{"id":595766,"date":"2022-04-08T11:52:16","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T11:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/?p=11328"},"modified":"2022-04-08T11:52:16","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T11:52:16","slug":"twitter-is-state-affiliated-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/04\/08\/twitter-is-state-affiliated-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter IS \u201cState-Affiliated Media\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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British politician and broadcaster George Galloway has made headlines in the UK<\/a> with his threat to press legal action against Twitter for designating his account “Russia state-affiliated media”, a label which will now show up under his name every time he posts anything on the platform.<\/p>

“Dear @TwitterSupport\u00a0I am not ‘Russian State Affiliated media’,” reads a viral tweet<\/a> by Galloway. “I work for NO Russian\u00a0media. I have 400,000 followers. I\u2019m the leader of a British political party and spent nearly 30 years in the British parliament. If you do not remove this designation I will take legal action.”<\/p>

Galloway argues<\/a> that while his broadcasts have previously been aired by Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik, because those outlets have been shut down in the UK by Ofcom<\/a> and by\u00a0European Union sanctions<\/a>\u00a0he can no longer be platformed by them even if he wants to. If you accept this argument, then it looks like Twitter is essentially using the “state-affiliated media” designation as a marker of who Galloway is as a person<\/em>, rather than as a marker of what he actually does<\/em>.<\/p>Dear @TwitterSupport<\/a> I am not \u201cRussian State Affiliated media\u201d. I work for NO #Russian<\/a> media. I have 400,000 followers. I\u2019m the leader of a British political party and spent nearly 30 years in the British parliament. If you do not remove this designation I will take legal action.<\/p>

— George Galloway (@georgegalloway) April 6, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>