Since Elon Musk took over Twitter, he has stirred up a lot of controversies.
The latest one leaves NPR and PBS stepping off the social media platform.
Elon Musk acquired the social media platform Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion. Since then, he has made some notable and much-talked-about changes. One recent change has left PBS joining NPR in announcing they have left Twitter.
The Public Broadcasting Service PBS joined NPR in leaving Twitter behind after the now Musk-run social media platform tagged them as government-funded media.
According to Fox News, NPR announced its Twitter departure on Wednesday, making them the first major news organization to quit the social media platform since Elon Musk took over.
PBS had 2.2 million followers on its primary Twitter account, while NPR had 8.8 million.
A spokesperson for PBS said, PBS stopped tweeting from our account when we learned of the change, and we have no plans to resume at this time.
According to Bloomberg, it all started when Twitter used a tagging system to call NPR state-affiliated media. The platform also uses the same tag for propaganda accounts of China and Russia.
Twitter later changed the label to read Government-funded Media. However, NPR claims the description was inaccurate and misleading since they are a nonprofit group with editorial independence. Elon Musk claims the tag fits because NPR relies on United States government money. However, they only receive a small fraction of their funding from federal agencies.
According to Fox News, the PBS bio read, PBSs editorial independence is central to our work and will never change. We produce trustworthy content that features unbiased reporting.
Musk never shies away from speaking his mind. In one tweet, he said, Defund NPR. In another, he said, Guess they wont mind losing federal funding in that case.
Regarding PBS, Musk Tweeted:
Publicly funded PBS joins publicly funded NPR in leaving Twitter in a huff after being labeled Publicly Funded.
He followed it with a laughing, crying emoji to drive his point home.
Login