Twitter Drops ‘Government-Funded,’ ‘State-Affiliated’ Labels From Media Accounts

Twitter dropped the “Government-funded” and “China state-affiliated” labels, which suggests authorities involvement in editorial content material, from the accounts of varied international media organizations, their profiles confirmed on Friday.

Twitter dropped the “Government-funded Media” label from the accounts of US-based National Public Radio (NPR), British Broadcasting Corp and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

It additionally dropped the “China state-affiliated media” tag on the accounts of Xinhua News in addition to of journalists related to government-backed publications.

While Chinese publishers’ accounts, together with these of their senior workers in addition to of some key authorities officers, began getting the label in 2020, the likes of NPR and CBC have been labelled solely earlier this month.

That led NPR and CBC to cease posting to their Twitter accounts, arguing that the label didn’t precisely seize their governance construction.

In a BBC interview final week, Twitter’s billionaire proprietor Elon Musk mentioned the social media platform was attempting to be “accurate” and searching into amending the label.

“Our goal is simply to be as truthful and accurate as possible. We’re adjusting the label to be ‘publicly funded’, which I think is perhaps not too objectionable,” Musk had mentioned.

Twitter, NPR, CBC and BBC didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the removing of the tag.

Twitter on Thursday additionally eliminated the legacy verified blue tick from the profile of 1000’s of individuals, together with celebrities, journalists and distinguished politicians resembling Hillary Clinton.

Among these dropping their badges have been former US president Donald Trump, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and actuality TV star Kim Kardashian.

© Thomson Reuters 2023