After weeks of really stupid antics, Twitter removed “government-funded media” labels on all accounts from NPR to Chinese state-affiliated Xinhua News. Twitter even seems to have removed is Web page explaining the “government-funded media” labels.
This whole saga started when Twitter labeled NPR as “affiliated with the state”, a designation that Twitter reserves for publications in which the government exercises influence or control over editorial decisions. But NPR gets about 1% of its funding from the government and operates with editorial independence. So Twitter created a new “government-funded media” label for NPR, which is a bit less misleading, but could still easily give users the wrong idea about the accuracy of its news. NPR ended up leaving Twitter, with its CEO saying it has lost his faith in decision-making on Twitter.
Twitter duplicateadding “government funded” labels to media outlets such as Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC Australia), Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), New Zealand public broadcaster RNZ, SR Ekot and SVT of Sweden and Catalonia TV3.cat.
In a particularly stupid act, Twitter assigned the CBC a “69% government funded media”, since the network claimed that it was less than 70% funded by the government and, as we well know, the owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, has the same sense of humor as a high school freshman on Reddit. This led the CBC to follow NPR’s lead and abandon Twitter altogether.
And now we have come full circle. Like legacy blue checks, the government-funded media labels have disappeared. So it goes.