Twitter Covid-19 Report - August 2020 69160

As the global community faces the COVID-19 pandemic together, Twitter is helping people find
reliable information, connect with others, and follow what’s happening in real time.
Throughout these unprecedented times, Twitter has continued to adapt and update our policies
and enforcement, as well as increase transparency and share more data to ensure experts and
the public can better analyse how discussion around COVID-19 continues to evolve.
We have continued to maintain a public blog with updates: covid19.twitter.com
Below is an overview of the measures we have taken to protect the health of the public
conversation while ensuring we are a collaborative and open partner in endeavours to address
the challenging and changing online and offline issues society is facing.
This report contains information on policies, products, philanthropy activities and actions
undertaken up to 31 July 2020.
Table Of Contents:
Helping people find reliable information
Initiatives to promote authoritative content at EU and Member State level
COVID-19 search prompt
COVID-19 Event Page
5G search prompt
Domestic and gender-based violence prompt
#WearAMask Moment
Q&A on COVID-19 with health experts
Fact-checkers
Verification
#WashYourHands campaign
#StayAtHome campaign
#TogetherWeCan - mental health campaign
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Media literacy campaign
Twitter training for mental health organisations
Workshop on crisis response on Twitter
Ads For Good and other pro-bono advertising tools
Ads For Good granted to national and EU institutions
Ads for Good granted to nonprofit organisations
Promoted trends
Pre-rolls
Donations
Improving users’ awareness

Initiatives and tools to improve users’ awareness
Data Access
Policy update
Other measures to protect the public conversation
Labels
Impact of Twitters’ policies and initiatives
Manipulative Behaviour
Advertising on COVID-19
Violations of COVID-19 advertising policy
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Helping people find reliable information
Initiatives to promote authoritative content at EU and Member State level

Across Twitter, we are stepping up efforts to protect the public conversation, elevate sources of reliable
information and help people find accurate, authoritative information. We are doing so by building
partnerships, raising relief funds, and contributing pro-bono advertising products to support
governments and nonprofit organisations to ensure people are getting the right message from the right
source at the right time.

With a critical mass of expert organisations, official government and government representative
accounts, health professionals, and epidemiologists on our service, our goal is to elevate and amplify
authoritative health information.

The measures we have taken to promote reliable sources of information are as follows:

COVID-19 search prompt

We launched a dedicated search prompt feature to ensure that users are met with credible,
authoritative content at the top of their search experience. We have been consistently monitoring the
conversation on the service to make sure keywords — including common misspellings — generate the
search prompt. In order to roll out this feature, we have partnered with national public health authorities
and the World Health Organization (@WHO). The proactive search prompt is currently in place in 79
countries (of which 30 are in the EMEA region) and in 29 languages across all continents. You can find
more information about the prompts here.

In the EU, the prompt is active in: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France,
Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden. It is also available
in the United Kingdom. In Belgium and Finland, a bilingual prompt was created (see below).

Note: all countries in the EU were contacted and offered the opportunity to launch the prompt. This
opportunity still stands.
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COVID-19 Event Page
In over 30 countries, we launched 'Twitter Events Pages' that bring together the latest Tweets from a
number of authoritative and trustworthy government, media and civil society sources in local languages.
For example, in Belgium, the event page is available in French, Dutch, and English depending on the
user settings.

To date, over 160 million people have visited the COVID-19 curated pages, over two billion times.

5G search prompt
On May 6th we launched a search prompt with the UK government to respond to misinformation about
5G and COVID-19. The prompt states that the UK government has said that there is no evidence of a
link between 5G and COVID-19. The purpose is to direct users searching for information about 5G and
COVID-19 to authoritative sources of information, and to inform them that the UK government has found
no evidence of a link between the two.
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Domestic and gender-based violence prompt

In response to a surge in domestic and gender-based violence during the COVID-19 emergency, and
notably the lockdown phase, we introduced a dedicated prompt to help support victims of domestic
violence. The prompt, currently active in 17 countries worldwide, including Spain, Denmark, Sweden,
Ireland and the UK, in respective national languages, directs users who search for keywords associated
with gender-based violence to the hotlines of local organisations where they can seek help and/or to
NGOs that can provide the support they need. We are currently working to introduce this prompt in
additional EU countries.

#WearAMask Moment
We recently began efforts to elevate the conversation around masks with the first Moment focusing on
‘wearing a mask’ in English, Spanish and Portuguese. English Tweet here.

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Q&A on COVID-19 with health experts

On the occasion of World Health Day 2020, Twitter organised a Q&A in partnership with the WHO to
elevate authoritative information related to #COVID19. Our teams analysed 300+ million public Tweets
and 6 million questions related to the pandemic and provided answers to some of the most asked
questions. Twitter also organised a Q&A with the Director of the Centre for Coordination and Health
Emergencies of the Spanish Ministry of Health in March.

Fact-checkers
In Spain a Q&A was conducted in March with the fact checking organisation Maldita. Twitter also
supported Maldita and the German fact-checking organisation correctiv.org through pro-bono
advertising credit (see below).
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Verification
As part of our proactive work to verify Twitter accounts providing credible updates around #COVID-19,
we worked with global health authorities to identify expert accounts. As of 15 July 2020, we proactively
verified more than 2,480 Twitter accounts with established expertise on COVID-19.

#WashYourHands campaign
In partnership with the WHO, we launched a custom-made #WashYourHands emoji that can be
activated in 30 languages. Along with the emoji, the #SafeHandsHandsChallenge was launched to urge
people in a fun way to regularly wash their hands with soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub to
protect themselves from COVID-19. Here’s a Tweet featuring a video of WHO Director General Dr.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyeus showing how to properly wash one’s hands and inviting people all over
the world to do the same.

