Elon Musk’s Twitter has stopped following its own policy of restricting state-controlled media from China and Russia, violating its own rules, reports Semafor. In 2020, Twitter began labelling the accounts of official government and state-controlled media and blocked them from appearing in search results. The platform also announced it will flag tweets that link to government-controlled sites such as RT and the Global Times.

However, such labels are no longer used, although Twitter’s policy on state-affiliated media still states that this is a way to provide “additional context for accounts heavily engaged in geopolitics and diplomacy.” Official accounts of Russian and Chinese state media, such as Izvestia, Xinhua and People’s Daily, also appeared in the search results.

VOA reporter Wenhao Ma previously reported that Twitter is not fully following its policy on state-affiliated media. Ma discovered that Twitter automatically recommends posts supported by the Chinese government to users on its For You page.

In addition, Twitter now labels NPR, American nonprofit news media, as well as RT, the infamous Russian propaganda outlet. NPR’s Twitter account, once a major platform for breaking news, now has a tag designating it as “US state-affiliated media.” However, NPR does not meet Twitter’s own definition of a government-linked account.