Twitter drops the “Government-funded” and “state-affiliated” labels from accounts of media outlets and journalists, including NPR, BBC, CBC, RT, and Xinhua
Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX Matt Novak / Forbes : Russia's RT Editor-In-Chief Thanks Elon Musk For Scrapping ‘State-Affiliated Media’ Label On Twitter ChinaTechNews.com : Elon Musk Drops All Media Labels on Twitter, Even for State-Run Outlets Arden Dier / Newser : Boycotts Worked: Twitter Drops Label That Drove NPR Away Karandeep Oberoi / MobileSyrup : Twitter removes ‘Government-funded’ label from news organizations' accounts BBC : Twitter drops labels on major news accounts Rohan Goswami / CNBC : Twitter drops labels for President Joe Biden, state-affiliated and government-funded media Liam Scott / Voice of America : Twitter Drops ‘State-Affiliated,’ ‘Government-Funded’ Labels from Major News Outlets Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac : Twitter U-turn on ‘government funded media’ label; Musk pays for checkmarks Al Jazeera : Twitter drops ‘state-affiliated’, ‘government-funded’ labels LinkedIn: Anders Borg Sundgren : WHO DECIDES WHO YOU ARE ON TWITTER? — 🕊️This week saw a new turn of events as several media outlets who are partly funded publicly … Mastodon: Jon Keegan / @jonkeegan@mastodon.social : Wow I continue to be amazed at how each of Musk's missteps somehow ends up getting worse when he inevitably walks it back. After the “Government funded” NPR kerfuffle now that whole class of labels is just gone for everyone. … @b_fung@masto.ai : After losing his check mark on Thursday, Pope Francis is Twitter verified once again, while all labeling of media outlets (including state-affiliated media) has ceased: https://www.cnn.com/... Steve Herman / @w7voa@journa.host : #Twitter removes labels describing international media organizations as government-funded or state-affiliated, including those under authoritarian control in #China, #Iran and #Russia. JosephMenn / @JosephMenn@infosec.exchange : Elon has wiped out all the state-affiliated media labels. Hellooooo, China Daily! Tweets: Bobby Allyn / @bobbyallyn : NEW: Elon Musk tells me Twitter has now dropped all media labels. Asked why, Musk says: “This was Walter Isaacson's suggestion.” John Scott-Railton / @jsrailton : But wait, there's more. Twitter deleted “state-affiliated media” labels. I'm sure Russia, China & Iran are tickled. https://twitter.com/... Nicholas Grossman / @ngrossman81 : Editor in chief of RT thanks Elon Musk for freeing her outlet from the state media label and making her appear more in searches. “Cui bono”—look for who benefits, assume they caused it—is often conspiracy theorizing. I doubt RT caused Twitter's changes. But they sure do benefit. https://twitter.com/... @afp : #UPDATE Twitter has dropped “state-affiliated” and “government-funded” labels from media accounts, according to a review by @AFP on Friday of many high-profile pages on the platform Many major media outlets that had either of those tags no longer display them, according to AFP. https://twitter.com/... Victoria Brownworth / @vabvox : So Walter Isaacson told Musk to pull all the verifications. A veritable Rasputin to Musk. Twitter descends into chaos as Elon Musk pulls verification https://www.cnn.com/... Ed Zitron / @edzitron : they've now removed the gold check lol https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Charles Arthur / @charlesarthur : If they're labelled as “publicly funded” that'll be a form of verification, no? https://twitter.com/... Sahil Kapur / @sahilkapur : Looks like Twitter has indeed backtracked and removed the label from @NPR after the move promoted the news org to stop using this app. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Lauren Windsor / @lawindsor : Amidst the blue check chaos, I want to note that I pay for Twitter Blue to be able to post longer-form videos like the one today on Cleta Mitchell that is featured in the blockbuster reporting by the Washington Post. *Not for verification.* Matt Navarra / @mattnavarra : Major news publishers on Twitter have had their gold checkmark verification removed including @skynews, @BBCR1 and @BBCBreaking https://twitter.com/... Brian Fung / @b_fung : After losing his check mark on Thursday, Pope Francis is Twitter verified once again, while all labeling of media outlets (including state-affiliated media) has ceased: https://www.cnn.com/... Oliver Darcy / @oliverdarcy : This also means that labels warning users they were seeing content from propaganda outlets, such as Russia's RT, are gone. https://twitter.com/... A.J. Delgado / @ajdelgado13 : lol, Boy Wonder dropped his whole “let's label NPR as government funded” campaign, of course. He backs down quite often, actually. https://twitter.com/... Molly Jong-Fast / @mollyjongfast : This seems really important https://twitter.com/... Dave Lee / @daveleebbg : Lost two major public broadcasters along the way. Great going https://twitter.com/... Will Oremus / @willoremus : So @NPR and @BBC's Twitter accounts no longer say “state-funded media”... and neither do @RT_com or @PDChina's https://twitter.com/... @brindusab1 : #Twitter #StateAffiliatedMedia Ongoing experiments ... good or bad, only time will tell ... Some might compare yesterday's #SpaceX 2nd stage blast to Twitter's management ... https://www.reuters.com/... Keith Boykin / @keithboykin : In a victory for NPR over Elon Musk, Twitter has dropped the “Government-funded Media” label from the National Public Radio account. @NPR recently stopped posting on Twitter, but it's unclear if the media outlet will return after Musk's new reversal. https://www.reuters.com/... Michael Caster / @michaelcaster : #Twitter removed “state-affiliated media” label from some accounts. The label is important to identify government influence on editorial content but labels have also been removed from #China state-affiliated media responsible for information manipulation. https://www.reuters.com/... Matt Binder / @mattbinder : before today Joe Biden's Twitter account was labeled “US government official” after the legacy verified blue checkmarks were removed...the labels gone too https://twitter.com/... Tommy Walker / @tommywalkerco : Legacy blue tickets removed. Also “China state affiliated media” tags also gone for angry propaganda hawks. Twitter becoming a circus, anyone can say anything with no accountability nor checks. Maybe great for content but ground zero for bullshit. Sunny Moraine / @dynamicsymmetry : Virtually no display of incompetence here could really surprise me anymore but this is hilarious https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer