Aug 07, 2020 11:15:00

Twitter announces that it will label government officials and national media accounts

Since the spread of fake news on SNS

has had a big impact on the 2016 US presidential election, the issue is whether to check the facts of political statements on SNS such as Twitter and Facebook. Meanwhile, a new initiative, Twitter has announced that it will label senior government Twitter accounts and national media accounts.

New labels for government and state-affiliated media accounts
https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2020/new-labels-for-government-and-state-affiliated-media-accounts.html

Twitter announced on August 7, 2020 that it will newly label accounts for the purpose of 'increasing transparency'.

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

The relevant account will have a description such as 'Government account' under the account name.

Similar labeling will be applied to national media.

At the time of article creation, labeling targets accounts such as foreign ministers, institutions, ambassadors, public relations, and important foreign affairs leaders of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States. I am. In addition, the national media label includes not only the media itself but also the editor-in-chief and senior staff.

Since the content posted to Twitter reflects the cultural and political background of the country, Twitter is thinking that it is better for users to show information about 'what kind of affiliation the poster belongs to'. It is said that it has been labeled. Note that similar labeling has already been done on Facebook and YouTube.

Twitter is aiming to target countries other than the above five countries in the future, and said this initiative is the first step.

Regarding state-owned media, Twitter said, 'State-owned media, unlike independent media, use news headlines to 'spread the political agenda'. We believe that we have the right to know right or wrong'. For this reason, the BBC in the UK and NPR in the US, which have independent editorial institutions, are not included in the target even if they have strong ties with the government.