Twitter adds 'state-affiliated media' label to NPR's account

On Tuesday, Twitter added a "US state-affiliated media" label to NPR's social media account. The label appears at the top of the new organization's profile and on every tweet.

According to the social media website's policies, the "state-affiliated media" designation is placed on government accounts and used to "provide additional context for accounts heavily engaged in geopolitics and diplomacy."

"The label appears on the profile page of the relevant Twitter account and on the Tweets sent by and shared from these accounts. Labels contain information about the country the account is affiliated with and whether it is operated by a government representative or state-affiliated media entity," the policy states.

In the past, the label has been reserved for foreign government-affiliated media outlets, including Russia-based RT and China-based Xinhua.

Twitter's policy explains that the social media company defines government-affiliated accounts as "senior officials and entities that are the official voice of the nation state abroad."

The social media site defines state-affiliated media as "outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution."

The policy adds that "accounts belonging to state-affiliated media entities, their editors-in-chief, and/or their prominent staff may be labeled."

Elon Musk shared a screenshot of the Twitter policy and captioned it, "Seems accurate," in response to NPR's account receiving the label.

According to Twitter, media outlets financed by the state but with editorial independence are not considered state-affiliated, citing the BBC as an example. An archived version of Twitter's policy also previously included NPR as an example of a state-financed media outlet with editorial independence. However, as of Tuesday, NPR was removed.

Twitter notes that accounts designated as state-affiliated will not be recommended or amplified on the platform.

"We will also add labels to Tweets that share links to state-affiliated media websites and will not recommend or amplify these Tweets to people," the policy states.

On Tuesday evening, NPR climate and energy correspondent Jeff Brady tweeted a screenshot of the media outlet's Twitter profile with the state-affiliated media label. He captioned the social media post, "Uh, no…"

While NPR does not receive direct funding from the federal government, it does receive funds from local member stations that are provided federal grants by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Hill reported. CPB distributed nearly $70 million in grants to member stations in 2021.

Influencewatch.org reported that less than 1% of NPR's budget comes directly from the U.S. government, while nearly 10% of its funding is indirectly from federal, state, and local governments.

NPR's website states, "Federal funding is essential to public radio's service to the American public and its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR."

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