NPR quitting Twitter over label on social media account

National Public Radio is pulling out of Twitter over the social media company’s recent move under owner Elon Musk to stamp it with a label that the news organization says is damaging its credibility.

“NPR’s organizational account will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform has taken actions that undermine our credibility by falsely suggesting that we are not editorially independent,” the news organization said in a statement Wednesday.

Last week, Twitter labeled NPR’s main account as “state-affiliated media” on the social media site, a label also used to identify media outlets that are controlled or heavily influenced by authoritarian governments. Twitter later changed its label to “government-funded media” and gave it to at least one other public news organization, the BBC.

“We do not place journalism on platforms that show an interest in undermining the public’s credibility and understanding of our editorial independence,” NPR said in a statement.

NPR’s head of communications, Isabel Lara, said in an email that “NPR journalists and employees will decide for themselves if they want to stay on the platform, the same as NPR member stations because they are independently owned and operated.”

NPR receives US government funding through grants from federal agencies and departments, along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The company says it makes up less than one percent of NPR’s annual operating budget.

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New Twitter labels often appear at random. It tagged NPR with the label “state affiliate” after Musk engaged in a public conversation about NPR on Twitter, then removed the mention of NPR, but left the BBC, on a webpage explaining why he didn’t get the label.

Not everything asks for a label

Since then, it has given the “government-funded” label to NPR, the BBC and several other groups, but has not done the same for many other public media, such as its counterparts in Canada and Australia.

In an interview Tuesday with BBC technology reporters at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, Musk admitted that the British news organization was “not happy” about the country-related label and asked the reporter.

“Our goal is just to be honest and accurate,” Musk said. “So I think we’re setting the label to be ‘publicly funded’, which I think is probably irresistible. We’re trying to be accurate.”