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#StayAtHome campaign
To stress the importance of people staying at home, we introduced a custom-made emoji that can be
activated through the hashtags #StayHome #StayAtHome #StayAtHomeSaveLives and
#HealthyAtHome. This emoji has been localised and is available in over 40 languages. A GIF was also
produced.

#TogetherWeCan - mental health campaign

In May we launched a global campaign to normalise honest conversations around the mental health
challenges people are currently facing due to COVID-19. In this context we partnered with Mental Health
Europe to run a Q&A on Twitter, providing advice on how to effectively cope with COVID-19 related
stress and anxiety and how to help others in doing so. Non-profit organisations working in the fields of
mental health, psychological support and suicide prevention as well as governments were also invited
to Tweet positive messages, tips and useful resources. The main messages were retweeted from the
Twitter accounts @NonProfits and @TwitterGov. European Commissioner Stella Kyriakides joined the
campaign. More information here.

Media literacy campaign

In April, we ran a media literacy campaign focused on COVID-19 in partnership with UNESCO and the
European Commission to help people build resilience and assess the information they see online.

Twitter training for mental health organisations

Following the rise in COVID-19-related stress and anxiety and the increase in mental health topics being
discussed on Twitter, we organised a training for organisations within the German umbrella organisation
for mental health “Aktionsbündnis Seelische Gesundheit” on May 20th 2020. More than 40
representatives from 26 different organisations across Germany participated in this training which
provided them with insights into using Twitter effectively for their communications and campaigns.
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Workshop on crisis response on Twitter

On 8th May 2020, we held a workshop on crisis response on Twitter for the European Emergency
Number Association (EENA) and their members (around 40 participants from all over Europe). EENA and
their network play a crucial role in disseminating key advice, good practices and emergency resources
related to COVID-19 for emergency services. The training enabled them to enhance the effectiveness of
their communication on the platform.

Ads For Good and other pro-bono advertising tools
In order to support national and international health institutions to disseminate key public health and
safety information around COVID-19, we offered Ads for Good grants, i.e. pro-bono advertising credit to
governments, and notably to their health ministries or agencies, as well as to the World Health
Organisation (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
At EU level we granted Ads for Good to the following countries: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany,
Italy, Spain. Ads for Good were offered to other EU countries as well but at this stage they have not
completed the procedure for the grant activation.
In addition to supporting national and international health organisations, we also granted Ads for Good
to support non-profit organisations working to counter the pandemic, promote mental health, fight
domestic and gender-based violence and debunk fake news. Ads for Good grants helped them amplify
their message and fundraising activities. Nonprofits supported through our Ads for Good programme
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include Mental Health Europe and MeeToo EP (EU), Croix Rouge Belgique and Red Cross Flanders
(Belgium), MIELI (Finland), Fondation Femmes, Research Institute Foundation and Croix Rouge
Française (France), SpunOut (Ireland), Italian Red Cross (Italy), Maldito bulo, Spanish Red Cross,Doctors
Without Borders Spain, Teléfono de la Esperanza, Pantallas Amigas (Spain) and ECPAT (Sweden) and to
fact checkers including correctiv.org (Germany) and Maldita (Spain). More details are provided in the
table below.
So far, we supported 126 organisations (24 governments and 102 non-profits) with Ads for Good across

39 countries.
In addition to Ads for Good, we supported several countries through other pro-bono advertising
products, namely promoted trends and pre-rolls. Promoted trends, one of Twitter’s highest visibility
products, are 24-hour high-impact takeovers of the Trends list on Twitter. They were run in France to
support the government’s #StayAtHome campaign and fight against domestic violence towards children
and women as well as in Spain in relation to the government’s #StayAtHome campaign and
#ChangeOfPhase campaign. Further information is available in the table below.

In the UK, we made free advertising space available on video clips/live broadcasts that our partners
upload. Sports, news and entertainment content made available by partners - which is normally
monetized through advertising before the content starts - was likely to increase during the COVID-19
emergency as more people were at home. Rather than making that 'pre-roll' space available to
advertisers, we made it available for free for COVID-19-related information. (Please see tables below).

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Ads For Good granted to national and EU institutions
Country Organisation Outcome/impact + link to Tweet/campaign
EU European Centre for Disease Thanks to the Ads for Good grant, the ECDC was able
Prevention and Control to amplify key and accurate data and information
related to COVID-19 to the benefit of citizens and
governments and to help EU countries in their response
to the pandemic.
Tweet here.
Denmark Danish Public Health Agency The Danish Health Authority covers a wide range of
areas of responsibility, including establishment of
patient safety, coordination and monitoring of health
promotion and disease prevention. The advertising
grant was used to inform the public about the latest
information around COVID-19.
Tweets here, here and here.
Finland Finnish Institute for Health and The National Institute for Health and Welfare is under
Welfare the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs. Their field of
activity includes promoting the well-being and health of
the Finnish population, preventing illness and social
problems, and developing social and health services.
The advertising grant was used to inform the public
about the latest information around COVID-19.
Tweets here and here.
France French Government The French Government’s main account was charged
with coordinating all communication about COVID-19
government measures around lockdown and citizen
safety. The grant enabled them to promote safety
messages more broadly and fight against
misinformation.
Tweets here, here, here, h
ere, here and here.
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Germany Germany Ministry of Health During the first days of the COVID outbreak, the
ministry of health and their agency reached out to us to
discuss appropriate measures during this time on
Twitter and social media in general. We identified two
main issues: (a) a significant amount of false
information on all social media platforms, (b) too much
information on too many channels.

