In a bid to make interactions with the government more transparent on the platform, social network giant Twitter introduced new labels for government and state-affiliated media accounts on Thursday. The platform will now use two distinct profile labels to indicate that the accounts are owned or affiliated by the government. For example, the US Government Account, Russia State-Affiliated Account.
When it comes to conversations with government and state-affiliated media accounts on Twitter, we’re helping to make the experience more transparent.
We'll now use two distinct profile labels for these types of accounts, so you can easily identify them and their Tweets. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/JW67o422MO
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) August 6, 2020
Twitter also clarified that it doesn’t allow state-affiliated media accounts to run advertisements on the platform, and henceforth, it will not allow such accounts and their tweets to appear in recommendations. This is a part of the series of measures the micro-blogging platform has been taking since last year, after it received serious flak from civil societies and rights activists for the past few years, for allowing the state and other political groups to influence the free will of the viewers through online paid manipulation. Defining “state-affiliated media” in its official blog, Twitter said,
In reply to a tweet asking whether the new labels are only for US representatives, Twitter said that initially, it will be applicable to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, which includes China, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, and Russia. However, it will be expanded to other countries subsequently.
We chose to start out with the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We don’t plan to make these labels exclusive to these countries and will expand them to more countries in the future.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) August 6, 2020
It is worth mentioning that those media organizations that are sponsored and financed by the government but enjoy editorial independence, will not be labeled under the new categories. A few examples of such organizations include the BBC (UK) and the NPR (US). Emphasizing its stand on political conscience, Twitter said that they believe that political reach should be earned and not bought, which is why it banned political and state-affiliated media advertising in 2019.
