The move comes as Twitter's approach to prominent figures
and government is under scrutiny after the high-profile ban of former US
president Donald Trump's account and as political firestorms have raged in
Myanmar and India.
In August, Twitter said it would start labeling the accounts
of state-affiliated media outlets such as Russia's Sputnik and China's Xinhua
News and of some key government officials for the five permanent members of the
United Nations Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and
the United States.
Twitter said in a blog post that it was expanding its labels
to key government officials and institutions that were "the voice of the
nation state abroad" from G7 countries and a majority of countries where
Twitter has identified what it deems state-linked information operations.
Mock-ups of the labels shared by Twitter said "US
Government organization" or "US Government official".
The new countries where senior officials and institutions
will be labeled are: Thailand, Canada, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Honduras,
Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, and the
United Arab Emirates.
Asked how Twitter would determine government labels in
situations such as Myanmar where the military recently seized power in a coup,
Twitter's global public policy director, Nick Pickles, said the company was not
labeling countries where government was in dispute.
"We will take into account the international discussion
about legitimacy of the government when we are considering if it's appropriate
to apply these labels," Pickles said in an interview.
The labels will only be added to verified accounts, Pickles
said. For example, in Iran that would mean that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei would not currently get a label because he is not verified, though the
foreign minister would.
Twitter will also label the personal accounts of heads of
state from these countries and the UN Security Council permanent members,
citing the use of these accounts for diplomacy.
The company has faced international scrutiny over its
approach to world leaders' accounts. In January it banned Trump after the
Capitol riot for tweets — sent from his personal @realDonaldTrump account —
that it said risked inciting violence.
Twitter has generally exempted world leaders' rule-breaking
content from removal because it deems their posts in the public interest,
instead adding warning notices and reducing the content's reach. Pickles said
the way Twitter enforced its rules on accounts would not be based on these
labels.
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