Tag: twitter

Twitter Will Enforce a ‘Strike System’ Against Coronavirus Vaccine ‘Misinformation’

Social media giant Twitter announced this week that it will begin labeling tweets that share “misleading information” about the coronavirus vaccine and will implement a strike system for repeat offenders of the “misinformation policy.”

The Verge reports that Twitter announced on Monday that it will begin labeling tweets that share what the company decides is misleading information about coronavirus vaccines. The labels will link to relevant information from government bodies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a system allowing for five strikes will be implemented for users that repeatedly violate its misinformation policies.

Repeated violations of the policies could lead to Twitter locking or permanently suspending accounts. The new labels are similar to Facebook’s anti-misinformation banners which were launched as part of Facebook’s attempts to curb what it considers coronavirus misinformation last December.

Twitter plans to apply the new labels through a combination of human and automated review systems and will begin the rollout with English language content first. The criteria for labeling coronavirus posts have been outlined in Twitter’s misleading information policy but overall Twitter is focusing on five categories of false or misleading information, according to the Verge:

Misinformation about the nature of the virus
Misinformation about the efficacy of treatments and preventive measures
Misinformation about regulations, restrictions, and exemptions in association with health advisories
Misinformation about the prevalence of the virus and the risk of infection or death
Misleading affiliations (for example, claiming to be a doctor or public health official)

Labels will also play a major part in the new strike system. Twitter has stated that a tweet deemed harmful by the company counts as one strike. A tweet that adds to a larger conspiracy connected to the virus that Twitter deems dangerous, such as the idea that vaccines include microchips to track people, may also be deleted by the platform.

Keep reading

Twitter sues Texas AG to avoid investigation into its censorship practices

On Monday, Twitter filed a complaint in court against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who launched an investigation into the platform’s content censorship policies. Twitter argues that Paxton launched the investigation in retaliation to the de-platforming of former president Trump, which the company ironically claims is an abuse of power.

We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here.

“Twitter seeks to stop AG Paxton from unlawfully abusing his authority as the highest law-enforcement officer of the State of Texas to intimidate, harass, and target Twitter in retaliation for Twitter’s exercise of its First Amendment rights,” the company wrote in the court filing.

Following the suspension of Trump’s accounts on most mainstream social media platforms after the Jan 6 riot, Paxton launched an investigation into the moderation policies at Twitter, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and Amazon.

Keep reading

CONFLICT: Fauci’s Daughter Is A Software Engineer At Twitter, A Company Which Suspends People For Disagreeing With Her Father.

While Dr. Anthony Fauci is spearheading the nation’s COVID-19 response, his daughter is working for the social media platform Twitter.

In addition to readily censoring conservatives, the social media platform has also cracked down on users sharing COVID-19 “misinformation.”

Amidst the heavy-handed censorship, Alison Fauci has been working at the company since graduating in 2014, The National Pulse can reveal.

“She works as a software engineer and, according to her LinkedIn profile, was focused on developing “ad formats for the Twitter for Android app.” (Her LinkedIn profile has since been made private or deleted),” Heavy magazine summarizes.

Alison Fauci maintains a profile on Twitter’s official blog, with one entry from November 2017 entitled “Introducing Serial: improved data serialization on Android.”

“Smooth timeline scrolling on the Twitter for Android app is important for the user experience, and we’re always looking for ways to improve it. With some profiling, we discovered that serializing and deserializing data to and from the database using standard Android Externalizable classes was taking around 15% of the UI thread time,” the blog post begins.

The position at the social media company, however, appears to represent a conflict of interest given the platform’s decision to censor COVID-19 information that goes against the diktats of her father – who notoriously insisted there was “no reason” to wear a mask.

In early March, Twitter decided to broadly ban any tweet that “could place people at a higher risk of transmitting COVID-19.”

Primarily, the platform vowed to crack down on tweets that represent a “denial of expert guidance.”

“Encouragement to use fake or ineffective treatments, preventions, and diagnostic techniques” and “misleading content purporting to be from experts or authorities” were other categories targeted by the social media platform.

And the platform has used its powers to censor users who defy the recommendations of Alison Fauci’s father.

Keep reading

Twitter ignored Congressional requests for data on the extent of its censorship

Twitter failed to respond to a letter by Republican Reps. Jim Jordan from Ohio, and Ken Buck from Colorado, who requested documentation and data to aid a Congressional investigation by the House Judiciary Committee. The request was first made in July 2020.

In the letter, the Republican House representatives requested Twitter provide the House Judiciary Committee with documentation and data related to several issues, including the platform’s content moderation policies, its assertion that President Trump’s warnings to protesters violated its policies (last summer Trump warned rioters they would face violence from the National Guard), and its decision to fact check the then-President’s tweets.

In the recent letter, dated March 4, the Republican Reps claim that the request was first sent last July. Twitter did not provide the requested information then, and is yet to respond to the most recent letter.

Keep reading

Twitter Will Enforce a ‘Strike System’ Against Coronavirus Vaccine ‘Misinformation’

Social media giant Twitter announced this week that it will begin labeling tweets that share “misleading information” about the coronavirus vaccine and will implement a strike system for repeat offenders of the “misinformation policy.”

The Verge reports that Twitter announced on Monday that it will begin labeling tweets that share what the company decides is misleading information about coronavirus vaccines. The labels will link to relevant information from government bodies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a system allowing for five strikes will be implemented for users that repeatedly violate its misinformation policies.

Repeated violations of the policies could lead to Twitter locking or permanently suspending accounts. The new labels are similar to Facebook’s anti-misinformation banners which were launched as part of Facebook’s attempts to curb what it considers coronavirus misinformation last December.

Keep reading

Twitter Says Lincoln Project Cofounder John Weaver Didn’t Violate Rules on Unwanted Sexual Advances

Twitter says that disgraced Lincoln Project cofounder John Weaver did not violate its rules on unwanted sexual advances when he allegedly used the platform’s direct messaging system to sexually proposition young men.

Twitter’s rules against unwanted sexual advances prohibit:

  • unwanted sexual discussion of someone’s body
  • solicitation of sexual act; and
  • any other content that otherwise sexualizes an individual without their consent.

A Twitter spokesman told Breitbart News that the platform had looked into the matter and found no violations of its policies.

Over twenty young men have said John Weaver, who still has an active account on the platform, used Twitter’s direct messages feature to send them unwanted sexual advances.

Many screenshots of these direct messages have been published. One of the alleged victims was 14 years old, according to the New York Times.

Keep reading