Twitter drops 'government-funded media' tag on NPR, other media accounts

Twitter had labeled the accounts of the BBC and the NPR as ‘government-funded media’ even as both media outlets disagreed with the description

April 21, 2023 05:13 pm | Updated 05:13 pm IST

Twitter dropped the “Government-funded Media” tag on NPR and other media accounts.

Twitter dropped the “Government-funded Media” tag on NPR and other media accounts. | Photo Credit: Reuters

Twitter dropped the "Government-funded Media" tag, which implies government involvement in editorial content, on some accounts like National Public Radio (NPR) and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), their accounts showed on Friday.

Besides NPR and CBC, the tag, labeled 'state-affiliated media' earlier, was also absent from the British Broadcasting Corp's (BBC) Twitter account.

Earlier this month, NPR and CBC paused their activities on the social media platform, arguing that the tag did not accurately capture their governance structure.

In an interview with BBC last week, Twitter's billionaire owner Elon Musk said the company was trying to be "accurate" and looking into amending the label.

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"Our goal is simply to be as truthful and accurate as possible. We're adjusting the label to be 'publicly funded', which I think is perhaps not too objectionable," Musk had said.

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