Elon Musk – NPR

A quick reminder: NPR has stopped all activity on it on the Twitter page about three weeks ago. This happened after Musk ordered it to be labeled as “State Controlled Media”. National Public Radio claims to maintain editorial independence from the government or other public authorities as a public media organization that receives some funding from the state budget. This also became a precedent for some other mass media that received this mark. Although the social network later removed them entirely from the site, pages like NPR still did not want to continue operating.

On May 2, Elon Musk threatened to turn NPR’s Twitter account over “to another company” if the media outlet didn’t start retweeting, NPR reported. In a “surprise email” to NPR reporter Bobby Allin, Musk wrote: “So is NPR going to start retweeting or should we turn @NPR over to another company?”– says Allin’s article on the NPR website.

Allyn stated that reassigning an NPR account just because she didn’t tweet would go against the company’s policy regarding inactive accounts. inactivity is “based on login” and not tweeting. Accounts may be “permanently deleted due to prolonged inactivity” but the policy states that users can keep their accounts active by logging in at least once every 30 days.

Musk did not respond to a question about whether he plans to change the definition of inactivity on the platform, and declined to say what prompted NPR’s new questions about his lack of involvement on Twitter.
Allin writes.

The move also goes against another point of Twitter’s policy: “State-funded media outlets with editorial independence, such as the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy”.

Note that NPR receives less than 1% of its annual funding directly from the US government. Other funds come from donations and other non-governmental sources. NPR announced that Twitter “has taken actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not broadcast independent.”

Will NPR return to Twitter?

Even before the government funding tag was removed, NPR CEO John Lansing said he wasn’t sure if NPR would return to Twitter even if Musk removed the tag.

I’ve lost faith in Twitter’s decision-making process. I need time to figure out if I can trust Twitter again.
– says Lansing.

Bobby Allin’s article states that “providing created accounts to third parties poses a serious risk of impersonation and can jeopardize a company’s reputation.” If this is a sign of what’s to come for users, we may soon see a tougher pullback from media outlets and other brands that think it’s not worth the risk.