#ReleaseTheTweets
Twitter has only recently started to crack down on misinformation about COVID-19/Coronavirus. They're not banning people who say "Chinese Virus," because then they'd have to ban the president and every MAGA-hat too and they'd be shocked by the revenue drop.
Generally, Twitter has started blocking content around miracle cures, home remedies, or things that fly in the face of public health officials. You might be sharing ironic or joke tweets or something, and the machine learning algorithm thought they were serious.... OR, thought even joking about something that's against public health concerns shouldn't be allowed.
Chances are a handful of your tweets are similar to the examples here, even if ironic or joking:
- Denial of global or local health authority recommendations to decrease someone's likelihood of exposure to COVID-19 with the intent to influence people into acting against recommended guidance, such as: "social distancing is not effective", or actively encouraging people to not socially distance themselves in areas known to be impacted by COVID-19.
- Description of treatments or protective measures which are not immediately harmful but are known to be ineffective, are not applicable to the COVID-19 context, or are being shared with the intent to mislead others, even if made in jest, such as "coronavirus is not heat-resistant - walking outside is enough to disinfect you" or "use aromatherapy and essential oils to prevent COVID-19."
- Description of harmful treatments or protection measures which are known to be ineffective, do not apply to COVID-19, or are being shared out of context to mislead people, even if made in jest, such as "drinking bleach and ingesting colloidal silver will cure COVID-19."
- Denial of established scientific facts about transmission during the incubation period or transmission guidance from global and local health authorities, such as "COVID-19 does not infect children because we haven't seen any cases of children being sick."
- Specific claims around COVID-19 information that intends to manipulate people into certain behavior for the gain of a third party with a call to action within the claim, such as "coronavirus is a fraud and not real - go out and patronize your local bar!!" or "the news about washing your hands is propaganda for soap companies, stop washing your hands" or "ignore news about COVID-19, it's just an attempt to destroy capitalism by crashing the stock market."
- Specific and unverified claims that incite people to action and cause widespread panic, social unrest or large-scale disorder, such as "The National Guard just announced that no more shipments of food will be arriving for 2 months - run to the grocery store ASAP and buy everything!"
- Specific and unverified claims made by people impersonating a government or health official or organization such as a parody account of an Italian health official stating that the country's quarantine is over.
- Propagating false or misleading information around COVID-19 diagnostic criteria or procedures such as "if you can hold your breath for 10 seconds, you do not have coronavirus."
- False or misleading claims on how to differentiate between COVID-19 and a different disease, and if that information attempts to definitively diagnose someone, such as "if you have a wet cough, it's not coronavirus - but a dry cough is" or "you'll feel like you're drowning in snot if you have coronavirus - it's not a normal runny nose."
- Claims that specific groups, nationalities are never susceptible to COVID-19, such as "people with dark skin are immune to COVID-19 due to melanin production" or "reading the Quran will make an individual immune to COVID-19."
- Claims that specific groups, nationalities are more susceptible to COVID-19, such as "avoid businesses owned by Chinese people as they are more likely to have COVID-19."
I think you should just hold off on posting to twitter until the 'shadowban' lifts.
There is a hypocrisy here that Twitter will ban this type of content, but won't ban... like large white supremacist accounts sometimes, or doesn't crack down on "GOOP" or other pseudoscience or w/e. But we shouldn't let their past inaction block them from doing the right thing here.
