The system for tagging state media accounts on Twitter is an act of information discrimination. This was announced on Friday, August 7, by the chairman of the ad hoc committee of the Federation Council on information policy and interaction with the media, Alexei Pushkov.
“Media that are funded by the state, but have an independent editorial policy, will not be designated as state-related. <…> Twitter leaves such a loophole for Western media in order to oppose the so-called state-owned Russian or Chinese media to Western ones, ”TASS quotes him.
Pushkov suggested that we are talking about such mass media as Voice of America, Radio Liberty, BBC and Deutsche Welle. The senator called this policy an act of information discrimination against non-Western media and a special emphasis on their state character.
Pushkov also noted that the decision to label accounts is a consequence of the pressure of the US authorities on social networks so that they do not provide their sites for “state propaganda”. According to the senator, if Twitter starts censoring, it will damage his reputation.
“Therefore, they go for such a trick: they indicate that this account is a state one and is connected with state policy, “he explained.
On the eve of Twitter announced the beginning of marking the pages of government officials, as well as media controlled by the state.
Thus, the pages of RIA Novosti, TASS, RT, Vesti and a number of other media resources were marked with the label “State edition, Russia”. Also, the marking appeared on the account of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, the country’s government and Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev.
The next day, the list of accounts with marking included the accounts of the Federation Council and the State Duma, the Russian embassies in the UK, France and the USA.