Twitter New Labels' Main Goal To Focus Attention On Chinese, Russian Media - Russian Union

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th August, 2020) The main goal of new labels introduced by Twitter is to focus public attention on Russian and Chinese state-sponsored media, Russian Union of Journalists' Secretary Timur Shafir told Sputnik.

On Thursday, the microblogging site Twitter announced that it would introduce new labels to designate accounts that are run by government officials or are representing state-controlled media outlets and their senior staff.

"Obviously, the main goal is to focus users' attention on Russian and Chinese media, as well as the information disseminated by them," Shafir said.

He said that the new labels were currently viewed by Twitter as a routine measure, but they could be easily turned into a kind of "black spot" for particular media outlets in the future.

According to Shafir, any complaints and protests will have no effect as Twitter is a private company that may respect the national interests of only one country, the United States.�

"The only effective way to avoid such negative consequences is to gradually abandon the use of such networks controlled by big US companies," he added.

The new feature of Twitter will first be rolled out to agencies from the five countries that are permanent members of the UN Security Council - Russia, France, China, the United States, and the United Kingdom.