Elon Musk Announces New Twitter Policy to Follow and Question Science

Elon Musk's Twitter profile on a smartphone placed on printed Twitter logos on April 28, 2022. Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Reuters

Twitter CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet Wednesday he is enacting a new Twitter Policy related to post on the platform about science.

“New Twitter policy is to follow the science, which necessarily includes reasoned questioning of the science,” Musk wrote.

No further details of the plan had been released, but The Epoch Times reached out to Twitter for comment.

In a follow-up tweet below his original policy announcement, Musk said “Anyone who says that questioning them is questioning science itself cannot be regarded as a scientist.”

Musk has released a trove of information since taking over the company regarding Twitter’s suppression of certain information related to COVID-19.

Musk said Twitter employees had a private group on Slack that was a “fan club” of White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, The Epoch Times reported. The employees “had an internal Slack channel unironically called ‘Fauci Fan Club,'” Musk wrote.

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Musk’s post noted that the Fauci Fan Club was set up despite outstanding “glaring issues” regarding Fauci, including the question of whether the White House adviser was untruthful when he denied that U.S. federal money was used to fund risky “gain-of-function” research at a Chinese lab at the center of speculation about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alleged Twitter Suppression of Scientific Debate

Musk revealed in the Twitter Files—a collection of internal emails and communications made public by Musk—the company suppressed early treatment options for COVID-19, and vaccine safety concerns, Dr. Peter McCullough said in an interview on Newsmakers by NTD and The Epoch Times on Dec. 14.

“Twitter had become an incredibly biased and censored platform, where the public knew they weren’t getting a fair, balanced set of information on a whole variety of developments—including the early treatment of SARS-COV2 infection and a balanced view of safety and efficacy of the vaccines,” McCullough said.

McCullough said he believed he was censored and finally suspended for sharing scientific “abstracts and manuscripts,” which he believed didn’t fit the accepted political view. McCullough said he wasn’t the only doctor targeted by the company’s censorship.

Musk lifted the suspensions of McCullough and mRNA vaccine technology contributor Dr. Robert Malone—suspended from Twitter in 2021 after criticizing the effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines—after completing his Twitter purchase.

McCullough said when sites like Twitter posted COVID-19 warnings or labels a post “misinformation,” it amounted to government censorship and control.

“Facebook, Instagram, and the other platforms. … Anytime a message is posted, and it says, ‘See the COVID information center,’ or it labels it ‘COVID misinformation,’ that actually indicates that there’s government interference. There’s government censorship going on,” McCullough asserted.

Musk’s latest policy announcement about questioning science while also following it mirrors what McCullough said about advertisements on Twitter regarding vaccine efficacy and safety.

“So, when Americans were seeing advertisements that said ‘safe and effective,’ of course, immediately, we were jumping and making the case based on the peer-reviewed literature that that’s not correct.”

Elon’s Push for Transparency

Since taking over Twitter, Musk has made transparency a top priority, including revealing prior Twitter policies. As part of his transparency push, he released secret emails and discussions about shadow-banning or removing accounts that didn’t toe the party line.

As part of its reporting, The Epoch Times sought comment from the DOJ and FBI on the Twitter Files revelations and their involvement with social media companies.

The FBI National Press Office stated, “The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities.

“It is not based on the content of any particular message or narrative. Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them.”

Katie Spence and Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.