According to an AFP review of many high-profile pages on Twitter on Friday, the labels “state-affiliated” and “government-funded” have been removed from media accounts.
According to AFP, many major media outlets from Western countries, Russia, China, and other countries that previously carried either of those tags no longer do.
They included the accounts of National Public Radio in the United States, China’s official Xinhua news agency, Russia’s RT, and Canada’s CBC as of 0600 GMT.
Twitter, which was purchased by the volatile billionaire Elon Musk last year, had long labeled accounts linked to state media or government officials, particularly from China and Russia.
According to the policy, entities that “are the official voice of the nation-state abroad” were prioritized.
However, the labels have recently been applied to news organizations that receive public funding but are not controlled by any governments.
Following that, NPR and the CBC stopped using Twitter.
Radio New Zealand also threatened to leave Twitter this week over the “government-funded” label, while Sweden’s public Sveriges Radio said it would stop tweeting.
But all the tags were gone as of Friday.
The change appeared soon after Twitter began the mass removal of its blue ticks on Thursday, a symbol that previously signified a verified account.
Musk, who has seen his $44 billion investment in the platform shrivel, changed the system to allow anyone who pays $8 a month to get the badge.
Musk’s tumultuous ownership of Twitter has seen thousands of staff made redundant and advertisers fleeing the platform.
Users have complained that hate speech and misinformation have proliferated, and accounts with extreme views are gaining traction due to less content moderation.