National Public Radio (NPR) and PBS will no longer post content to its 52 official Twitter feeds in protest against a label by the social media platform that acknowledges that both platforms receive government funding.
PBS announced that it would join NPR in boycotting Twitter after NPR had made the announcement earlier Wednesday.
“PBS stopped tweeting from our account when we learned of the change and we have no plans to resume at this time. We are continuing to monitor the ever-changing situation closely,” PBS spokesperson Jason Phelps said in a statement, according to Bloomberg.
NPR said it had ditched Twitter after the Elon Musk-owned company refused its repeated requests to remove the “inaccurate label of state-affiliated media”, now changed to “government-funded media,” which they claim does not accurately capture its public media governance structure.
“If we continued tweeting, every post would carry that misleading label,” NPR said.
NPR CEO John Lansing told his employees that the outlet would “not immediately return to the platform” even if Twitter changes the label.
“I would never have our content go anywhere that would risk our credibility,” Lansing said, adding that he had “lost faith in the decision-making at Twitter.”
British broadcaster BBC also objected to a label that briefly was placed on its accounts, calling them misleading.
Twitter had tagged the news outlet as a “government-funded media” outlet, but Musk had agreed to change the label to “publicly funded,” per a BBC report. As of Wednesday evening, there is now no label visible on any BBC Twitter accounts.
In an interview with BBC, Musk said the company was trying to be “accurate” and looking into amending the label.
“Our goal is simply to be as truthful and accurate as possible. We’re adjusting the label to be ‘publicly funded’ which I think is perhaps not too objectionable,” Musk said.
Since taking over Twitter, Musk has said he intends to provide further transparency into the company’s practices after many had lost trust in the platform for seemingly catering to the liberal agendas of Democrats and the mainstream media.
Copyright 2023 Thomson/Reuters. Additions and edits for FISM News by Michael Cardinal.