Twitter Walks Back NPR ‘State-Affiliated’ Label, Changes It to ‘Government Funded’ Following Backlash

The headquarters for National Public Radio (NPR) in Washington, on Sept. 17, 2013. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Twitter walked back labeling National Public Radio’s (NPR) account as “state-affiliated media” after facing public pressure.

The social media platform replaced the label for NPR’s account and with the term, “government-funded media.”

NPR was given on April 4 the same label as foreign state media outlets like Russian state-controlled TASS, RT, and Xinhua, the Chinese Communist Party’s official state news agency.

Twitter CEO Elon Musk seemed to have endorsed the initial new designation for NPR, stating last week in a tweet, “Seems accurate,” in response to the label.

NPR Officials Condemn New Twitter Description

NPR president and CEO John Lansing released a statement condemning the initial designation.

“We were disturbed to see last night that Twitter has labeled NPR as ‘state-affiliated media,’ a description that, per Twitter’s own guidelines, does not apply to NPR,” Lansing objected on April 5.

“NPR and our member stations are supported by millions of listeners who depend on us for the independent, fact-based journalism we provide. It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way. A vigorous, vibrant free press is essential to the health of our democracy.”

The publicly funded broadcaster has not posted tweets from its official Twitter account since platform administrators applied the “state-affiliated media” label.

The Twitter account handlers soon updated the NPR entry description, receiving the new label which read: “NPR is an independent news organization committed to informing the public about the world around us. You can find us every other place you read the news.”

When users clicks on the new “government-funded media” description, they are brought to a page about government and state-affiliated media accounts.

Twitter describes “state-affiliated media” accounts as “outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.”

A definition for the platform’s “government-funded media” label has not been provided yet.

Twitter’s Help Center explained that “state-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK, for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy.”

Meanwhile, the state-backed British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has also complained about Twitter’s “government-funded media” label, despite the fact that all UK households are required by law to pay a license fee to support the public network.

“We are speaking to Twitter to resolve this issue as soon as possible. The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee,” a BBC spokesperson told The Daily Mail.

Musk Backtracks on New Label for Taxpayer-Funded Media

Musk told an NPR reporter on April 11 that the taxpayer-funded station’s label may not have been accurate after he was told that the organization has editorial independence.

“The operating principle at new Twitter is simply fair and equal treatment, so if we label non-U.S. accounts as government, then we should do the same for U.S., but it sounds like that might not be accurate here,” Musk said in an email, according to NPR.

NPR correspondent David Gura, in a tweet last week, said that Twitter removed any mention of the public radio broadcaster in its new policy.

The Help Center’s newly updated description of NPR now calls it a “state-financed” media organization, along with the BBC.

The “government-funded media” label was also later applied to the Public Broadcasting System’s Twitter account.

The Biden administration got involved in the matter when White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre criticized Twitter for the NPR’s designated label status after she was asked about it in the briefing room last week.

“Social media companies make their own independent decisions about content rules, so I won’t comment on Twitter’s rules. But what I will say, more broadly, I'll say there’s no doubt of the independence of NPR’s journalists,” Jean-Pierre said.

“If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of their questions, you know that they have their independence in journalism. NPR journalists work diligently to hold public officials accountable and inform the American people.”

“The hard-hitting independence nature of their coverage speaks for itself. And so, I'll leave it there,” she concluded.