Twitter is no longer enforcing its Covid misinformation policy

[highplainsdem]

Source: CNN

Twitter said it will no longer enforce its longstanding Covid misinformation policy, yet another sign of how Elon Musk plans to transform the social media company he bought a month ago.

-snip-

Between January 2020 and September 2022, Twitter suspended more than 11,000 accounts for breaking Covid misinformation rules and removed almost 100,000 pieces of content that violated those rules, according to statistics published by Twitter. The policy received acclaim from medical professionals: In an advisory to technology platforms, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy cited Twitter’s rules as an example of what companies should do to combat misinformation.

Twitter did not appear to formally announce the rule change. Instead, some Twitter users Monday night spotted a note added to the page on Twitter’s website that outlines its Covid policy.

“Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy,” the note read.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/29/tech/twitter-covid-misinformation-policy/index.html

---

The article goes on to describe how Musk "went off script to rail against Covid policies" at a Tesla earnings call in 2020, and how in September 2020 he'd told a journalist he wouldn't get vaccinated: "I’m not at risk for Covid, nor are my kids.” When the journalist pointed out that many more people would die if they didn't get vaccinated, his response was: "Everybody dies."

And now he'll make Twitter a RWNJ's dream, Covid Misinformation Central.

The first thing I noticed checking Twitter this morning was RWers celebrating Musk allowing Covid misinformation. Idiots.

[C_U_L8R]

1. What are the odds

that Twitter will be kicked out of the Apple Store before the week's end?

I also suspect Musk is angling to sue Apple and Google and anyone else in desperate Trump fashion.

[Yavin4]

33. You don't need a "right" to sue.

You can bring a lawsuit against anyone at any time. It's up to the courts to take it seriously or not.

As the Jerky Boys once said, "Sue Everyone".

[NullTuples]

39. Why? Because grandstanding is part of who he is.

Also, he's probably seen that it works for Republicans to start lawsuits and file bills that have no chance of passing.

[d_r]

2. It is interesting to me

to see what will be the tipping point for the last holdouts to get off there.

[moreland01]

41. I wondered the same thing about TFG supporters

apparently, there is no tipping point. Some just choose to go down with the ship. Se la vi.

[d_r]

48. sunk cost nt

[Botany]

3. Repost Thanx to DUer TigressDem / Death Rate for UNVACCINATED age 50+ is through the roof.

Last edited Wed Nov 30, 2022, 04:04 PM - Edit history (1)

Repost Thanx to DUer TigressDem / Death Rate for UNVACCINATED age 50+ is through the roof.
Death Rate for UNVACCINATED age 50+ is through the roof. VAXXED are near the floor. LINK

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status?country=~50%2B


*****
My thoughts ... fine let 'em die. Matter of fact I want more of them to die. These dumb ass anti vax idiots
are being told by the talking heads @ Fox that they are really "Free Dumb Fighters" but to get into the News
Corp (fox news) you need to be vaccinated. The same goes for DeSantis, Abbott, Noem, and others who are
knowingly trying to spread the disease for some kind of sick Machiavellian reason. And now Musk is in on this
game too?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. Not just deaths, but Long Covid would be increasing too, due to micro-vascular issues

(My informed speculation, have not seen Long Covid trend stats)

[progree]

27. My thought - near the floor is not zero - for age 65+ for example, its 54 per 100,000 per year

for primary + 2 boosters, so it's not trivial. (Even though it is 1/10.3 = 9.7% the unvaxxed rate). Using the latest week available on your excellent link: 9/3/22, and changing the age group to 65+.

By comparison, the motor vehicle death rate of the age 70+ population is 12 per 100,000 per year in 2020. (in 2019: 14.3)
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/older-people

So those "smartest people in the room" types that constantly console us that we're perfectly safe and everything is fine if we are keeping up with our boosters are, well, right if one considers 4.5 times the auto crash fatality rate to be perfectly fine

(recognizing that i'm comparing age 65+ vax+boosters to age 70+ auto fatality rates. Scrolling down, I see the age 65-69 fatality rate is 11.4 per 100,000 per year, so if I did the weighted-average-by-population-math, I'd get something like a 11.7 rate for the age 65+ population. If so, that makes the primary+2 booster fatality rate of the 65+ age group 54/11.7 = 4.6 times that of auto fatality rate of the 65+ age group. For the unvaxxed, Covid death rate is 4.6*10.3 = 47 times the auto fatality rate).

