Twitter’s feud with government-funded media doesn’t seem to be cooling down anytime soon. Last weekend, the social media giant — which recently came under fire for labeling NPR as “state-affiliated media” — replaced the “state media.” affiliated media” tagged with “government funded”. “We are in discussions with Twitter to resolve this issue as soon as possible. The BBC is and has always been independent. We are funded by the British public through the license fee,” a spokesman said in a statement Vanity pursereferring to the national TV tax which mainly funds the BBC.
In an email exchange, Musk reportedly told the BBC that his site “aims for maximum transparency and accuracy. Linking to ownership and source of funding probably makes sense. I think media organizations should be self-aware and not mistaken for the complete absence of bias.” The CEO reportedly added: “All organizations have bias, some clearly much more than others. I have to bear in mind that I follow BBC News on Twitter as I think it’s one of the least biased.” (Twitter declined a request for comment with a poop emoji, the automated response to all press questions set under Musk.)
Last week, Twitter’s initial decision to label NPR as “state-affiliated media” sparked a wave of backlash, largely because the designation has been used to identify foreign media outlets that are both funded by and ideologically aligned with their governments. the site’s own definition of state-affiliated media, which states that the label is applied only to “outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content” through political and financial pressures. 1% of the federal government’s annual revenues.) President and CEO of NPR John Lansing called the label “unacceptable” and said the organization was “disturbed”. And last Wednesday, a day after Twitter labeled NPR as “state-affiliated media,” Elon Musk came back in an email exchange with NPR reporter Bobby Allynadmitted that the label “may not be right.”
Meanwhile, NPR hasn’t tweeted from its main account since April 4, the day it received its initial “state-affiliated media” label. An NPR spokesperson told the Daily Beast in a statement last week that they would not tweet from the account until the issue was resolved, while clarifying that their stance was not a “boycott.” NPR did not immediately respond to a request for comment about what it plans to do in light of its new label. The BBC, on the other hand, continues to tweet from its account as it works to resolve the situation with Twitter Vanity purse on her decision to continue using the account in the meantime, a BBC spokesperson declined to comment.
NPR and the BBC are not the only news outlets targeted. PBS — which receives about 15% of its revenue from federal funding — was also labeled “government-funded,” as was Voice of America, a news outlet actually funded by the US government Musk told NPR’s Allyn says Twitter is applying the designation “to a wider range of institutions,” but its application has been uneven so far.
The drama over Twitter’s news designation stems from growing concerns about Twitter’s value as a marketing platform, as my colleague, Caleb Ecarmawrote last week. CNN reported in February that more than half of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers have stopped spending on the site. Sarah Fischer noted that several mainstream publications — including some targeted by Musk, who either removed their verification checks or suspended individual reporters’ accounts — continued to run ads on Twitter. And as of January, dozens more were ready to run content deals with the platform.
