After labeling the National Public Radio's Twitter handle as "US state-affiliated media" on April 5, Twitter later changed it to "government funded media", a tag it even affixed to the British Broadcast Corporation and Voice of America handles.

Twitter logo and Elon Musk silhouette are seen in this illustration taken, Dec 19, 2022. (Photo: Agencies)

When Twitter handles of Chinese media outlets and individuals were labeled as "China state-affiliated media" in January 2021, many Western outlets went to town with the news, some even asserting that all Chinese handles were controlled by the State. Those saying such things had either never visited China or not done their homework well.

Even though Twitter changed the tag for Western media outlets from state-affiliated media to government funded media, it goes to show that singling out and blaming Chinese handles was unfair.

Some Western political forces have long accused Chinese media outlets of being ideology-driven, but it is they who are ideology-driven. They have their blinkers on and are ever ready to believe any rumor against China, such as those floated by Adrian Zenz about the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and various versions of the COVID-19"lab leak theory", even though all of those have been proven to be lies.

In contrast, the Chinese media outlets that are accused of being ideology driven are sensitive in all their reports. When they report about Japan's plan to dump nuclear contaminated water into the sea, they are concerned about potential victims across the world and not just in China. They also care about the human rights of people in the Middle East and those threatened by guns in the United States. Yes, they also defend Chinese national interests, but that's common practice in the media of any modern nation. Why blame that on ideology?

The act of blaming Chinese media outlets has boomeranged badly on the West. More will follow soon.