Twitter moves to label government officials and state affiliated-media accounts

On Thursday, August 6 Twitter informed that the company will be adding new labels for accounts and tweets tied to government officials and state-affiliated media. In a blog post, Twitter announced it will no longer ‘amplify’ tweets by state-controlled media organisations and exclude them from its recommendations systems. It also said that they will label ‘key government officials’ from China, France, Russia, the UK and US. 

While explaining how Twitter will be defining government accounts for the new labels, the company said that their “focus is on senior officials and entities that are the voice of the nation-state abroad”. The tech giant added, “Labels will only be applied to accounts from the countries represented in the five permanent members of the UN Security Council". 

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In the blog post, Twitter said that it was acting to provide people with more context about what they see on the social network. The microblogging site will be labelling media organisation where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources and political control over production and distribution.

Twitter believes that people have the right to know when a media account is affiliated directly or indirectly with state actors as state-run media outlet usually use their news coverage as a means to advance a political agenda. 

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‘Will no longer amplify state-affiliated media’ 

Twitter will, however, not be labelling publicly-funded and editorially independent news organisations. They will also not label politicians’ personal accounts as they ‘enjoy widespread name recognition, media attention and public awareness’. For example, US President Donald Trump’s account will not be labelled, but US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s account will be. 

Twitter said, "We will no longer amplify state-affiliated media accounts or their Tweets through our recommendation systems including on the home timeline, notifications, and search. Government accounts listed in category one are not affected by this change”. 

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