Meta Platforms Plans To Label Government-Related Accounts In Threads

JAKARTA - Meta Platforms Inc.,  plans to label government-affiliated accounts on its new platform, Threads. This was said by an executive to the Australian investigation agency into foreign interference, on Tuesday, 11 July.

"Areas like the label for state-affiliated media and in fact are areas where we see great value, and we have ambitions to build on it quickly," Josh Machin, Meta Public Policy Head for Australia, told the Senate inquiry.

The disclosure comes less than a week after Meta launched Threads, which many consider to be similar to the microblogging site Twitter.

Twitter has removed the label on government-affiliated accounts since billionaire Elon Musk made it private in 2022, prompting complaints about a decline in users' media literacy.

Asked whether broadcast state-affiliated media such as Russia-affiliated broadcaster RT or China's government-affiliated publishing agency, Xinhua News Agency, would be labeled accordingly in Threads, Machin said, "that's what we hope for".

"If media affiliated with any country violates our policy, we will remove it," he told investigators. "The wider functionality around labels... all of which was a top priority for us as we continued to develop this product."

Meta's Facebook and Instagram platforms already have labels on the accounts of RT and Xinhua noting that they are state-controlled media from Russia and China.

RT's Threads account did not have the label when Reuters checked on Tuesday, while Xinhua did not appear to have a Threads account.

Australian Senator James Paterson, who asked Meta about the label plans on Threads, told the inquiry that Twitter's removal of the foreign government affiliate label was "deeply concerning from a transparency standpoint".

Twitter meanwhile declined to comment. Twitter executives are scheduled to appear in the investigation on Tuesday.

Meta's Machin told the inquiry the company was concerned about Australia's proposal to give the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) powers to monitor and punish social media companies for enabling the spread of disinformation and misinformation.

Meta would support giving ACMA powers to enforce the industry's existing code of conduct, which includes proactively tackling counterfeit content, but "the bill goes further," he said, referring to a proposal currently under industry consultation.

"We see the potential for that power to be abused, or used in a way that suppresses legitimate free expression online," he added.