Categorized as state media by Twitter, NPR radio strikes tweets
Public American radio said on Friday that it had stopped tweeting in protest against the mention of “media affiliated with the American state”.
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“We stopped tweeting from the main NPR account after they attached this false label because all tweets would carry it,” said Isabel Lara, spokesperson for NPR, contacted by AFP.
Spurred on by Elon Musk, Twitter has moved to change the certification of accounts, between official organizations and individuals, profiles that have been verified in the past and those that have been through their Twitter Blue subscription.
Incidentally, the “New York Times” lost its certification and the official “@NPR” account found itself, on Wednesday, given the same label as the Russian media accounts RT or Sputnik, accused of being instruments of “disinformation” from the Kremlin.
On Thursday, NPR, which is funded primarily by advertising and sponsorship, changed the profile of its main account on Twitter, inviting its 8.8 million followers to “find it wherever you look for the news”. The other radio accounts (covering political or musical news, for example) have not received this label and continue to tweet.
Elon Musk recognizes a possible mistake
Elon Musk, who is never shy about showing contempt for the news media, initially called the decision “fair”. But NPR reported Thursday that the multi-billionaire now believes the state-affiliated media mention may not be “accurate.” He said on the radio, in email exchanges, that Twitter would look into the matter.
“The principle at Twitter is one of fair and equitable treatment, so if we label non-US accounts as owned by governments, we should do the same in the US, but it seems that’s not totally correct in this case,” Elon Musk wrote to NPR.
According to Twitter’s policies, state-affiliated media are those “whose editorial content is controlled by that state through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressure, and/or control over production and distribution”.
Born in 1970 and very well known in the United States, NPR explained that less than 1% of its operational budget comes from federal sources. Twitter no longer responds to emails from journalists except with a poo-shaped emoticon.
(AFP)
