Twitter has revamped its policy on COVID-19 misinformation, establishing new rules that target false claims about vaccines and lead to flagged tweets, account locks and permanent suspensions.
Starting March 1, Twitter will begin labeling tweets that contain misleading information about COVID-19 vaccines. It said labels will first be applied by staff, and their decisions on which tweets violate Twitter rules will train automated tools that will later be used to proactively label similar content. Labels will link to official public health information or Twitter's rules.
The media giant also said it is establishing a strike system, in which users who violate Twitter rules five or more times will have their account permanently suspended. The first strike does not result in any account-level action, the second and third strikes result in a 12-hour account lock and the fourth strike results in a 7-day account lock.
Twitter said it has removed more than 8,400 tweets and challenged 11.5 million accounts since it introduced its COVID-19 guidance.