Twitter has said it will crack down on accounts that repeatedly publish misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines.
The social media platform said it would not hesitate to permanently suspend those who post misleading misleading information about the pandemic and the various vaccines that were created to combat it and that they will tag tweets to better inform users about it.
Similar to the line they took with former President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims about election fraud following his loss in the 2020 US presidential election
They will use a combination of automated and human reviewers to identify and label fake posts about coronavirus vaccines.
Those who choose to post dubious information several times may be on the line for an initial seven-day ban, but those who receive five or more “strikes” will be removed from the social media platform.
In a press release, they wrote: “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 authorized information.”
This latest move follows their announcement in December last year that misinformation about vaccines will be removed from the platform.
There is an upward trend in growing vaccine skepticism worldwide, with more than 15% of Americans saying they “certainly don’t” receive one of three vaccines offered to them in a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
To date, the US has administered almost 77 doses of Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech vaccines that have been approved, and a third single-dose jab from Johnson & Johnson was approved on Saturday.
The president’s chief medical officer, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said up to 90 percent of the U.S. population must be vaccinated for herd immunity.
This means that there is a long way to go, and the number of people who intend to refuse a jab is increasing.
This is probably why Twitter decided to intervene to remove some misleading information that could influence people’s opinions online.
The most comprehensive study in the UK showed that 72 per cent of people are willing to be vaccinated, 16 per cent are still very insecure and 12 per cent are reluctant to receive vaccinations.
The University of Oxford asked 5,114 people how they would feel about getting a Covid-19 vaccine from the NHS, and the results were published in the journal Psychological Medicine.