Published: Less than 20 min ago
Twitter backs off and removes the “government-affiliated” stamp on the account of the American public service company NPR. Instead, the company gets the label “state-funded media”, which the BBC has also been labeled against its will.
The labeling of the BBC account comes at the same time as Twitter backed away from the decision to label the American public service company NPR as “state-affiliated” last week.
NPR, which claims to work completely independently of the US government, has, like the BBC, now been assigned the label “state-funded media” instead.
The labels link to Twitter’s policy site, where no further explanation of the labels is mentioned.
On the other hand, it is stated that “state-affiliated media accounts” are defined as media “where the state exercises control over the editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressure and/or control over production and distribution”.
The BBC has contacted Twitter for clarification.
“The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the license fee,” writes the public service company in a comment.
In addition, the BBC itself receives over £90 million from the government to run the BBC World Service, which is mainly aimed at a non-British audience, writes the BBC.
The marking applies to the Twitter account @BBC, which mostly promotes the company’s television and radio productions. News accounts such as @BBCNews do not currently carry the same label.
NPR has previously stated that it receives less than one percent of its annual budget from the US government.