Twitter labels foreign news outlets as 'state-affiliated media' but not CBC

On Thursday, Twitter began labelling "state-affiliated media entities." China's Xinhua and People's Daily as well as Russia's RT and Sputnik now sport the label under their Twitter profiles.

BBC's Shayan Sardarizadeh broke the news with a tweet that read "BREAKING: Starting today, Twitter is labelling accounts 'belonging to state-affiliated media entities, their editors-in-chief, and/or their senior staff'. Just checked the accounts of China's Xinhua and People's Daily, and also Russia's RT and Sputnik; and the labels are there."

Twitter policy defines state-affiliated media as "outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution."

Twitter is currently only placing labels on "relevant Twitter accounts from the five countries that comprise the permanent membership of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States).

The labels apply to Government accounts that "heavily engaged in geopolitics and diplomacy, state-affiliated media entities, individuals, such as editors or high-profile journalists, associated with state-affiliated media entities."

Twitter has stated that the policy will be expanded to add more countries in the future.

Many Canadians have noted that the CBC should be labelled as well.