Twitter’s government account labels expand to 16 more countries

In August 2020, Twitter announced that it will be adding two more criteria for labeling a Twitter account. It started labeling accounts of key government officials and state-backed media outlets as well as senior employees associated with such agencies. It rolled out the update in five countries – China, France, Russia, UK, and the US. Now, things are expanding. Twitter has announced that it is expanding its government account labels in 16 more countries.

Twitter’s efforts will now expand to Canada, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. According to the company, it is expanding the labels based on countries that are part of the G7, as well as “countries that Twitter has attributed state-linked information operations to.”

These labels will indicate when an account is run by a government official or organization. It goes into effect next week. Users whose accounts are labeled will be notified and they can also request a correction if there are any mistakes.

“We’re also updating the label text to add more specificity to the government account labels by differentiating between individuals and institutions, and expanding labels to the personal accounts of heads of state to give people on Twitter additional context,” wrote Twitter in a blog post.

The full scope of Twitter labeling accounts is:

• Key government officials, including foreign ministers, institutional entities, ambassadors, official spokespeople, and key diplomatic leaders. At this time, our focus is on senior officials and entities who are the official voice of the state abroad. 
• State-affiliated media entities, their editors-in-chief, and/or their senior staff.

Prakhar Khanna

I’ve been associated with the tech industry since 2014 when I built my first blog. I’ve worked with Digit, one of India’s largest tech publications. As of now, I’m working as a News Editor at Pocketnow, where I get paid to use and write about cutting-edge tech. You can reach out to me at [email protected]