Twitter Introduces New Strike 5 System To Tackle Misleading COVID-19 Claims

The microblogging and social networking service, Twitter, has developed and introduced a new ‘strike system’ that will eventually lead to a permanent ban after the fifth offending tweet.

Twitter said it would use warnings against tweets containing misleading information about the COVID-19 vaccines and implement a strike system of enforcement that would lead to a permanent ban of the user’s account for repeated violations.

Twitter, the social media network started to promote public health information before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic. It also sought to remove the false or misleading content of the virus that’s at the highest risk of causing harm.

Twitter said it has removed over 8400 misleading tweets and has been keeping an eye on 11.5 million accounts ever since it has introduced the COVID-19 guidelines.

 

Twitter in a blog post said, “We believe the strike system will help to educate the public on our policies and further reduce the spread of potentially harmful and misleading information on Twitter,”

“Particularly for repeated moderate and high-severity violations of our rules”.

Twitter users will be alerted when a tweet is labelled misleading or needs to be removed for breach of the platform’s rules to make a strike, according to the company.

The second and third strikes will result in a violation account being blocked for 12 hours.

With the fourth violation, the account will be removed for seven days. A fifth strike will permanently suspend the accounts, Twitter said.

The strike system is similar to what Twitter applies to election-related misinformation. Former US president, Donald Trump’s account was permanently banned by the platform for repeated violations, including the language that the platform said could incite violence and question the integrity of the voting process.

Vaccination campaigns Covid-19 are taking place in many countries with a view to keeping people healthy and returning to pre-pandemic lifestyles.

YouTube and Facebook are among the online platforms that have actively taken steps to combat the spread of pandemic and vaccine lies.