Second Taxpayer-Funded News Outlet Quits Twitter After Being Labeled State Media
PBS News announced its exit from Twitter after being labeled as “government-funded media” by the social network. This announcement comes after NPR made a similar exit for the same reason.
PBS spokesman, Jason Phelps, told Bloomberg, “PBS stopped tweeting from our account when we learned of the change and we have no plans to resume at this time.”
Twitter CEO, Elon Musk, pointed out the outlet’s funding from federal agencies as a justification for the description, which was originally “state-affiliated media.”
PBS stated that the “simplistic label” creates an “inaccurate impression that PBS is wholly funded by the federal government.”
“PBS is primarily funded by the public and philanthropic organizations, with only a small portion of our funding coming from entities affiliated with government,” the company said.
NPR declared that it would no longer update its 52 Twitter accounts in protest, calling this an “inaccurate label.”
“Guess they won’t mind losing federal funding in that case,” tweeted Elon Musk.
“We are officially deemphasizing Twitter across the organization,” NPR said in a statement.
This is the latest development in Musk’s ongoing dispute with mainstream media. Musk recently cornered a BBC reporter in an interview who claimed hate content on Twitter “is on the rise.” The reporter failed to provide an example of such content and Musk accused him of lying.
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