The Twitter account of George Galloway has been labelled “Russia state-affiliated media” – and the former Labour MP is furious about it.
Galloway, who presented the Mother of All Talk Shows on Radio Sputnik, which is owned by the Kremlin, said he would sue the social media giant over the marking.
In an angry message, the politician-turned-commentator urged Twitter to take down the message which was applied to his account.
“I am not ‘Russia state affiliated media’,” he complained.
“I work for NO #Russian media. I have 400,000 followers. I’m the leader of a British political party and spent nearly 30 years in the British parliament.
“If you do not remove this designation I will take legal action.”
Galloway has been a contributor for RT, formerly known as Russia Today, which recently had its licence revoked in the UK by regulator Ofcom.
He has presented The Mother of All Talk Shows on Radio Sputnik since 2019.
Galloway – a Labour MP until he was expelled in 2003, and most recently MP until 2015 for the Respect party – also presented Sputnik: Orbiting The World With George Galloway each week with his wife Gayatri.
When it was pointed out references to the Russian-backed media had been removed from his Twitter profile page, Galloway responded: “I deleted it because it no longer exists. The show, the channel, are closed by government edict.”
Galloway later tweeted with reference to new Twitter shareholder Elon Musk: “It’s Kafkaesque really. When I did present on #Russian state media I had NO Twitter designation. Now that I don’t can’t and would be committing a crime if I did I have been given the designation. Shome mishtake shurely @elonmusk.”
On Tuesday, Twitter announced that the platform would no longer “amplify or recommend government accounts belonging to states that limit access to free information and are engaged in armed interstate conflict”.
In a statement last month, broadcasting watchdog Ofcom said RT was not “fit and proper”, given its close links to the Russian state.
The move followed accusations that the channel was promoting pro-Putin propaganda about the war in Ukraine.
It has been unavailable to British viewers since earlier in the month as a result of a ban imposed by the European Union.
Ofcom chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes said: “Freedom of expression is something we guard fiercely in this country, and the bar for action on broadcasters is rightly set very high.
“Following an independent regulatory process, we have today found that RT is not fit and proper to hold a licence in the UK. As a result we have revoked RT’s UK broadcasting licence.”