We recognised that people needed the most important
information, the measures taken and advice on what to
do, provided in the shortest and most condensed way,
coming from the most reliable source to help save lives.

We needed to enable the Ministry of Health to connect
with as many interested people as possible on a
recurring basis and leverage Twitter users as a
multiplier by pushing the most accurate and useful
information to people.

We also looked to leverage Twitter's heart-to-remind
mechanics to inform people of the most important
information.

Results: 45k+ likes, 2k+ RT

Their landing page on COVID19 is showing up in the
German search prompt:
https://www.infektionsschutz.de/coronavirus/

Link here.
Italy Ministero della Salute Throughout the crisis, the Italian Ministry of Health
disseminated via their Twitter account crucial
COVID-19 related information, such as health and
security measures to respect and raised awareness of
relevant initiatives (e.g. for the elderly or concerning
psychological support). The Ads for Good grant
allowed the Ministry to amplify its messages and reach
a bigger audience, notably regarding serology testing.
Tweet here.
Spain Spanish Government The Spanish Government has been using the account
@SaludPublicaEs to coordinate all communication
around Covid-19, including government measures
around lockdown, citizen safety and health
recommendations.

We provided two exceptional Promoted Trends due to
the emergency state that enabled them to promote
safety messages to Spanish citizens. These trends
were used to highlight the conversation around
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COVID-19.

We also ran a Twitter Q&A with @SaludPublicaEs on
Wednesday, March 11th. Fernando Simón, the Spanish
Government spokesperson for COVID-19, went live to
respond to Twitter users and answer questions around
COVID-19 and lockdown measures contributing to fight
misinformation and elevating messages from
international health organizations.

Ads for Good granted to nonprofit organisations
Country Organisation Outcome/impact + link to tweet/campaign
EU Mental Health Europe The Ads for Good grant to Mental Health Europe (MHE)
is part of our mental health campaign during the
COVID-19 crisis (see above).

Through Ads for Good, MHE was able to respond to the
rise of COVID-19-related stress and anxiety by raising
awareness of positive mental health and helping
increase resilience, solidarity, positivity and a sense of
togetherness. In this context, MHE ran a successful Q&A
and promoted useful resources and advice on mental
health. The hashtags used were #TogetherWeCan and
#EUMentalHealthWeek
Tweet here.

Me Too Europe The #MeToo EP campaign looked into and raised
awareness of new forms of sexual harassment online
during the COVID-19 crisis and advocated for stronger
measures to protect women.
Tweet here.

Belgium Croix Rouge Belgique The advertising grant was used to amplify the reach of
advice for citizens to protect themselves and stay safe,
to raise awareness of the work of the Red Cross in the
field (e.g. with testimonials) and to raise financial support
to help the Red Cross continue to carry out their work
(some Tweets included links or led to donation forms).
Tweet here.
Red Cross Flanders The Ads for Good was used to raise awareness of the
security and health measures in place to fight
COVID-19.
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Finland MIELI MIELI is a Finnish organisation whose mission is to
promote mental health and provide support in crisis
situations. During the pandemic and the subsequent
lockdown, many people faced mental health challenges.
MIELI used the advertising credit to promote their crisis
support services.
Tweet here and here.
France Croix Rouge Française The French Red Cross played an important part in the
fight against misinformation about the virus during the
lockdown and provided guidance for isolated citizens
and people in need.

Fondation Femmes Fondation des Femmes is an NGO which directs female

victims of violence towards different other NGOs based
on the particular problems women are facing. During the
pandemic, domestic violences towards women
increased dramatically. Fondation des Femmes
participated in the promotion of preventive messages by
promoting actions from associations it supports.
Research Institute foundation - Institut Pasteur is a research Institute Foundation whose

Institut Pasteur mission is to contribute to the prevention and treatment
of diseases, primarily infectious diseases, through
research, teaching and public health actions.

During the pandemic, Institut Pasteur was deeply
involved in preventing the dissemination of the virus and
created an algorithm with the Health Ministry to advise
citizens who believed they had the virus:
https://maladiecoronavirus.fr/ They also helped fight
against misinformation about the virus.
Germany Fact-checking organisation Correctiv is amplifying individual Tweets in which they
correctiv.org give background about fact checked content being
spread on the platform about COVID19.
Here is their Tweet announcement and ask for content
to be shared.
Here is an overview on their webpage about all the fact
checks and how they work.
Here is a Tweet amplified within the last days of July.

Several Tweets that they fact checked for false
information about COVID19 on the platform and have
been amplified recently can be found here, here, here
and here.
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Ireland SpunOut SpunOut.ie – Ireland’s youth information website – ran

two campaigns during the two month period from 24th
March to the 23rd May 2020. One of these campaigns
focused on responding to the need from young people
in Ireland for in-the-moment mental health support
during the COVID-19 lockdown period. The second was
undertaken in partnership with the Health Service
Executive and focused on reinforcing the messaging
around social distancing to young people in Ireland.

SpunOut.ie's social distancing campaign targeted 13
to 24 year olds and gathered 1.7m impressions,
resulting in 342,795 video views of 75% of the creative
or more.

Examples of Tweets from the campaign: here and h ere.

SpunOut.ie's mental health support campaign utilised
our partnership with crisis text support service, 50808.
The campaign targeted 18 to 34 year olds and served
1.35m impressions during the period. The campaign
contributed to 671 young people utilising the support
service.