At 4.6X the auto fatality rate, I don't feel perfectly safe. But I'll admit I'm a tentative driver, not a "real man" driver like I am supposed to be.

Back to covid -- I don't want the hospitalization risk and the long covid risk either.

As a progressive, I don't want to be responsible for spreading the damn thing around or aiding in the development of new mutations. But I realize that's a silly "woke" personality glitch of mine. And I don't want to blow off the risk to the unvaxxed immunocompromised who are following sound medical advice and wish them all dead.

Age 65+ https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status?country=~65%2B

Weekly death rate per 100,000 for age 65+ in the week of 9/3/22
Unvaxxed: 10.7,   Primary Vaxxed only: 2.02,   Primary vax + 1 booster: 2.6,   primary vax + 2 boosters: 1.04
1.04 per week is 54 per year.

[Itchinjim]

4. And now Musk is going to be responsible for many deaths.

I'm getting very tired of snotty toddlers with billions of dollars throwing temper tantrums.

[FBaggins]

18. A bit of a stretch

The vaccines have been out for two years now. Anyone who is still unvaccinated isn’t making that decision based on something on Twitter today.

I would think that there are vanishingly few people in the US who are unvaccinated and haven’t caught the virus (likely more than once).

[Mr. Sparkle]

5. Its time to remove twitter from the apple and google app stores

its turning into a right wing disinformation cesspool

[OneCrazyDiamond]

43. Truth Social and Facebook too.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. It's a war of attrition. They are the attrition. Have at it, guys. /nt

[liberalgunwilltravel]

7. Apple and Google Can

Apple and Google can "burn" Twitter to the ground. I hope they do it sooner rather than later. As soon as I can get an F150 Lightening, my Model 3 is gone, unless when Twitter crashes and burns, Mollusk is forced to sell Tesla to responsible owners. It's the engineers that made Teslas what they are, not Mollusk.

[LastDemocratInSC]

10. And Musk acquired Tesla by a hostile takeover, similar to the Twitter deal.

And then he got rid of the original engineers and managers that created Tesla. Sound familiar?

[liberalgunwilltravel]

11. Yep

Mollusk=POS.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. That worked, because cars are utile tech. Twitter is social first, tech only as a platform

You can measure a car's performance on 0-60 or range and such.

Social spaces are much more difficult to assess by engineering measurements, essentially not. They are much more fragile because of issues like trust and ambience and community. Egoloon has shattered those for Twitter and shows no signs of understanding that he is blowing up the building (breaking social contract) while tinkering with the carpeting on the first floor (tech platform and checkmarks).

Rather like tRump spending an entire morning (as he did) selecting drapes for his casino while his lawyers were folding it in bankruptcy court.

[JohnSJ]

28. Exactly. Tesla isn't pushing lies, hate, and misinformation

[ZonkerHarris]

36. yet

[JohnSJ]

38. As an automobile company it isn't. However, the behavior, and political ideology of Tesla's owner,

is why I will personally NEVER buy a car, solar panel or from anything that is associated with that jackass

[Carlitos Brigante]

44. Just wait until they unveil the Tesla "Anti-Woke Model 69" which only runs on leaded fuel and

the seats are 100% genuine orphaned baby seal.

[JohnSJ]

45. Lol

[Chakaconcarne]

8. So the reasons for the twitter takeover are becoming more clear.

Who needs advertisers..... The new propaganda loud speaker for sale to the highest bidders.

[cstanleytech]

9. Another reason I am glad I closed my Twitter account.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Short-sighted people w 90 day event horizons have no wisdom. "But Twitter numbers are up!"

Fascists and racists are rushing to sign up multiple accounts and bots. Mollusk's manufactured drama is attracting attention, but decent people are leaving as are decent advertisers.

