Twitter labels state media, YouTube deletes China-linked channels
Twitter has begun labelling the accounts of government representatives and media as “state-affiliated,” while Youtube said it had deleted more than 2,500 YouTube channels with links to China “as part of its effort to weed out disinformation.”
After banning state-backed media advertising and political advertising in 2019, Twitter today announced a new policy on labeling accounts from state-affiliated organizations: Their tweets and profiles will now display the text “state-affiliated media” and the name of the country together with a small icon that resembles a toilet.
Who gets labeled? “Accounts of key government officials, including foreign ministers, institutional entities, ambassadors, official spokespeople, and key diplomatic leaders,” and “accounts belonging to state-affiliated media entities, their editors-in-chief, and/or their senior staff.”
- It seems that any investment or involvement from state entities is enough to warrant the label. The account of Caixin, the independent-minded business magazine often cited as China’s only remaining media organization willing to do investigative work (and, disclosure, The China Project’s partner for the Caixin-Sinica Business Brief podcast) is labeled as state-affiliated. Caixin has taken investments from state-owned China Media Capital and Zhejiang Daily Press Group.
Who does not get labeled? “State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the U.S.”
Meanwhile, Google has deleted “more than 2,500 YouTube channels tied to China as part of its effort to weed out disinformation,” per Reuters.
- The channels “were removed between April and June ‘as part of our ongoing investigation into coordinated influence operations linked to China.’”
- “These channels mostly uploaded spammy, non-political content, but a small subset posted political content,” according to Google.
- Google did not identify the deleted channels.
