Twitter Labels NPR ‘State-Affiliated Media,’ in Change to Policy

“We were disturbed to see last night that Twitter has labeled NPR as ‘state-affiliated media,’” John Lansing, the chief executive of NPR, said in a statement. “NPR stands for freedom of speech and holding the powerful accountable. It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way,” he added.

Isabel Lara, NPR’s chief communications officer, said the broadcaster was not notified that the label would be added to its account and learned of the change only when it appeared on Twitter. She added that NPR contacted Twitter and has not heard back. She noted that, on average, less than 1 percent of NPR’s annual operating budget comes in the form of grants from the government-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies and departments.

Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment, and an email to Twitter’s communications department was returned with a poop emoji autoreply. Mr. Musk tweeted in apparent support of the move, posting a passage from Twitter’s policy and saying it “seems accurate” in a reply to a user pointing out the label on NPR’s account.

As of Wednesday afternoon, NPR’s sub-accounts on Twitter, including those covering politics, music and health, were not given the “U.S. state-affiliated media” label.

Mr. Musk announced last year that he would remove check marks, which had denoted the accounts of celebrities, politicians and other notable figures, from many users’ profiles unless they paid an $8 monthly fee for the verification program known as Twitter Blue. Though the changes were set to go in effect on Saturday, most verified users have kept their blue checks.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/05/business/npr-twitter-label-state-affiliated-media.html