[CapnSteve]

15. mastodon.social

That is all.

Have a great day DU!

[LiberalLovinLug]

46. It would be helpful if they didn't have such an awkward name

And if you just tell someone, you probably have to spell it too.

And what is a mastodon post called? A mast?

The word tweet has become so much of our lexicon now, like google, and xerox before them. I would say that one way to move it all over to mastodon would be to still use the word "tweet" as a post, much like we adopt "google it" no matter what search engine you use.

[sarcasmo]

16. Twitter is turning into 4chan.

[Stuart G]

17. Thanks For Posting highplainsdem. One statement could cause Musk to go broke...It's below:

The article goes on to describe how Musk "went off script to rail against Covid policies" at a Tesla earnings call in 2020, and how in September 2020 he'd told a journalist he wouldn't get vaccinated: "I’m not at risk for Covid, nor are my kids.” When the journalist pointed out that many more people would die if they didn't get vaccinated, his response was: "Everybody dies."

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If this is true, and can be verified, then Musk will go bankrupt and lose all his money. Elon Musk thinks he is "So Smart"
that he can say, "Anything At All."

The Powers that Be, (in charge of saying things) have said, "Elon, You Are Not That Smart." ...........and....
"We Will Show You By Bankrupting You and Removing All Your Money...Yes, We Said ..."ALL YOUR MONEY"

[Wednesdays]

24. And he is just living on borrowed time

if it's true he never got the vaccine.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

19. Who do you follow to see all that?

I changed nothing to my feed when Idiot Manchild took over, and apart from not seeing people who have left, my feed is the same - no TFG, no Kanye, no anti-vaxxers. Just left-wing commentary and a few authors (most of book Twitter has gone to Hive).

[aggiesal]

21. Next he'll say that it's OK to yell fire in a crowded theater. ...

because that's free speech.

[Javaman]

22. once apple deplatforms twitter, it's dead.nt

[Orrex]

23. Number of billionaires that the world needs: zero

[hibbing]

25. Can we just not use LIE anymore in this country? "Misinformation" and other euhphamisms, blah! n/t

[JohnSJ]

26. I have to wonder why anyone would still support a platform that allows hate, lies, and

misinformation to flourish?

Isn't that the same thing as supporting such a platform?

[IronLionZion]

29. Darwin awards might remove some of those idiots from our society

which is good for the US. It may have helped us in some close elections.

But since Twitter is global I hope it doesn't keep too many folks from getting vaccinated in other countries.

[Lithos]

30. Just call it Twit-chan

for all of the accuracy and tolerance it now has.

[SouthernDem4ever]

31. Glad I never signed up for twatter

Pretty soon it won't be worth even to reference.

[Bengus81]

32. Who cares,it's mostly all Republicans that drink the kool-aid on the anti-vax nonsense

Nearly 5,000 of those dumb asses have died in Kansas since May 2021. Anyone in Kansas could have been fully vaccinated by that date. I've now had four shots,most of them have never had any but....they're owning the Libs!!

[orangecrush]

34. That's it for me.

Closing my Twitter account

RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

So should you.

DONE!

CLOSED ACCOUNT

DELETED APP

FUCK YOU MUSK!

Twitter is now Parlor.

[BlueIdaho]

35. What is this Tweeter

Of which you speak?

[Kennah]

37. That's why Target was sold out of bleach

[turbinetree]

40. So his he going to try and beat the orange hair clown bleach injection guy....

he, after all has over 900,000 deaths on his watch......

[ificandream]

42. It's so ridiculous that Repukes have the evidence in front of them on Covid and choose to ignore it.

The stupidity there can't be wiped away.

[Beartracks]

47. Elon certainly seems hellbent on making Twitter utterly useless.

[Initech]

49. What could go wrong?

[Stuart G]

50. Musk is too stupid to know he is , "Very Stupid" and Musk will find out only

and repeat ..."ONLY WHEN HE GOES BANKRUPT AND GOES BROKE"

only then will he know that he made a stupid decision in buying twitter. ...As advertisers go, Musk sinks lower and
lower. How far will he go? It ain't up to me, we will all see.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

51. of course.