NPR quits Elon Musk’s Twitter over ‘government-funded’ label
- The news organisation says the platform is taking actions that undermine its credibility by implying it is not editorially independent
- Twitter had also previously identified NPR as ‘state-affiliated media’, a label used for outlets controlled or heavily influenced by authoritarian governments
National Public Radio is quitting Twitter after the social media platform owned by Elon Musk stamped NPR’s main account with labels the news organisation says undermine its credibility.
Twitter labelled NPR’s main account last week as “state-affiliated media”, a label also used to identify media outlets that are controlled or heavily influenced by authoritarian governments, such as Russia and China.
Twitter later changed the label to “government-funded media” and gave it to a few other organisations, such as the Public Broadcasting Service in the US and the British Broadcasting Corporation in the UK.
NPR said in a statement on Wednesday that it “will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent”.
PBS said Wednesday it has also stopped tweeting from its main account because of its new label and has no plans to resume.
NPR’s main account had not tweeted since April 4. On Wednesday, it sent a series of tweets listing other places to find its journalism.