Examples of Tweets from the campaign: here and h ere.
Italy Croce Rossa Italiana The Italian Red Cross has been on the frontline since the

beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, being in charge of
emergency services, health services, psychological
support, logistics, informative activities, surveillance
activities, health screenings and supporting other crucial
actions to fight the pandemic. It also provided support
to the most vulnerable members of the community with
activities marked through the hashtag
#IlTempoDellaGentilezza (time of kindness).The Ads for
Good grant was used for two Tweets, one in Italian and
one in English, which allowed the Italian Red Cross to
raise funds to strengthen their activities through a link
landing to a page for donations. The Tweet in Italian had
over 2 million views and more than 1100 clicks on the
link, while the Tweet in English had more than 3 million
views and nearly 9500 clicks.
Tweet IT here.
Tweet EN here.
Spain Maldita fact-checking organization Maldita is the first non-profit fact-checking organization
- members of IFCN- in Spain which has played a key
role in fighting disinformation around COVID-19 and
debunking myths.

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We provided them with an Ads For Good grant that
enabled them to amplify key messages around
COVID-19 and fight the spread of disinformation through
their two main accounts, @maldita_es and
@malditobulo.

We also ran a Twitter Q&A with @maldita_es on
Wednesday, March 18. Clara Jimenez, co-founder of
Maldita, went live to respond to Twitter users and
answer questions around COVID-19 common myths and
disinformation campaigns.

Tweets of @malditobulo here, here and here.
Tweets of @maldita_es here, here and h
ere.
Spanish Red Cross The Spanish Red Cross played an important part in the
fight against misinformation about the virus during the
lockdown and provided guidance to isolated citizens
and people in need. Tweet here
Doctors Without Borders Spain Doctors Without Borders Spain played an important part

in the fight against misinformation about the virus during
the lockdown and provided guidance to isolated citizens
and people in need. Tweet here.
Teléfono de la Esperanza Teléfono de la Esperanza was a key actor in Spain
during COVID-19 around mental health issues by raising
awareness of positive mental health and helping
increase resilience, solidarity, positivity and a sense of
togetherness. Through the Ads for Good grant, the
organization was able to promote useful resources and
advice on mental health. Tweet here.
Pantallas Amigas Pantallas Amigas is a Spanish organization focusing on

educating young people to become responsible digital
citizens.

Through our partnership, we provided Ads For Good
grants that allowed them to promote several campaigns
throughout the lockdown, including the promotion of a
safe digital lockdown for families, a safe de-escalation,
as well as providing families with tips to fight
disinformation and stay at home with children while
preserving a healthy digital environment.

Tweets here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,
here, here and here.
Sweden ECPAT Sweden ECPAT Sweden is a children's rights organization that
works to fight against the sexual exploitation of children.
ECPAT Sweden used the advertising grant to promote
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their support services and campaign to urge all adults to
talk to a child in your vicinity about the risks that exist
online.
Tweet here.
United Internet Watch Foundation IWF “Stay Safe at Home” campaign was directed
Kingdom towards helping keep children safe online, especially
while they may be spending more time using connected
devices during the pandemic.

As of 11 June 2020, the campaign had delivered:
● Just over 1.1 million impressions (the number of
times a user is served a Tweet in timeline or search
results);
● Almost 650,000 video views.

We have provided the IWF a further grant to continue
delivering this campaign, as well as other
online safety messaging.

Tweet here (series of ads have been running since April
2020).
Promoted trends

Country Partner & Content Date
@Handle Type Outcome/impact + link to tweet/campaign

France Government Promoted March This promoted trend enabled the government to
Information trend 19th reach a large number of users and to generate a
Service (#StayAtH large number of conversations on the subject
@gouvernementF ome #JeResteChezMoi.
R campaign No. of trend impressions: 8.14M impressions
- (excellent).
#JeReste No. of engagements and engagement rate with the
ChezMoi) trend: 174K i.e. an engagement rate of 2.14%
(high).
Tweet associated with the Trend:

No. of tweet impressions: 850K

No. of engagements and engagement rate with
tweet: 34K, i.e. an engagement rate of 4.03% =
Very high.

Link here.
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Government Promoted April 10th Tweet impressions: 894k
Information trend + (fight Video watched Tweet MRC: 300k
Service spotlight against
@gouvernementF domestic Trend + Spotlight impressions: 10.7M
R violence Video watched MRC Spotlight: 600k
towards Mentions
children) +
April 17th #enfanceendanger: 2.6K

Link here.
Government Promoted April 24th 10.1 Million impressions over one day and 851,741
Information trend (fight on the Tweet attached to the promoted trend.
Service against Engagement rate: 2.9% which is very positive as it
@gouvernementF domestic is close to the high market average (benchmark
R violence engagement rate: between 1% and 3%)
towards
women) Link here.
Spain Government Info Promoted April 1st The promoted trend enabled the government to
Service for Health trend (#StayAtH reach a high volume of users and the numbers from
Crisis ome the campaign were outstanding.
@SaludPublicaEs campaign
- Promoted trend:
#EsteVirus
LoParamo # trend impressions: 10.1 Million impressions
sUnidos) # engagements: 959.1K engagements with video
- associated with the trend
May 26th engagement rate: 1.08%
(#Change Tweet associated with the Trend:
OfPhase
campaign) # tweet impressions: 1.2 Million
54,3K engagements with tweet
4.53% engagement rate.

Link here.
Pre-rolls

Country Ad Partner Content Partner Impact/Outcome + Link
UK Grazia Samaritans https://twitter.com/GraziaUK/st

atus/1252609082705563655 +
https://twitter.com/GraziaUK/st
atus/1252629040541900801
UK Huffington Post British Red Cross https://twitter.com/HuffPostUK/

status/1255178781750411264
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Donations
Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, journalists have been providing us with potentially life-saving news and

information about COVID-19. In order to ensure that their human rights and invaluable work are being
protected, we donated one million dollars evenly distributed between the Committee to Protect
Journalists and the International Women’s Media Foundation as both organisations are working tirelessly
to uphold the fundamental values of a free press during this pandemic. Blog post here.

