Global Courant 2023-04-21 12:22:25
China’s Xinhua and Russia’s RT no longer labeled as state media after unannounced changes.
Twitter has ditched its “state-affiliated” and “government-funded” labels for media outlets in the latest major shift on the influential social media platform.
China’s Xinhua and the Global Times, and Russia’s RT were no longer identified as state-affiliated media as of Friday following the changes, which were not announced.
Government-funded Western outlets, including National Public Radio (NPR) in the United States, the BBC in the UK, and Canada’s CBC, no longer carried the “government-funded” label.
A Twitter page detailing the platform’s policy on state-sponsored media appeared to have been removed.
The latest changes follow weeks of controversy over Twitter’s labeling of state-run and state-funded media accounts owned by Elon Musk.
New Zealand’s public radio broadcaster threatened to leave the site on Monday after protesting that the “government-funded” label falsely suggested the New Zealand government was exerting influence over editorial content.
NPR and Public Broadcasting announced in recent days that they would no longer post to the site in protest of what they described as Musk’s attempts to undermine their legitimacy.
Before Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion last year, the label “state-affiliated media” was reserved for government spokespersons such as China’s Xinhua and Russia’s RT.
Earlier this month, Twitter briefly added the “state-affiliated media” label to NPR, which receives public funding but has critical coverage of U.S. government policies, leading to condemnation of the broadcaster and its supporters.
Musk later suggested the decision was a mistake, admitting that it “may not be right” to describe NPR as state media.
