time.
It reads: “Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing theCovid-19 misleading information policy.”
According to Twitter’s own stats, the social media platform has “challenged” 11.72 million accounts, suspended 11,320 accounts and removed 97,674 accounts since January 2020 for spreading misinformation about the virus or vaccines.
This is because (according to a September 2022 Twitter transparency report): “People continue to turn to Twitter to discuss what’s happening and find the latest authoritative public health information. As such, we continue to prioritise removing or annotating potentially harmful and misleading information to ensure that users can readily find credible information.”
New owner Elon Musk has slashed content moderation and policy teams as he has sought to both cut costs, and give Twitter what he calls a “town hall” feel.
Earlier this week, Musk announced a “general amnesty” for all suspended accounts, “provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam”.
Following a poll approving the measure, he announced the amnesty would begin next week.
Musk had already restored accounts for a number of controversial figures including former President Donald Trump (who, now posting to his own Truth Social, has yet to tweet) and far-right conspiracy theorist Majorie Taylor Greene, who was banned in January this year for violating Twitter’s Covid misinformation policies (Taylor Greene has resumed posting).
On November 6, the Australian Government’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, told the Herald she feared Twitter’s cull of its health and safety team, plus “major cuts” to the policy team that deals with Government agencies in Australia and New Zealand, would lead to a rise in misinformation and harmful content.
Inman Grant’s fears appeared to be realised with reports last week that Twitter failed to detect a copy of the banned Christchurch mosque gunman’s video, which is banned in New Zealand, and did not remove it until after the NZ Government lodged a complaint. And an account from Victoria University’s Prof Markus Luczak-Roesch, who wrote: “The entire team the New Zealand Government was planning to work with [on the Christchurch Call] disappeared. And it’s unlikely any work outlined in September will actually eventuate.”
The Financial Times reported on November 27 that Twitter’s $5 billion-per-year advertising business has been “hit by tensions over content moderation and resources”.
Multiple top advertising agencies and media buyers told the Financial Times that nearly all of the big brands they represent have paused spending on the social media platform, citing alarm at Musk’s ad hoc approach to policing content - although the inability to locate sales contacts after layoffs, and Twitter’s ad systems becoming buggy, were also factors.
Hate speech impressions down by 1/3 from pre-spike levels. Congrats to Twitter team! pic.twitter.com/5BWaQoIlip
In a November 24 tweet, Musk posted a graph showing a spike in hate speech after he took over the site, but also a drop to “1/3 pre-spike levels”. The new owner did not detail any of the methodologies behind the chart.
Meanwhile, rivals Meta and Google have both recently showcased expanded efforts to moderate content.