We set up a dedicated internal COVID-19 campaign page through our employee donation matching
program to support humanitarian response and relief efforts around the world. Any Twitter employee
can donate to relevant non-profit organisations, and Twitter matches donations up to $2,000 per
employee.
Improving users’ awareness
Initiatives and tools to improve users’ awareness

As the global community faces the COVID-19 pandemic together, Twitter is helping people find reliable
information, connect with others, and follow what’s happening in real time. In serving the public
conversation, our goal is to make it easy to find credible information on Twitter and to limit the spread of
potentially harmful and misleading content. We are open about the challenges we are facing and the
measures we’re putting in place to serve the public conversation at this critical time.
Data Access
Since 2006,Twitter’s APIs have given researchers and developers the opportunity to tap into what’s
happening in the world. Twitter firmly believes in open data access to study, analyse, and contribute to
the public conversation; which is why we continue to maintain a broad public API. Researchers use
Twitter data to provide valuable feedback on how the online conversations and interactions evolve on
and off Twitter. We continue to provide more accessible ways to make data and information publicly
available to researchers.

Twitter’s APIs are a unique data source for academics and are used around the world in a wide range of
fields, from disaster management to political science, every day. Every major social science conference
likely features multiple papers based wholly or largely on Twitter data. Our service is the largest source
of real-time social media data, and we make this data available to the public for free through our public
API. No other major service does this.

All of our API data is public - no private user data is included. So it’s Tweets, bios, who you follow,
Tweets you’ve liked etc. No email addresses, IP data etc.

We make all public Twitter content available via our APIs. You can learn more about them here.

To further support our ongoing efforts to protect the public conversation, and help people find
authoritative health information around COVID-19, Twitter released a specific COVID-19 API endpoint
into Twitter Developer Labs to enable approved developers and researchers to study the public
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conversation about COVID-19 in real-time.

This is a unique dataset that covers many tens of millions of Tweets daily and offers insight into the
evolving global public conversation surrounding an unprecedented crisis. Making this access available
for free is one of the most unique and valuable things Twitter can do as the world comes together to
protect our communities and seek answers to pressing challenges.

European Commission Vice-President for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová welcomed this as ‘a
step in the right direction’.

We have begun to see the results of initial research conducted through the COVID API. Researchers
have used Twitter data to analyse changing perceptions of COVID-19, notably public reaction to the
pandemic and how those reactions changed as the pandemic evolved. Researchers also looked into
what the most COVID-19 related topics have been and how they shifted over time. Some research
focused on vulnerable groups (e.g. people with disabilities, women and children at risk of domestic
violence). Particularly noteworthy is the COVID-19 US Twitter Map developed by the Penn Medicine
Center for Digital Health and the World Well-Being Project. The map analyses Twitter to track changes in
emotions (e.g anxiety and loneliness), and the prevalence of topics such as healthcare, politics and
economic concerns, and the frequency of top symptom mentions and top Twitter topics per state.

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As several researchers pointed out, research conducted through the use of Twitter’s API can be used for
better decision-making by public health authorities as well as to inform strategies aimed at positive
social change.

Examples of research can be found below (non-comprehensive list):
● Amid coronavirus crisis, Yale scientists find useful tool in Twitter, YaleNews, March 2020
● Dataset on dynamics of Coronavirus on Twitter, ScienceDirect, June 2020
● Penn researchers analyze Twitter to track changing perceptions of coronavirus, The Philadelphia
Inquirer, April 2020
● Researcher uses social media data to analyze public reaction to the pandemic, Tech Explore,
July 2020
● Retweeting COVID-19 disability issues: Risks, support and outrage, El profesional de la
información, April 2020
Policy update
● Broadening our definition of harm to address content that goes directly against guidance from

authoritative sources of global and local public health information. Rather than reports, we will
enforce this in close coordination with trusted partners, including public health authorities and
governments, and continue to use and consult with information from those sources when
reviewing content. Under this new guidance, we require people to remove tweets that include:

● 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’s 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. ”
21
● 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. ”

● When evaluating whether or not to remove the most harmful misinformation on our platform, we
consider three criteria:
1) Whether the content is advancing a claim of fact regarding COVID-19. For a Tweet to

qualify as a misleading claim, it must be an assertion of fact (not an opinion), expressed
definitively, and intended to influence others’ behavior. Some examples include
information about the origin, nature, and characteristics of the virus; preventative
measures, treatments/cures, and other precautions;the prevalence of viral spread, or the
current state of the crisis; official health advisories, restrictions, regulations, and
public-service announcements;how vulnerable communities are affected by/responding
to the pandemic.
2) Whether the claim is demonstrably false or misleading. We consider claims to be false
or misleading if they have been confirmed to be false by subject-matter experts, such as
public health authorities; or if they include information which is shared in a way that
could confuse or deceive people. Some of the factors we consider include: whether the
content of the Tweet, including media, has been significantly altered, manipulated,
doctored, or fabricated; whether claims are presented improperly or out of context;
whether claims shared in a Tweet are widely accepted by experts to be inaccurate or
false.
3) Whether belief in this information, as presented, would lead to harm. Our focus is
narrowed to address those claims that could adversely impact an individual, group, or
community. We are most concerned with misleading information that may increase the
likelihood of exposure to the virus; may have adverse effects on the public health
system’s capacity to cope with the crisis; could lead to discrimination and avoidance of
22
communities and/or places of business based on their perceived affiliation with
protected groups.
COVID-19 related content that meets all three of these criteria may not be shared on Twitter and

is subject to removal. Accounts that break this rule repeatedly may be permanently suspended.
We may label or place a warning on tweets to provide additional context in situations where the
risks of harm associated with a Tweet are less severe but where people may still be confused or
misled.
Other measures to protect the public conversation

Twitter has a zero-tolerance approach to the artificial amplification of public health misinformation
content as well as any attempt to abuse or manipulate our service. We continue to invest in detection
tools and technology to combat malicious automation and manipulation of our service. This investment
has yielded positive results – we have seen a 50% drop in challenges to accounts for suspected
breaches of our platform manipulation policy.

