The designations “Government-funded” and “China state-affiliated” have been deleted by Twitter from the profiles of several media outlets around the world. The labels, which implied government involvement in editorial content, were removed from Twitter on Friday, and journalists affiliated with publications with government backing as well as US-based National Public Radio (NPR), the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) no longer use them.
Details about ‘Government-funded’ and ‘China state-affiliated’ labels are removed by Twitter from media accounts
The “China state-affiliated media” moniker had been applied to the accounts of Chinese publishers since 2020, including senior personnel and important government figures, but only recently had NPR and CBC.
NPR and CBC stopped tweeting because of the labels because they said the hashtags did not fairly describe their organisational structure.
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Twitter, said in a recent BBC interview that the social media site was attempting to be “accurate” and was considering changing the designation. According to him, their aim is to be “truthful and accurate as possible,” and the label will be changed to “publicly funded,” which he believes is “perhaps not too objectionable.”
