Who owns the account? Twitter journalist: journalist or his employer? This seems to be a new question to be asked on the platform in addition to all the other changes that are being prepared. Elon Musk.

In particular, throughout the previous period, Twitter allowed journalists to create their own profile, independent of their work, as through it they informed Internet users and expressed their opinion.

However, Twitter seems to want to change that, as the new feature, currently in testing, will essentially link journalists’ accounts to the media they work for. This change will be visible even in their profile.

A typical example is several employees of the Daily Mirror.

These journalists’ personal Twitter accounts now have (next to the much-discussed blue checkmark) a small Mirror icon indicating a link to their employer.

In fact, if someone clicks on the Mirror icon, they are taken to the main Mirror Twitter account.

This feature is part of what was previously called “Twitter Blue for Business” and is now called “Twitter Blue for Business”.Twitter Check for Organizations. Its purpose, in essence, is to connect businesses with their employees.

Have you noticed partner badges on employee profiles and company descriptors? This is a new way to connect accounts to each other. The Early Access waitlist is now open if you’d like partner badges to be added to your organization’s accounts: https://t.co/xbCAhAKngo

— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) January 14, 2023

The details of exactly how this works are still unclear, but companies may have to pay for the privilege.

Questions

In any case, such a scheme initially raises many questions, although future reactions are not ruled out, once the working scheme is precisely defined.

The questions currently being asked are mostly about what is “considered an official or professional social media account”.

After all, it’s one thing to just mention on your profile that you work somewhere, and quite another to have an icon of the environment you work in in every tweet you post.

For some journalists, it may even seem problematic to publish articles from media outlets they don’t work for, while still having a badge visible from their work medium.

Plus, putting that little logo on every tweet will make every employee look… like an official representative of the organization.

Finally, in addition to the above, it is partly possible that this regulation will spark a greater discussion about freedom of expression on social networks, as this practice may impose many “filters” on how journalists will use it on the future platform. .

According to Niemanlab.org