Twitter removes ‘government-funded’ news labels from all media accounts

Twitter earlier placed the 'publicly-funded' label to the BBC account and applied the 'government-funded' label to US-based NPR.

New Delhi: After facing a backlash, Elon Musk-run Twitter has finally removed “government-funded media” labels on all accounts belonging to traditional publications and digital news outlets.

Twitter has also deleted its web page explaining the “government-funded media” labels, report The Verge.

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The micro-blogging platform earlier placed the ‘publicly-funded’ label to the BBC account and applied the ‘government-funded’ label to US-based NPR.

Twitter later placed more ‘government-funded media’ labels on the accounts of global news outlets like Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC Australia), Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), New Zealand’s public broadcaster RNZ, Sweden’s SR Ekot and SVT, and Catalonia’s TV3.cat.

ABC News said in a tweet that it is a publicly funded broadcaster, “governed by the ABC Charter which is enshrined in legislation”.

“For more than 90 years, the ABC has always been and remains an independent media organisation, free from political and commercial interests,” it argued.

SBS said the label might lead Twitter users to believe that the outlet is editorially controlled by the government.

CBC/Radio-Canada tweeted that “our journalism is impartial and independent”.

NPR decided to quit Twitter after the Musk-run platform labelled it as a government-funded organisation.

After NPR, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) also left Twitter after being labelled as government-backed media.