NPR's official Twitter feeds have gone silent. The news organization cites the social media platform's decision to question NPR's editorial independence through a series of inaccurate labels.
NPR has abandoned Twitter. More news organizations known for factual content should.
NPR will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, becoming the first major news organization to go silent on the social media platform. In explaining its decision, NPR cited Twitter's decision to first label the network "state-affiliated media," the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia, China and other autocratic countries.
The decision by Twitter last week took the public radio network off guard. When queried by NPR tech reporter Bobby Allyn, Twitter owner Elon Musk asked how NPR functioned. Musk allowed that he might have gotten it wrong.
Twitter then revised its label on NPR's account to "government-funded media." The news organization says that is inaccurate and misleading, given that NPR is a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence. It receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
By going silent on Twitter, NPR's chief executive says the network is protecting its credibility and its ability to produce journalism without "a shadow of negativity."
Elon Musk bought Twitter to troll people either personally or indirectly by allowing Nazis, anti-vaxxers, MAGA zombies, Putinists, and religious fanatics he unbanned to do so for him. As Steve Bannon might put it, Musk flooded the zone with shit. Musk and the far right hate NPR because it’s part of the media plumbing which removes their shit.
His idiocy has been costing him. Under him the value of the company has dropped from $44 billion to $20 billion because advertisers don’t wish to be associated with the crackpots and hatemongers he’s unleashed.
The decision by Twitter last week took the public radio network off guard. When queried by NPR tech reporter Bobby Allyn, Twitter owner Elon Musk asked how NPR functioned. Musk allowed that he might have gotten it wrong.
Twitter then revised its label on NPR's account to "government-funded media." The news organization says that is inaccurate and misleading, given that NPR is a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence. It receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
[ ... ]
In a BBC interview posted online Wednesday, Musk suggested he may further change the label to "publicly funded." His words did not sway NPR's decision makers. Even if Twitter were to drop the designation altogether, Lansing says the network will not immediately return to the platform.
"At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter," he says. "I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again."
[ ... ]
NPR is instituting a "two-week grace period" so the staff who run the Twitter accounts can revise their social-media strategies. Lansing says individual NPR journalists and staffers can decide for themselves whether to continue using Twitter.
Musk is a libertarian pissant. That’s a common invasive species in Silicon Valley. He uses the technology and digital infrastructure originally financed and developed by the US government and universities since the 1960s and then claims he got filthy rich totally without public help. 🙄
With all those thousands of tech workers fired from Twitter and other digital companies over the past few months, some of them ought to be working on a realistic alternative to Twitter. We’re still waiting, guys and gals!
As for NPR, one platform they could utilize is Tumblr. They do have an account here but mysteriously stopped posting at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Contact your local NPR station or their Washington HQ and urge them to return here.
This is from NPR’s contact page...
NPR | Contact Us
Tumblr management would do better trying to lure the more substantive Twitter users here than spending on Tumblr Live. If they attract (or re-interest) users like NPR then ad dollars not going to Twitter could end up here.
@jaspersboy