Twitter to label personal accounts of Heads of State

Twitter will be adding labels to the personal accounts of heads of state starting next week as part of its policy for government-affiliated accounts.

These labels will offer more context to users, offering them "a more informed experience on Twitter," according to a blog post by Twitter Support.

In addition to this, Twitter also explained that it does not let state-affiliated media accounts advertise on Twitter and now it will no longer include them or their Tweets in recommendations, as the social media platform hopes to support a free and independent press.

Twitter expanded account labels to government officials’ accounts and accounts belonging to state-affiliated media entities in August 2020 to clearly identify them for users.

While Phase 1 of the labelling initiative only covered accounts from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, namely, China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US, Phase 2 will extend this initiative to Canada, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates beginning on February 17th.