MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th August, 2020) The microblogging site Twitter has announced that it will introduce new labels to designate accounts that are run by government officials or are representing state-controlled media outlets and their senior staff, according to a post on the company's blog on Thursday.
The labels will initially be added to officials representing the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - Russia, China, France, the UK, and the US, the company said.
"We will add new labels to the following categories of Twitter accounts: Accounts of key government officials, including foreign ministers, institutional entities, ambassadors, official spokespeople, and key diplomatic leaders," Twitter said.
The labels will also be applied to state-affiliated media outlets, including their editors-in-chief and other members of senior staff, the microblogging service said.
Twitter accounts linked to state-affiliated media outlets will also be excluded from the site's recommendation lists, the social media platform said.
"We will also 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," the microblogging site wrote.
A Twitter representative later confirmed to the CNN broadcaster that the labels will only be applied to official accounts, giving the example that US President Donald Trump's personal account, @realDonaldTrump, would not be labeled.
The US president and Twitter have clashed publicly over recent months following the death of George Floyd in May. The microblogging service added a fact-checking label to several of Trump's tweets and hid another for breaking the site's terms of service for glorifying violence.
