Twitter for naming more government-related accounts around the world

It’s a dynamic, hyper-aware Twitter site, and the San Francisco-based company Thursday announced an expansion of one initiative to combat it: adding 16 countries to the platform’s branded accounts for the government to “provide context,” said Nick Pickles, global director of policy strategy. Twitter public and development, for The Washington Post, to trending tweets, Pickles stressed that this is “not a content modification” but rather a tool for Twitter users to gain an “understanding.” [of] The emergence of the account and this becomes part of their critical thinking about how they access the content. ”The company said,“ Our focus is on senior officials, heads of state, and institutions that represent the voice of the nation-state abroad. ”In the current situation,“ We ​​think this is an important step so that when people see an account. Discusses geopolitical issues from another country, have a context about their national affiliation, and better know who they represent. ” Twitter’s decision to ban former President Donald Trump permanently due to reverberations of his incitement to the violent January 6 rebellion around the world, confirming the global reach of the platform In shaping political rhetoric, its use, and sometimes its misuse by public figures.While many in the United States have questioned why Trump was not banned earlier, many Twitter users in other countries criticized the company for not taking hate speech between their leaders and on their schedules. More seriously, run and tag state accounts in China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, and as of Wednesday, heads of state and key officials have joined this list. And state institutions from Canada, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, according to the Twitter news release. One of the key criteria for the latter group, Pickles said, was countries that were “very engaged on geopolitical levels” on Twitter. While the company included labels for state accounts in the first batch, he said it would not do so yet for the Thursday group. “As a next phase of this project, we will work on applying additional designations to state media accounts over Mada,” the company said in a statement, although it aims to increase visibility, applying these classifications also exposes Twitter to ambiguous terrain in the case of disputed elections or The military takeover – the positions Egypt and Thailand have faced in recent years, both of which are on Thursday’s list – the official designation of the government’s Twitter accounts may suddenly become political. ”There may be circumstances when applying these classifications would legitimize one party or another when a composition, he said. Pickles: “The government is disputed. In such a case, the company will rely on its“ flexible approach ”and“ take into account whether we should remove the tags in the country, ”he said. Assign Twitter to what could be considered state media in countries where Subject to heavy censorship or where ownership is concentrated among the ruling class, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, also on Thursday’s list, it could also have significant domestic implications. Civilians, researchers and academics gathered at every step of these decisions. But he continued to advocate for the company’s upbringing of public figures, such as key Iranian officials who frequently use Twitter despite a local government ban on the platform. “We believe the ongoing international public conversation … is very important,” Pickles said. “It is a service.”