People who repeatedly post wrong information about the COVID-19 vaccine on Twitter will be suspended, it has been announced.
The micro-blogging site has launched a new strike policy which will see repeat offenders facing a permanent ban should they receive five strikes or more.
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In a blog post that directly relates to COVID-19, Twitter said: “We are also introducing a strike system that determines when further enforcement action is necessary.
“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 announced in December that it would be clamping down on fake news spread about the vaccine. Since the platform has introduced its new COVID-19 guidance, it has removed more than 8,400 Tweets and challenged 11.5 million accounts worldwide.
The site’s terms and conditions now state that people “may not use Twitter’s services to share false or misleading information about COVID-19 which may lead to harm”.
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The site confirmed that “severe or repeated violations of this policy, accounts will be permanently suspended”.
Twitter will also be labelling published content which it deems a violation of its policy and has vowed to continue policing the platform.
It said: “As health authorities deepen their understanding of COVID-19 and vaccination programs around the world, we will continue to amplify the most current, up-to-date, and authoritative information.
“We are all in this together, and we will continue to update you on our progress as we strive to play our part to protect the public conversation at this critical time.”
