(DailyVantage.com) – American radio station NPR received a “US-state affiliated media” disclaimer on its Twitter account on April 4, the first disclaimer given to any US media institution after the feature was earlier applied to Russian, Chinese, and Iranian news sources.
The change means that every Twitter post now published by NPR will also feature a prominent disclaimer warning users that the outlet, which receives partial state funding, is affiliated with the US government. Other NPR Twitter accounts, including NPR Politics and NPR Business, have not been branded with the disclaimer.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk addressed the move in a post, calling the disclaimer an “accurate” representation of NPR. It remains unclear as to why Musk decided to target NPR but not other recipients of state funding, such as the US government-owned Voice of America.
Accounts branded with the state-affiliated media disclaimer are not amplified or promoted on Twitter to other users.
Twitter defines state-affiliated media as any news organization which is either controlled or pressured by state actors. The social network previously excluded NPR from its definition of state-affiliated media before Musk became CEO in October 2022.
Twitter has so far refused to label the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) as state-affiliated media, citing the BBC’s “editorial independence”, despite the fact that the news organization was founded by the UK government. In March 2023, a whistleblower alleged that the BBC “regularly” submitted to pressure from the government over how to present its news stories on government policies.
The social network has long used its state-affiliated media disclaimer on Russian, Chinese, and Iranian news accounts, including RT, Sputnik, the Global Times, People’s Daily China, and Press TV. Other state-affiliated organizations, however, have never received the disclaimer, including the Qatari monarchy-backed Al Jazeera and the Saudi Arabian monarchy-backed newspaper Arab News.
On April 5, Musk also expressed interest in added a new disclaimer to Twitter accounts which have repeatedly been caught publishing misinformation.
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