Twitter Revamps Verification System and Removes Government Labels

<p>In a move that has sparked debate and frustration, Twitter has removed labels describing global media organizations as government-funded or state-affiliated. This comes after Elon Musk, Twitter&#39;s owner, started stripping blue verification checkmarks from accounts that don’t pay a monthly fee.</p> <p>NPR in the U.S. was among the organizations no longer labeled, having announced last week its decision to stop using Twitter. NPR was initially designated as state-affiliated media, a term used to identify media outlets controlled or heavily influenced by authoritarian governments like Russia and China. The label was later changed to &quot;government-funded media,&quot; but NPR, which receives only a small fraction of its funding from the government, found the label misleading.</p> <p>Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and Swedish public radio also decided to quit tweeting, and their government-funded labels vanished on Friday. State-affiliated tags on media accounts such as Russia&#39;s Sputnik and RT, and China&#39;s Xinhua, were removed as well.</p> <p> </p>