Twitter to label state-backed media accounts to create more transparency
Company to start labelling some accounts of leaders and state-affiliated media who use platform to discuss geopolitical matters
San Francisco — Twitter has begun labelling some state-backed media accounts, as well as accounts belonging to “key government officials” for certain countries, to create more transparency when governments and their leaders use the social-media platform to discuss important geopolitical issues, the company said on Thursday.
The new policy will start with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — the US, UK, Russia, China and France — whose Twitter feeds will be labelled as “government accounts.” State-backed media organisations and their top editors will also get “state-affiliated media” labels. The labels will appear on both account profiles and individual tweets. On Friday, the new tag had been appended to accounts belonging to the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily and Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of its affiliated Global Times, as well as..
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