Here’s what now gets you banned on Twitter and Facebook

From The Ostrich Head

WARNING: some of my readers had their Twitter accounts suspended after tweeting my story Tennessee COVID mortality triples as it leads the US in vaccinations. This was totally based on publicly available unbiased data with no opinion added. However…

Even if you read Twitter’s policy on COVID, you would be forgiven for not understanding it. Either the people at Twitter don’t understand grammar or they are being deliberately ambiguous.

Twitter now bans tweets that

advance harmful false or misleading narratives about COVID-19 vaccinations

Twitter Vaccine Policy

You could be forgiven for thinking there should be a comma after “harmful.” The Wrap corrected Twitter’s grammar with a comma, while Reuters corrected it to harmfully.

Depending on how you read it, it could mean “harmfully false” or “harmful to vaccines.” We can probably guess which way it is interpreted based on the additional policies they’ve just added.

In addition to the above, Twitter now removes false or misleading information about:

– The prevalence of the virus or the disease, such as information pertaining to test results, hospitalizations, or mortality rates;

– Research findings (such as misrepresentations of or unsubstantiated conclusions about statistical data) used to advance a specific narrative that diminishes the significance of the disease; 

Twitter Medical Misinformation Policy

Misinformation seems to include the factual tripling of Tennessee COVID mortality rates. Research findings that diminish the significance of the disease no doubt include determining from statistics on the CDC website that the disease is about as dangerous as living for 40 days.

That’s just Twitter. Facebook is even more ridiculous, banning

Claims that COVID-19 can be transmitted from anything other than human-to-human transmission

Facebook COVID-19 Policies

Such as reported in the New York Times: Snow Leopards get coronavirus or the widely reported story of minks contracting the virus and passing it on to people and then gaining herd immunity without a vaccine.

Funny how Facebook missed that one.

The most frightening change, though is Facebook’s total ban one side of the discussion. What’s banned now is:

Content calling to action, advocating, or promoting that others not get the COVID-19 vaccine

Facebook policy

Just voicing an opinion, such as “I recommend you don’t get the COVID-19 vaccine if you are allergic to PEG or polysorbate” can get you banned. That’s a CDC recommendation by the way.

The absurdities continue. You can also get banned for claims that

• Vaccines are dangerous, toxic, or cause autism
• COVID-19 is no more dangerous to people than the common flu or cold
• getting a flu shot or flu vaccine is more likely to kill you than COVID-19
• the number of COVID-19 caused deaths are much lower than the official figure (requires additional information and/or context)

This is why I’m selective about what I post to Facebook. Just in case some vaccines are dangerous, COVID-19 is no more dangerous to most people than the common flu, and the number of COVID-19 deaths are much lower than the official figure.

I suggest you keep your Facebook posts and tweets to pictures of your cat like any good obedient citizen should.

The Ostrich Head