Twitter said it ended a policy of labeling posts that contained misinformation about COVID-19 and providing supplemental corrective information.
"Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy," the company stated on a website about company transparency.
Twitter began rolling out strategies to police COVID-19 misinformation in 2020. The policy toolkit included labels of COVID-19 misinformation, providing additional context or information to posts about COVID-19, removal of false or misleading claims, and the challenging or suspension of user accounts.
By January 2021, Twitter said it had removed 8,493 tweets and challenged 11.5 million accounts under the COVID-19 misinformation guidelines, which are detailed here.
The halting of managing COVID-19 misinformation is in line with owner Elon Musk's mission to overhaul the social media network as a destination for "free speech." Mr. Musk has said that "amnesty" for Twitter users whose accounts were suspended "provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam" will begin the week of Nov. 28.
"This is a battle for the future of civilization," Mr. Musk tweeted Nov. 28. "If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead."