PBS Joins NPR, Stops Tweeting because of ‘Government-Funded’ Label

The logo of the social networking website Twitter, on a smart-phone screen in Lille, northern France, on Sept. 4, 2019. Denis Charlet/AFP via Getty Images

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has stopped posting from its primary Twitter account after being labeled by the platform as “government-funded media.”

PBS has not posted from its main Twitter handle since April 8, when a new “government-funded” label was added to a few media outlets that receive government funding. Accounts affiliated with PBS, such as those of local PBS stations and individual programs, have not had the “government-funded” label and are putting out content as usual.

The TV network on Wednesday confirmed that it halted activities on Twitter because of the label, saying in a statement to Bloomberg that it currently has “no plans” to resume posting.

“PBS stopped tweeting from our account when we learned of the change and we have no plans to resume at this time,” PBS spokesman Jason Phelps told Bloomberg. “We are continuing to monitor the ever-changing situation closely.”

The decision followed the step taken by National Public Radio (NPR), which announced on Wednesday that it will “no longer be active” on Twitter, accusing the platform of “falsely implying that we are not editorially independent.”

“We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence,” NPR’s chief executive John Lansing said in a statement to staff, adding that NPR might not return in the near future even if Twitter drops the label.

He also said that individual NPR staffers and reporters may decide whether they quit Twitter. It’s unclear if any had done so at the time of this publication.

“At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter,” Lansing said, apparently referring to Twitter’s new owner, tech billionaire Elon Musk. “I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again.”

Twitter’s Labeling Policy

Under Twitter’s stated policy, the platform differentiates between “state-affiliated media” and “state-financed media” when using labels to give users additional context about government and state-affiliated media accounts.

The “state-affiliated media” tag, according to Twitter’s guidelines, is reserved for outlets where the state “exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.” Accounts like Russia’s RT, China’s Global Times, and Iran’s IRNA also bear this label.

“State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy,” the guideline reads.

On April 4, Twitter added a “state-affiliated media” tag to NPR’s main account, only to replace it days later with “government-funded media.”

Meanwhile, Twitter has changed BBC’s label from “government-funded media” to “publicly funded media,” after the British broadcaster objected to the original description. It’s unclear if it would do the same for NPR or PBS.

In an interview with BBC on Tuesday, Musk said he would make the change because “we’re trying to be accurate.”

“I know the BBC for example’s not thrilled about being labelled state-affiliated media,” he told BBC.