⁍ Twitter will label the accounts of state-affiliated media outlets, their senior staff and some key government officials.

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⁍ The accounts of Russia’s Sputnik, RT, and China’s Xinhua News are among the media organizations that will be labeled.

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⁍ Twitter defined state-affiliated media as those where the state exercises editorial control through financial resources or political pressure.

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– Starting next year, Twitter will label the accounts of state-affiliated media outlets such as Russia’s Sputnik, China’s Xinhua News, and Russia’s RT, the Verge reports. “We believe that people have the right to know when a media account is affiliated directly or indirectly with a state actor,” Twitter said in a blog post Thursday. The company will also stop amplifying these accounts or their tweets through its recommendation systems. The labels will only be applied to officials from countries who are permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the US. Twitter currently labels the accounts of candidates running for the US House of Representatives, Senate, or Governor during the 2020 election cycle. Facebook Inc also said in June that it would start labeling state-controlled media organizations. In 2019, Twitter banned state-backed media advertising. The labels will also only be applied to senior officials and entities that represent the voice of the state abroad, such as foreign ministers, official spokespeople, and institutional entities. Labeled accounts will include @WhiteHouse, @StateDept, @Elysee, @10DowningStreet, and @KremlinRussia. The labels will at first only be applied to the officials from countries who are permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Twitter said the personal accounts of heads of states will not be labeled as there is public awareness of those individuals.