We adopted the following measures to further counter misinformation on our platform:

● Increasing our use of machine learning and automation to take a wide range of actions on
potentially abusive and manipulative content. We want to be clear: while we work to ensure our
systems are consistent, they can sometimes lack the context that our teams bring, and this may
result in us making mistakes. As a result, we will not permanently suspend any accounts based
solely on our automated enforcement systems. Instead, we will continue to look for opportunities
to build in human review checks where they will be most impactful. We appreciate your patience
as we work to get it right – this is a necessary step to scale our work to protect the conversation
on Twitter.

● Building systems that enable our team to continue to enforce our rules remotely around
the world. We’re also increasing our employee assistance and wellness support for everyone
involved in this critical work, and ensuring people’s privacy and security stay a top priority.

● Instituting a global content severity triage system so we are prioritizing the potential rule
violations that present the biggest risk of harm and reducing the burden on people to report
them.

● Executing daily quality assurance checks on our content enforcement processes to ensure
we’re agile in responding to this rapidly evolving, global issue.

● Engaging our partners around the world to ensure escalation paths remain open and urgent
cases can be swiftly brought to our attention.

● Reviewing the Twitter Rules in the context of COVID-19 and considering ways in which they
may need to evolve to account for new account behavior.

● Enforcement: Since introducing our COVID-19 guidance we have removed 14,900 tweets and
challenged 4.5 million accounts (as of 14 July).
23

● We partnered with health authorities and local governments to create and then amplify Twitter
lists offering curated sources and local information through our Twitter handles.

● We onboarded key partners to Twitter’s Partner Support Portal, which automatically escalates
the reports received.
● We have implemented a new approach to synthetic and manipulated media that helps people
understand media’s authenticity and provides additional context by labelling Tweets containing
synthetic and manipulated media. We forbid to deceptively share synthetic or manipulated
media that are likely to cause harm.
For more information, please visit our continuously updated blogpost on our approach to the pandemic.
Labels
We introduced labelling mechanisms to provide users with additional context and information when
interacting with other people on the platform. This approach of adding context to help individuals make
up their own minds about what they see on Twitter reflects the feedback we received from users, as we
outlined in this blogpost.

In February 2020 we introduced a new label for Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media.
Similar labels and warning messages were introduced in May to provide additional context and
information on some Tweets containing disputed or misleading information related to COVID-19.
These labels link to a Twitter-curated page or external trusted source containing additional information
on the claims made within the Tweet.

Depending on the propensity for harm and type of misleading information, warnings may also be applied
to a Tweet. These warnings inform people that the information in the Tweet conflicts with public health
experts’ guidance before they view it.

While false or misleading content can take many different forms, we take action based on three broad
categories:
24
● Misleading information — statements or assertions that have been confirmed to be false or
misleading by subject-matter experts, such as public health authorities.
● Disputed claims — statements or assertions in which the accuracy, truthfulness, or credibility of
the claim is contested or unknown.
● Unverified claims — information (which could be true or false) that is unconfirmed at the time it is
shared.

Our teams are using and improving on internal systems to proactively monitor content related to
COVID-19. These systems help ensure we’re not amplifying Tweets with these warnings or labels and
detecting the high-visibility content quickly. Additionally, we’ll continue to rely on trusted partners to
identify content that is likely to result in offline harm. Given the dynamic situation, we will prioritize review
and labeling of content that could lead to increased exposure or transmission.

We’ll learn a lot as we use these new labels, and are open to adjusting as we explore labeling different
types of misleading information. This process is ongoing and we’ll work to make sure these and other
labels and warnings show up across Twitter. Embedded Tweets and Tweets viewed by people not
logged into Twitter may still appear without a label.

Serving the public conversation remains our overarching mission, and we’ll keep working to build tools
and offer context so that people can find credible and authentic information on Twitter.

For more information, please consult our blogpost.

Impact of Twitters’ policies and initiatives

During the COVID-19 crisis, we have seen more and more people turning to Twitter to participate in the
public conversation and follow what’s happening in real time.
● Since January 20, 2020, 162m users have visited Curation’s COVID-19 content over 2bn times.
● Since March 6, we have seen a 45% increase in our curated events page usage.
25
● We have leveraged our Moments feature, which contains information for how people can stay
safe and sent country-wide notifications when, to create over 3,000 Moments including local
stories of connection that generated 1.1 billion visits from 106 million customers. To date, over
160 million people have visited the COVID-19 curated page, over two billion times.Some
examples:
○ When stay-at-home orders were mandated, our notifications reached over 9M users in
the UK.
○ We have also created a moment to counter 5G conspiracy theories: No, 5G isn't causing
coronavirus
● Campaigns on our platform, such as #FlattenTheCurve, have actively contributed to improve
science communication and fostering the spread of credible information online (article by
Graphika). On March 16th alone, we saw more than 115,000+ Tweets using the hashtag
#FlattenTheCurve to encourage fellow citizens to stay safe and respect social distancing.
● Since March 15, there have been over 250 million Tweets worldwide expressing gratitude and
thanks, a 26% increase from February’s average. Tweet here.
● Medical experts are using Twitter to share reliable information and advice about COVID-19. (See
CNN article and The Star article). Among health experts actively using Twitter, Yale
epidemiology professor Nathan Grubaugh said: ‘It’s a new opportunity not only to get things we
need, but to show information directly to the public. People get to interact directly with public
health officials. It’s a good way for them to sort through the misinformation and find reputable
information.’ (From ‘Amid coronavirus crisis, Yale scientists find useful tool in Twitter’ in Yale
News, 16 March 2020, full article here).
● Endorsement Tweets by WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus here and here.

