Twitter sparks fresh row with ‘government-funded media’ labels on BBC, NPR accounts

“What does BBC stand for again? I keep forgetting,” Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Monday after an uproar over the social media platform’s choice to label the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as a “government-funded media” organisation. The UK-based broadcaster has reached out to Twitter for clarification.

The @BBC account has 2.2 million followers.

“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,” the Twitter CEO posted.

“Minor government influence in their case would be accurate,” he added.

“We are speaking to Twitter to resolve this issue as soon as possible. The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee,” the BBC mentioned.

Twitter has not issued labels to different BBC accounts reminiscent of BBC News (World) and BBC Breaking News.According to the Twitter web site, “state-affiliated media” is outlined as shops the place the state workouts management over editorial content material by means of monetary assets, direct or oblique political stress, and/or management over manufacturing and distribution.

Musk’s social media community has additionally utilized an analogous label to the US radio community NPR. It was marked as “state- affiliated media” and later modified to “government-funded”.

The change occurred after the community complained that the time period “state-affiliated” was disparaging and inaccurate.

In protest, NPR stopped tweeting. In its up to date Twitter bio, NPR’s foremost account, which has greater than 8.8 million followers, invited customers to “find us every other place where you read the news”.

“NPR is an independent news organization committed to informing the public about the world around us,” it says.

The microblogging platform’s transfer in opposition to NPR and BBC got here simply days after it stripped The New York Times, which Musk has accused of being biased, of its verified standing. The Times later mentioned that it will not pay a month-to-month charge to get a verified verify mark on Twitter.

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