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Twitter must remain objective in labeling accounts - Russian lawmaker

Tt must not turn into pigeonholing, Leonid Slutsky told

MOSCOW, August 7. /TASS/. Twitter must adhere to the principle of objectivity and fairness in labeling accounts, which already raises questions, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutsky told TASS.

"If Twitter introduces such labeling, then decisions about its application to certain accounts must be objective and fair. We have no intention of interfering with the policies of this microblogging network, but at the same time it must not turn into pigeonholing", he said. In the lawmaker’s opinion, "such labeling should serve as a guarantee for users that the information published by a particular account actually comes from the government of a particular country."

"The question is what should be done with some Western media, which position themselves as independent, but in fact promote the agenda of very specific political circles?" Slutsky added.

According to Twitter’s statement, "Labels on state-affiliated media accounts provide additional context about accounts that are controlled by certain official representatives of governments, state-affiliated media entities and individuals closely associated with those entities." The label appears on the profile page of a Twitter account and on its Tweets. "Labels contain information about the country the account is affiliated with and whether it is operated by a government representative or state-affiliated media entity," Twitter said.