Twitter labels BBC, NPR as ‘government funded media’

Twitter CEO Elon Musk defended the move to label BBC and NPR as “government-funded media” even as the two companies disagreed.

Twitter labelled the main accounts of the BBC and the NPR as ‘government funded media’ even as both media outlets disagreed with the description and pointed out that the tag did not accurately represent the way they were funded.

The BBC said that it was independent and funded by the public through a license fee that live TV watchers were mandated to pay. The news company confirmed it had exchanged emails with Twitter CEO Elon Musk to get more clarity.

NPR was initially labelled as ‘US state-affiliated media’ but this was later changed to ‘government funded media’. The American news organisation said that it received federal support in the form of competitive grants, but such funding made up less than 1% of its annual operating budget.

NPR said that Mr. Musk confused funding models when it exchanged emails with the Twitter chief to clarify its editorial independence.

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“We need to add more granularity to editorial influence, as it varies greatly. I don’t actually think the BBC is as biased as some other government-funded media, but it is silly of the BBC to claim zero influence. Minor government influence in their case would be accurate,” tweeted Mr. Musk on Monday.

News publications on Twitter such as China’s Xinhua News and Russia’s RT are instead classified as ‘China state-affiliated media’ and ‘Russia state-affiliated media’ respectively.