Twitter has backtracked after an uproar for labeling the US radio network NPR as “state-affiliated media” and now calls it “government-funded.”
Elon Musk’s social media network has also applied the new label to the BBC, which is funded predominantly by British households paying a license fee.
The change in how Twitter refers to Washington-based NPR happened on Saturday and comes after the network complained that the term “state-affiliated” was disparaging and inaccurate.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The brand implied that NPR was government-controlled in the same way as Chinese and Russian media. In protest, NPR stopped using Twitter.
In its updated Twitter bio, NPR’s main account — which has about 8.8 million followers — invited users to “find us every other place where you read the news.”
Other accounts run by NPR, such as its music and politics handles, did not have the “state-affiliated” specification and have continued to post on the platform.
Musk’s move came just days after Twitter stripped the New York Times of its verified status on the platform after it did not comply with a new payment policy. Like NPR, the paper is often said to have a left-leaning bias, particularly by US conservatives.
According to Twitter policy, the “state-affiliated” label would have deamplified tweets from both companies, limiting their reach on a platform that remains a major communication tool for media outlets, celebrities and officials.
Musk has for years expressed a distrust of corporate media, and in recent weeks has installed an automatic response of a poop emoji to e-mails sent to the site’s main media address.
However, NPR on Thursday said Musk signaled in a series of e-mails that the relabeling might not have been “accurate,” and that Twitter would look further into the matter.
“The operating principle at Twitter is simply fair and equal treatment, so if we label non-US accounts as government, then we should do the same for the US, but it sounds like that might not be accurate here,” Musk wrote to NPR.
Most of NPR’s budget comes from fees paid by member stations, while less than 1 percent of its budget comes from government sources, the network said.
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