On August 19, the social media giant announced that is relying on numerous organizations funded by the US government and European allies to help it police foreign state media on its platform.

Among the Twitter allies is Freedom House, a notorious right-wing lobby group almost entirely bankrolled by Washington that is heavily invested in regime-change operations against foreign adversaries.

In announcing new changes to its advertising policies, Twitter reflected the relationship with the US national security state: “Going forward, we will not accept advertising from state-controlled news media entities,” the tech company said.

The social media platform explained that the decision was made to “protect healthy discourse and open conversation.” But there are crucial exceptions to the ban — exceptions that just so happen to target Official Enemies of the US government, while shielding Washington’s allies.

Twitter added an important qualifier to its public announcement: “This policy will not apply to taxpayer-funded entities, including independent public broadcasters.”

That was a clear indication that state-backed media channels funded by the US and European governments, such as the United States’ NPR, Britain’s BBC, or Germany’s DW, will be excluded from the advertising ban.

Russia-backed media outlets, such as RT and Sputnik News; China-backed media, like the Global Times and Xinhua; and Iran-backed media, including Press TV and Hispan TV, are also “taxpayer-funded entities,” to use Twitter’s language. But the social media company is not excluding these networks from its new policy.

In other words, the Big Tech corporation has effectively announced a ban on media outlets backed by states that are enemies of the US government, without quite saying it.