Twitter Abandons Labels for State-Affiliated and Government-Funded Media Outlets
April 26, 2023
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by Stephen Kanyi

In a significant change at Twitter, the social media platform has abandoned its “state-affiliated” and “government-funded” labels for media outlets. This change was not publicly announced, but it has resulted in China’s Xinhua and Global Times, and Russia’s RT no longer being identified as state-affiliated media. Similarly, publicly funded Western outlets such as National Public Radio (NPR), the BBC, and CBC, no longer carry the “government-funded” label.

It appears that the Twitter page outlining the platform’s policies on state-backed media has been deleted. These changes have come after several weeks of controversy over Twitter’s labelling of state-run and state-funded media accounts under Elon Musk’s ownership.

Some public broadcasters, such as NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service, have protested against what they see as Musk’s efforts to undermine their legitimacy and have announced that they will no longer post on the site. Before Musk’s $44bn purchase of Twitter last year, the “state-affiliated media” label was reserved for government mouthpieces such as China’s Xinhua and Russia’s RT. Earlier this month, Twitter briefly added a “state-affiliated media” label to NPR, but this decision was later acknowledged as a mistake by Musk.

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1 comments

One response to “Twitter Abandons Labels for State-Affiliated and Government-Funded Media Outlets”

  1. […] the removal of these legacy checks, Twitter now offers verification marks only for paid users, businesses, government entities, and officials. If a user clicks on a blue check mark, the label now reads, […]

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