Twitter Updates Its Safety Policy Amid The Coronavirus Outbreak

In this era of the internet and the fastest growing social platforms, it is very easy to reach people and communities. But at the same time, it has also become easy to spread false news and rumors. Currently, novel coronavirus is spreading in a very fast manner and so are the rumors and false news. This fake news may turn lethal for those who believe them.  To control the spread of any misinformation and the ongoing pandemic COVID-19 outbreak, twitter has taken extra precautions to wipe out tweets from twitter which are false and may cause chaos among people. It is mostly using auto flagging and machine learning for the same.

On March 18, Twitter updated its safety policy which allows them to restrict the tweets which may put people at higher risk of spreading COVID-19. The new safety policy bans tweets related to fake and nonsense corona treatments, various prevention techniques that are not given by any health authorities. Also, Twitter is banning the misinformation by the people who have fake accounts and pretending to health experts on this microblogging site. Twitter has twitted from its official account that its new safety policy requires people to delete tweets related to all the above-mentioned points.

Misleading tweets will stay hidden

If a user tries to violate this policy, he/she will be notified via email to remove that tweet or put an appeal. In this entire notice period for the user, the misinforming tweet will stay in hidden mode to keep people away from any kind of a half-truth. Twitter has specifically outlined that if any tweet says that social distancing is ineffective, that will be removed immediately. This platform is going to require users to remove misinforming tweets claiming to follow dangerous things like intaking bleach, cow-urine or visiting any temple to stay away from corona, (even if it is as a meme) as it may prove harmful if people take this into another context.

If twitter observes any activity on twitter that asks people to do against what health authorities like WHO has suggested, such tweets will be banned. If someone tweets saying that “Go out and have fun at the local bar”, it will be debarred immediately. A few politicians and public figures already faced a lot of criticism by netizens for giving wrong messages to their fan base and followers.

Panic tweets also restricted

Another kind of tweet that is not allowed is, which cause panic amongst people. For example, a few people pretending to doctors tweeted that “A wet cough is definitely Cancelled out chances of having corona but if you have a dry cough, you are corona positive”. Another example is “One sneeze means coronavirus”, etc. Such tweets may lead to panic attacks.

Twitter is also banning tweets that attack a particular race, nationality, and community. For example, “Eating at Chinese restaurant causes coronavirus outbreak” or “Black people cannot be affected by coronavirus” or “Coronavirus outbreak cannot affect Hindus” etc. Such tweets will not fly on this platform.

Twitter to delete misleading tweets automatically

Though Twitter has prepared a set of stringent rules for its platform, it will be difficult to enforce where people have less awareness about this pandemic. To overcome this, Twitter has put a content severity triage system to automatically delete content with the highest damage and risk. Using this, the tweets will be flagged by themselves. Previously, Twitter announced that it will rely mostly on the automation and machine learning part for sensitive content removal, but later it admitted that it can cause mistakes in a few cases such as relevant hashtags and images.

People need to support to fight against coronavirus outbreak

Usually, we never see such an aggressive approach by social media platforms, but right now the world is in the need of care. It’s a global health emergency where the economy, people and their physical, as well as mental health, is at risk. Any misinformation may lead to the spread of this virus which can cause another emergency of lack of resources. It is all over the news that, keeping the spread of coronavirus in mind, it is observed that the number of doctors, nurses, and specialists are being transferred to affected areas to facilitate the care. So, one lethal misinformation can cause a lot of trouble. So, stay rightly informed and follow authentic sources for all the precaution adversaries.

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