Threads on a New App Will Label Government Accounts, Meta Informs Australia

An executive at Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, told an Australian committee on foreign meddling on Tuesday that the company aims to flag government-affiliated accounts on its new Twitter-like platform Threads.

"Areas such as labels for state-affiliated media and fact-checking are all areas where we see a lot of value, and it's our aspiration to build that out expeditiously," Meta's manager of public policy for Australia, Josh Machin, told the Senate committee.

The announcement comes less than a week after Meta debuted Threads, which is largely seen as being akin to the microblogging site Twitter.

Since entrepreneur Elon Musk turned Twitter private in 2022, it has eliminated tags from government-affiliated accounts, prompting criticism about lowering consumers' media literacy.

When asked if Russian state-affiliated broadcaster RT or Chinese state-affiliated publication Xinhua News Agency will be appropriately marked on Threads, Machin replied, "that's our aspiration."

"If any state-affiliated media violates our policies, we will remove them," he told the panel. "Broader functionality around tags... are all top priorities for us as we continue to bring out the product."

Meta's Facebook and Instagram profiles already contain tags indicating that they are state-controlled media from Russia and China, respectively.

When Reuters examined on Tuesday, RT's Threads account lacked such a designation, while Xinhua did not appear to have a Threads account.

When Australian senator James Paterson inquired about Meta's Threads branding intentions, he stated that Twitter's removal of foreign government connection tags was "extremely concerning from a transparency standpoint."

Twitter did not respond. Twitter officials are expected to testify at the hearing later on Tuesday.

According to Meta's Machin, the business is concerned about an Australian plan to grant media regulator the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) authority to regulate and sanction social media companies for facilitating the spread of disinformation and misinformation.

Meta would support providing the ACMA authority to enforce an existing industry code of conduct, which involves proactively filtering out fraudulent information, but "the draught legislation goes further," he added, referring to the proposal that is presently being considered by the industry.

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