As some media reported, we have been “redirecting Coronavirus searches toward authoritative
information sources” (ITV News: How are social media platforms cracking down on coronavirus 'fake
news'?) as well as giving NGO “ads credit for fact-checking and reliable health information” (POLITICO).

Additional press coverage in the EU:

● Netherlands:
○ Emerce: Twitter neemt maatregelen om juiste voorlichting over Covid-19 te bevorderen
(Twitter takes measures to promote correct information about COVID-19)
○ Bright: Twitter promoot betrouwbare sites over coronavirus (Twitter promotes trusted
sources about coronavirus)
○ DutchCowboys: Ook Twitter neemt maatregelen voor juiste voorlichting over COVID-19
(Twitter is also taking measures to provide accurate information about COVID-19)
● Austria:
○ Vienna. at: # Coronavirus: Twitter startet in Österreich Aufklärungs-Tool
● Italy:
○ LaStampa: Coronavirus, Twitter e il ministero della Salute in campo contro le fake news
● Ireland:
○ Journal.ie: If you search ‘coronavirus’ on Twitter, you’ll be given an external link for the
HSE
● Belgium:
○ The Brussels Times: Coronavirus: Twitter will promote official info to tackle fake news
26
○ RTBF: Coronavirus : Twitter et la Belgique s'associent pour lutter contre la
désinformation (Coronavirus: Twitter and Belgium join forces to fight against
disinformation)
● Finland:
○ Turun Sanomat: Twitter yhteistyöhön Suomen terveysviranomaisten kanssa – pyritään
estämään koronaviruksesta leviävää väärää tietoa (Twitter to cooperate with Finnish
health authorities - to prevent false information about coronavirus from spreading)

Selected press coverage on action on harmful content
● Reuters: Twitter bans posts that 'dehumanize' people in connection with diseases
● Engadget: Twitter will delete hate speech related to age, disability and disease

Manipulative Behaviour
Since introducing our COVID-19 guidance we have removed 14,900 tweets and challenged 4.5 million
accounts. It is important to note our approach is not only about removing or annotating potentially
harmful and misleading information, but also elevating credible information.

In line with our principles of transparency and to improve public understanding of alleged foreign
influence campaigns, Twitter is making publicly available archives of Tweets and media that we believe
resulted from potentially state-backed information operations on our service.

In June, Twitter disclosed 32,242 accounts attributed to three state-linked information operations of the
People's Republic of China (PRC), Russia, and Turkey. Every account and piece of content associated
with these operations has been permanently removed from the service. In addition, we have shared
relevant data from this disclosure with two leading research partners: Australian Strategic Policy Institute
(ASPI) and Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO). In all instances, accounts were suspended for various
violations of our platform manipulation policies.

1. People’s Republic of China (PRC): we identified and took down a core network of 23,750
accounts tweeting predominantly in Chinese languages and spreading geopolitical narratives
favourable to the Communist Party of China (CCP), while continuing to push deceptive
narratives about the political dynamics in Hong Kong. Their metrics were inflated by
approximately 150,000 amplifier accounts.
2. Russia: we investigated and suspended 1,152 accounts associated with Current Policy, a media
website engaging in state-backed political propaganda within Russia, for violations of our
platform manipulation policy, specifically cross-posting and amplifying content in an inauthentic,
coordinated manner for political ends. Activities included promoting the United Russia party and
attacking political dissidents.
3. Turkey: a network of 7,340 fake and compromised accounts was employing coordinated
inauthentic activity, which was primarily targeted at domestic audiences within Turkey, to
amplify political narratives favourable to the AK Party, and demonstrated strong support for
President Erdogan.

Ultimately our goal is to serve the public conversation, remove bad faith actors, and to advance public
understanding of these critical topics. For more information, please visit our blogpost.

Analysis from the Stanford Internet Observatory and Australian Strategic Policy Institute are available.

27
Press coverage:
● Politico: Twitter uncovers state-backed networks linked to China, Russia, Turkey
● BBC (UK) Coronavirus: Twitter removes more than 170,000 pro-China accounts
● Sky News (UK): Twitter says China Communist Party ran tens of thousands of fake accounts
● The Guardian (UK): Twitter deletes 170,000 accounts linked to China influence campaign
● EurActiv (EU): Twitter takes down Beijing-backed influence operation pushing coronavirus
messaging
● France24 (France): Twitter closes thousands of accounts linked to Chinese, Russian and
Turkish states
● Les Echos (France): Twitter closes thousands of accounts used for propaganda purposes
● DeutscheWelle (Germany): Twitter removes state-linked accounts used by China, Turkey and
Russia.
● Zeit (Germany): Twitter deletes 170,000 Chinese propaganda accounts
● Der Spiegel (Germany): Twitter deletes 170,000 Chinese propaganda accounts
● Silicon Republic (Ireland): Twitter bans 32,000 state-linked accounts from China, Russia, and
Turkey
● Business Insider (UK): Twitter deleted a network of 170,000 Chinese state-backed accounts
pushing propaganda
● Al-Jazeera: Twitter suspends ‘China-backed accounts that spread misinformation’
● Euronews: Twitter removes Chinese state backed disinformation network

