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Twitter removed labels describing prominent news organizations as “government-funded” or “state-owned” after NPR and several countries’ public broadcasters criticized the labels as misleading and suspended their Twitter accounts. It has been deleted.
The removal of the label is the latest change Twitter made out of the blue, without explanation, under the leadership of owner Elon Musk.
Twitter announced the change a day after it began removing checkmark icons from the profiles of thousands of celebrities, politicians and journalists whose identities were verified before Mr. Musk bought the company for $44 billion in October. gone. His Twitter account, which automatically responds to press inquiries by email with a poop emoji, did not immediately comment on Friday.
NPR reported that Musk said in an email that Twitter had removed all media labels and that “this was Walter Isaacson’s suggestion.” Isaacson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
NPR announced last week that it was suspending all Twitter usage after the social network designated the station a “National Media of the United States.”
Twitter has since relabeled NPR’s Twitter account to “government-funded media.” It also gave PBS the same designation and said it would stop tweeting from the account.
NPR said last week that it receives less than 1% of its annual operating budget in the form of grants from the government-funded public broadcaster and other federal agencies and departments. , said it was a fee paid by member stations that relied heavily on corporate sponsorships and donations from listeners.
PBS says on its website that many people mistakenly believe that the government is providing most of the funding because there are no commercials. But federal funds only accounted for about 15% of its revenue, the station said.
Twitter also applied the “government-funded media” label to the account of the BBC, the UK’s national broadcaster, until it was changed to “publicly-funded media”. I challenged Musk’s decision.69% government-funded media‘ and said that he has suspended the use of his Twitter account.
In a statement released Thursday, the Global Task Force, a group representing eight national public broadcasters, including Canada, the United Kingdom and France, said Twitter identified four of its members as “government-funded media.” I objected to the classification.
The group said the “misleading label” was applied “without warning or consultation” to the Twitter accounts of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC/Radio Canada, South Korea Broadcasting System and Radio New Zealand. All editorial independence is protected by law and stated in our editorial policy.
“Labeling it this way misleads audiences about its operational and editorial independence from the government,” the group said.
The allegations were similar to those made last week by NPR’s chief communications officer, Isabel Lara. Editorial independent. “
By Friday, Twitter had removed the “government-funded” label from the accounts of NPR, BBC, PBS, CBC and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The “state media” label has also been removed from the Twitter accounts of Chinese state news agency Xinhua and Russian state media RT. A page on his website on Twitter detailing policies regarding media labels has been removed.
NPR did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday, but NPR chief executive John Lansing said the broadcaster would continue to work even if the label “government-funded media” was removed. said he wouldn’t be returning to Twitter anytime soon.
“We need some time to figure out if Twitter can be trusted again,” he said in an NPR interview last week.
PBS declined to comment on Friday. “We are reviewing this latest development and will keep his Twitter account suspended before taking next steps,” the CBC said in an email.
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