The social network gives up. By Friday, April 21, Twitter had removed the controversial “state-affiliated media” or “government-funded media” labels. Major media around the world were involved, such as the American NPR or the Canadian CBC. Several Western media accounts, from Russia, China and other countries that carried this mention no longer have it, according to the findings of Agence France-Presse. In addition to NPR and CBC, the official Chinese agency Xinhua (New China) and the Russian RT no longer carried this mention at 8 a.m., Paris time.
“State-affiliated media is defined as media whose editorial content is controlled by that state through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressure and/or control over production and distribution,” could -we read on the help center of Twitter. “State-funded media organizations with editorial independence, such as the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy,” continued this text.
Several media, like NPR last week or Swedish public radio Sveriges Radio (SR) this week, had decided to leave the platform to protest against these mentions, added as part of the new policy deployed by the platform. since its acquisition by Elon Musk. The deletion of the mentions comes when the blue badges which made it possible to verify the accounts become paying, and are massively removed from the pages which have not subscribed.
