The Twitter police are back on patrol. As the coronavirus vaccine is rolled out around the world, Twitter has taken it upon itself to remove claims that vaccines intentionally cause harm or are unnecessary. The social media platform also plans to remove unnecessary and debunked conspiracy theories about the adverse effects of vaccines.
The Twitter overlords aren’t just deciding which information on vaccines they deem worthy of deletion, the company also announced that in 2021 they may place labels or warnings on tweets that push “unsubstantiated rumors” or “disputed claims” about the vaccine. The labels will direct Twitter users to authoritative public health information.
In a blog post, Twitter said, “In the context of a global pandemic, vaccine misinformation presents a significant and growing public health challenge. Starting next week, we will prioritize the removal of the most harmful misleading information, and during the coming weeks, begin to label Tweets that contain potentially misleading information about the vaccines.”
Facebook also recently announced its plans to remove misinformation about the coronavirus vaccines. The social media platforms had previously placed warnings and censored content in the lead-up to the election. The first major story that received widespread censorship from Twitter and Facebook centered around the Hunter Biden New York Post stories that have since proved to be true, which begs the question: As Twitter and Facebook police information that is released to the public, who polices Twitter and Facebook?
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