Elon Musk is at it again, and this time, he’s addressing the freedom of speech notion he toted from before he took over Twitter. In one of his latest acts, he’s addressing the policy that governs misinformation about COVID. Not only is it now allowed, but he’s reinstating thousands of accounts that were suspended due to sharing incorrect news about the pandemic before.
This COVID misinformation policy came into being in 2020 when the pandemic struck the planet. There were so many people spreading posts on Twitter about the virus being a scam or a government plot to take over the world, the platform decided to take action. If you issued Tweets that were misleading, your account was suspended.
Enter Elon Musk and his life-long dream to promote free speech. If you head to the policy page now, it says the following:
“Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy.”
Not only can you now happily spread misleading information on COVID, but Musk is busy restoring thousands of Twitter accounts that were suspended. There are some that have over a million followers. I’m sure the owners of those accounts will be glad they don’t have to fight to get all those followers back again.
In one of our recent articles, we mentioned that Apple wants to divorce Twitter due to Musk’s intentions to promote freedom of speech. I wonder what they think about this latest move. After cleaning Twitter headquarters from almost half the staff, like Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, he’s making sure that everyone can say what they want.
What fascinates me is that Musk’s double standards are already starting to show. He wants freedom of speech but is culling the platform of porn-related accounts and content. Not only that, but he’s quickly cleaning out parody accounts. Why? Because his massive fanbase wants it that way.
Is it just me, or is Meta playing Monkey See, Monkey Do? It wasn’t long after Twitter cut its workforce in half when the Facebook company did the same thing. It looks like Meta is also investigating its COVID-related policies. Perhaps Zuckerberg thinks Musk is a genius and is following his example?
