NPR quits Twitter over 'government-funded' label

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The US-based National Public Broadcaster (NPR) is leaving Twitter in protest against the Elon Musk-owned social media platform labelling it as "government-funded media".

The broadcaster said previously it was labelled as "state-affiliated media" and after several requests from NPR, Twitter changed it to "government-funded media", which was an inaccurate description.

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Both labels were "inaccurate" NPR said, adding it was "a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence. It receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting".

By exiting Twitter, it was protecting the organisation's credibility, NPR said.

In an interview to BBC on April 11, Musk said he was considering changing the label to "publicly funded" but NPR said that too was inaccurate.

NPR CEO John Lansing said that even if Musk were to drop the labels altogether, NPR would still not return to the platform "immediately".

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"At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter," said Lansing. "I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again."

In an email to staff, Lansing said it would be a disservice to the hard work done by its journalists "to continue to share it on a platform that is associating the federal charter for public media with an abandoning of editorial independence or standards".

Earlier, BBC, too, had protested being labelled “Government-funded Media”. Now, BBC label reads "Publicly funded Media".