Elon Musk threatens to reassign NPR’s Twitter account
WASHINGTON –
Elon Musk threatened to reassign NPR’s Twitter account to “another company,” in accordance with the non-profit news group, in an ongoing spat between Musk and media teams since his US$44 billion acquisition of Twitter final 12 months.
“So is NPR going to start posting on Twitter again, or should we reassign @NPR to another company?” Musk wrote in a single electronic mail late Tuesday to NPR reporter Bobby Allyn.
NPR stopped tweeting from its principal account after Twitter abruptly labeled NPR’s principal account as “ state-affiliated media ” final month, a time period that’s additionally been used to establish retailers managed or closely influenced by authoritarian governments. Twitter then modified the label to “ government-funded media.”
NPR stated that each labels have been inaccurate and undermined its credibility — noting the nonprofit news firm operates independently of the U.S. authorities. Federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting accounts for lower than 1 per cent of NPR’s annual working funds, the corporate stated.
The final tweets on NPR’s principal account are from April 12 — when the news group shared a thread of different locations readers and listeners can discover its journalism.
Twitter briefly slapped different news organizations — together with the BBC and PBS — with “government-funded media” labels. PBS additionally stopped utilizing its Twitter account in response.
An article written by Allyn late Tuesday, the NPR tech reporter detailed the messages that the billionaire proprietor of Twitter despatched concerning NPR’s account. Musk pointed to the NPR’s option to cease tweeting as reasoning behind probably reassigning the account.
“Our policy is to recycle handles that are definitively dormant,” Musk wrote in a single electronic mail. “Same coverage applies to all accounts. No particular remedy for NPR.”
According to Twitter’s on-line coverage, the social media platform determines an account’s inactivity primarily based on logging on — not tweeting. Twitter says that customers ought to log in a minimum of each 30 days to maintain their accounts lively, and that “accounts may be permanently removed due to prolonged inactivity.”
Musk’s feedback and his actions, nevertheless, don’t all the time match and it’s unsure if he’ll really reassign NPR’s deal with, no matter Twitter’s printed coverage on account exercise.
When requested by NPR who can be keen to make use of NPR’s Twitter account, Musk replied, “National Pumpkin Radio,” together with a hearth emoji and a laughing emoji, NPR reported.
It is unknown if NPR has logged into its account, which at present has a blue verify with out the earlier “government-funded media” label, since April. The Associated Press reached out to NPR for remark early Wednesday.
Musk disbanded Twitter’s media and public relations division after the takeover.
It is the most recent volley in what many specialists describe as a chilling and unsure panorama for journalism on Twitter since Musk acquired the corporate in October.
In addition to eradicating news group’s verifications and briefly including labels like “government-funded media” on some accounts, Musk abruptly suspended the accounts of particular person journalists who wrote about Twitter late final 12 months.
In response to Musk’s Tuesday emails, Liz Woolery, digital coverage lead at literary group PEN America stated that it’s “hard to imagine a more potent example of Musk’s willingness to use Twitter to arbitrarily intimidate and retaliate against any person or organization that irks him, with or without provocation.”
“It’s a purely authoritarian tactic, seemingly intended to undermine one of the country’s premier and most trusted news organizations—one that is especially important to rural communities across the U.S.” Woolery added in a Wednesday assertion to The Associated Press.
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AP Technology Writers Matt O’Brien and Barbara Ortutay contributed to this report.
