Twitter drops govt-funded media labels on BBC, NPR, others

Twitter has done away with "government-funded" tags of several international media. The tag implies government involvement in editorial content.

The prominent news outlet to lose the tags are: US-based National Public Radio (NPR), British Broadcasting Corp (BBC) and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and China's Xinhua News. Also, Twitter has dropped the said label of the accounts associated with those media organisations.

The platform had started labelling the Chinese publishers' accounts and key government officials as 'China state-affiliated media' in 2020, while the NPR and CBC were labelled a month ago. As a mark of protest, those organisations had stopped tweeting.

However, those labels were removed on Friday. Also, the platform had done away with government-funded label on Sputnik and RT in Russia and Xinhua in China.

It has to be noted that Twitter CEO Elon Musk had told the BBC last week that the social media platform was trying to be "accurate" and looking into amending the label. "Our goal is simply to be as truthful and accurate as possible. We're adjusting the label to be 'publicly funded', which I think is perhaps not too objectionable," Musk had said.

Meanwhile, Twitter has stripped off its blue tick mark or verified badge from the profiles of lakhs of people across the globe.

Former US president Donald Trump, Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates, Hillary Clinton, reality TV star Kim Kardashian and many other prominent personalities have lost the badges.

People now have to pay USD 8/month via the web and USD 11/month through in-app payment on iOS and Android for the blue tick mark, which was started 14 years ago to celebrities from impersonators and curb misinformation.