NPR Quits Twitter After Elon Musk Throws a Tantrum and Falsely Labels Them as ‘State-Affiliated Media’
If other news organizations have any remaining self-respect, they’ll join NPR in this move. It’s just a matter of time before Musk targets them for his right wing audience, too. NPR quits Twitter after being falsely labeled as ‘state-affiliated media’.
NPR will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, becoming the first major news organization to go silent on the social media platform. In explaining its decision, NPR cited Twitter’s decision to first label the network “state-affiliated media,” the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia, China and other autocratic countries.
The decision by Twitter last week took the public radio network off guard. When queried by NPR tech reporter Bobby Allyn, Twitter owner Elon Musk asked how NPR functioned. Musk allowed that he might have gotten it wrong.
Twitter then revised its label on NPR’s account to “government-funded media.” The news organization says that is inaccurate and misleading, given that NPR is a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence. It receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