Advertising on COVID-19
Twitter restricted advertising containing implicit or explicit reference to COVID-19.
More specifically, advertising containing implicit or explicit reference to COVID-19 is allowed when refers
to adjustments to business practices and/or models in response to COVID-19 and support for
customers and employees related to COVID-19, with the following restrictions:
● distasteful references to COVID-19 (or variations) are prohibited

● content may not be sensational or likely to incite panic
● prices of products related to COVID-19 may not be inflated
● the promotion of certain products related to COVID-19 may be prohibited
○ We currently prohibit the advertising of medical face masks and alcohol hand sanitizers
(with or without reference to COVID). Other products may be added to this list and
enforcement can be retroactive.
● the mention of vaccines, treatments and test kits is permitted, only in the form of information,
from news publishers which have been exempted under the Political Ads Content policy.
Public Service Announcements related to COVID-19 from governments and supranational entities (for
example, World Health Organisation), as well as trusted partners approved by the Public Policy team
are permitted. Also allowed are news related to COVID-19 from media publishers who have been
exempted under the Political Ads Content policy.
28
For complete information about Twitter’s Ads Policies, visit Twitter.com/adspolicy and Twitter Ads Policy
update log.
Twitter released some guidelines on brand communication in times of crisis in order to help brands
communicate with their customers, employees, and the broader ecosystem during the pandemic. The
focus was on reflecting on what was appropriate in the tone and content of the communication.
Violations of COVID-19 advertising policy

Our advertising policy on COVID-19 is very strict so violations of that policy do not in any way imply
misinformation or disinformation.

From 01 March 2020 to 12 August 2020 there were 12,619 Promoted Tweets that violated our COVID-19
policy.
● We reviewed a random sample of 153 ads from that cohort and did not find any which contained
misinformation.
● We estimate that about 95% of the violating content during that time was detected by our
automated systems. This is important because it shows that even if there were ads that
contained misinformation said ads would probably be taken down by our system automatically.

From 15 July 2020 to 08 August 2020 there were 1,242 Promoted Tweets that violated our COVID-19
policy.
● We reviewed a random sample of 80 ads and did not find any misinformation.
● We estimate that about 89% of the violating content during that time was detected by our
automated systems (11% being reported by users then subsequently removed).

Our team worked quickly to respond and adapt to the emerging situation, and to support helpful causes
during this time.

Press coverage:
● ReutersUK: Twitter joins social media clampdown on coronavirus-related ads.‘’Twitter Inc said
on Wednesday it would stop any attempt by advertisers to use the coronavirus outbreak to send
inappropriate advertisements to its users. Government entities seeking to spread public health
information will be allowed to promote epidemic-related ads, Twitter said’’

● Corriere.it: Coronavirus, blocks and free advertising to World Health Organization: the actions
of web giants, from Twitter to Facebook
Internet giants during Coronavirus are trying to act like “good giants”. The latest was Twitter, that
announced that it will halt any attempt by advertisers to opportunistically use the COVID-19
outbreak to target inappropriate ads.

We will continue to leverage our policies, products, partnerships, and philanthropy to reduce the spread
of harmful disinformation, elevate sources of helpful information and support the needs of citizens and
communities.
29

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As the global community faces the COVID-19 pandemic together, Twitter is helping people find

We have continued to maintain a public blog with updates: ​covid19.twitter.com

Improving users’ awareness

Initiatives to promote authoritative content at EU and Member State level

COVID-19 search prompt

Domestic and gender-based violence prompt

Q&A on COVID-19 with health experts

#TogetherWeCan - mental health campaign

Media literacy campaign

Twitter training for mental health organisations

Workshop on crisis response on Twitter

Ads For Good and other pro-bono advertising tools

So far, ​we supported 126 organisations (24 governments and 102 non-profits) with Ads for Good across

Country Organisation Outcome/impact + link to Tweet/campaign

Ads for Good granted to nonprofit organisations

Country Organisation Outcome/impact + link to tweet/campaign

Fondation Femmes Fondation des Femmes is an NGO which directs female

Research Institute foundation - Institut Pasteur is a research Institute Foundation whose

Ireland SpunOut SpunOut.ie – Ireland’s youth information website – ran

Italy Croce Rossa Italiana The Italian Red Cross has been on the frontline since the

Doctors Without Borders Spain Doctors Without Borders Spain played an important part

Pantallas Amigas Pantallas Amigas is a Spanish organization focusing on

UK Grazia Samaritans https://twitter.com/GraziaUK/st

UK Huffington Post British Red Cross https://twitter.com/HuffPostUK/

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, journalists have been providing us with potentially life-saving news and

Improving users’ awareness

Initiatives and tools to improve users’ awareness

● Broadening our definition of harm ​to address content that goes directly against guidance from

1) Whether the content is advancing a claim of fact regarding COVID-19. For a Tweet to

COVID-19 related content that meets all three of these criteria may not be shared on Twitter and

Other measures to protect the public conversation

Impact of Twitters’ policies and initiatives

● distasteful references to COVID-19 (or variations) are prohibited

Violations of COVID-19 advertising policy

You might also like

We have continued to maintain a public blog with updates: covid19.twitter.com

So far, we supported 126 organisations (24 governments and 102 non-profits) with Ads for Good across

● Broadening our definition of harm to address content that goes directly against guidance from