NPR is ditching Twitter over 'government-funded media' tag on its main account

NPR is ditching Twitter over 'government-funded media' tag on its main account The broadcaster says the tag is ' misleading and inaccurate.'

After a week-long tussle with Twitter and proprietor Elon Musk over tags that the company used to its accounts, NPR said it will no much longer use the system at all. The company criticized Twitter over a "state-affiliated media" tag that was put on its main account recently. Twitter later on upgraded the text to read "government-funded media."

However, NPR said the newest version of the tag is "inaccurate and misleading," as it is "a personal, not-for-profit company with content self-reliance." The company explained that government financing accounts for much less compared to one percent of its $300 million yearly budget.

NPR CEO John Lansing said that, consequently of the tag, the broadcaster is deserting Twitter in purchase to protect its credibility. Until recently, Twitter typically reserved the "state-affiliated media" label for government-run electrical outlets such as Russia's RT and Sputnik and China's Xinhua Information Company.

"At this moment I have shed my belief in the decision-making at Twitter," Lansing said. "I would certainly need some time to understand whether Twitter can be relied on again." The NPR chief also said that "deterioration in the society of Twitter" also played a role in the organization's choice to pause its use the system.

Moving forward, NPR will no much longer "post fresh content" on any one of its 52 official feeds. NPR is giving employees that handle its Twitter accounts a two-week elegance duration to remodel their social media strategies. For one point, they've guided NPR's Twitter fans towards the broadcaster's e-newsletters and accounts on various other social media systems. The company is leaving it up to staff to decide whether to maintain using their individual Twitter accounts.

Twitter has also used the "government-funded media" tag to the BBC's Twitter account, a relocation that company has also objected to. In a BBC interview on Wednesday, Musk said the company will modify the BBC tag so that it reads "openly moneyed." That would certainly be a more accurate summary of how the BBC is moneyed. Still, Lansing declared also if Twitter were to backtrack and remove the tag from NPR's account, the company will not begin tweeting again right away.

On the other hand, Musk has exposed how he decides which companies should have the contentious tags. He's speaking with Wikipedia's publicly-funded broadcasters category web page. As it happens, several companies listed on that particular web page — consisting of Canada's CBC, Japan's NHK and the UK's Network 4 — don't have such tags on their Twitter accounts.

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