Twitter removed the label of ‘government funded’ from all accounts of ‘China state-affiliated media’. This was a policy update that Twitter implemented back in June.
This update included removing the label from all accounts on the platform, and also includes removing these brands as well as any other state-owned or affiliated media organization labels in country and region specific languages, including Chinese. The change comes in light of what this means for how many “supporters” these organizations develop on Twitter.
The decision was made after public questioning about whether or not Twitter is a platform for legitimizing the work of government agencies and organizations by labeling them as such without their permission.
We need to consider the history of social media and how the industry began. The year 2020 will be an important milestone for Twitter, as it has been used by journalists in order to determine which accounts are reliable sources.
We see that the year 2020 is a landmark point for social media. A lot has changed since it began, but before then – 2019 – nothing really changed.
Last Wednesday, Elon Musk made an appearance on BBC News with a host that was supposed to be asking him about his thoughts on the future of AI. In the interview, he stated that Twitter has removed some of its labels including “racist” and “misogynist,” because they were too vague.
Elon Musk’s visit to the BBC brings up a key question in modern society – how does technology affect how we think? This is more significant when we start thinking about it from a global perspective. As societal norms change, this is causing quite a stir on social media platforms increasing the need for more specific language definitions.
The interviewer Elon Musk stated that “the language needs to be much more precise” and “the world would be a better place” if people can communicate with one another clearly so as not to create unnecessary controversy or conflict.
