NPR quits Elon Musk’s Twitter over ‘government-funded’ label
WASHINGTON –
National Public Radio is quitting Twitter after the social media platform owned by Elon Musk stamped NPR’s essential account with labels the news group says are supposed to undermine its credibility.
“NPR’s organizational accounts 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,” NPR stated in an announcement Wednesday.
Last week, Twitter labelled NPR’s essential account as “state-affiliated media” on the social media website, a label additionally used to establish media retailers which are managed or closely influenced by authoritarian governments. Twitter later modified the label to “government-funded media” and gave it to a minimum of one different public news group, the BBC.
“We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence,” NPR’s assertion stated.
The Public Broadcasting Service stated Wednesday it has additionally stopped tweeting from its essential account due to its new label and has no plans to renew. PBS stated: “We are continuing to monitor the ever-changing situation closely.”
NPR’s essential account had not tweeted since April 4. On Wednesday, it despatched a sequence of tweets itemizing different locations to seek out its journalism.
The firm stated NPR journalists, staff and member stations can resolve on their very own in the event that they wish to hold utilizing the platform.
NPR’s chief communications officer, Isabel Lara, stated in an e-mail that “NPR journalists and employees will decide on their own if they wish to remain on the platform, same for NPR member stations as they’re independently owned and operated.”
NPR does obtain U.S. authorities funding by means of grants from federal companies and departments, together with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The firm stated it accounts for lower than 1% of NPR’s annual working funds.
Twitter’s new labels have usually appeared arbitrarily assigned. It tagged NPR with the “state-affiliated” label after Musk participated in a public dialog about NPR on Twitter, after which deleted point out of NPR, however left up BBC, on an internet web page the place it described why they need to not get that label.
Since then, it has given NPR, BBC and another teams a “government-funded” label however hasn’t completed the identical for a lot of different public media retailers, comparable to their counterparts in Canada and Australia.
In an interview Tuesday with a BBC expertise reporter at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, Musk acknowledged that the British news group “is not thrilled” concerning the state-affiliated labels and requested the reporter for suggestions.
“Our goal was simply to be as truthful and accurate as possible,” Musk stated. “So I think we’re adjusting the label to be `publicly funded,’ which I think is perhaps not too objectionable. We’re trying to be accurate.”
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AP Writer David Bauder contributed to this report.
