April 24, 2023

Twitter has removed the “government-funded media” label from the main accounts of several public media companies, including the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), National Public Radio (NPR), British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC).

The labels had caused a backlash, leading to some outlets suspending their use of Twitter. NPR, PBS, and CBC stopped tweeting after Elon Musk placed the labels on their main accounts earlier this month.

NPR and PBS had previously criticized the labels, saying that they were misleading, given that government funding only made up a small portion of their revenues. While PBS has not resumed tweeting since the label’s removal, CBC said it would review the change before deciding whether to resume tweeting.

The move comes as Twitter has removed all “state-affiliated” and “government-funded” labels from the site, including for accounts operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (ABC), Russia Today (RT), China Xinhua News, CGTN (China Global Television Network), and Iran’s Press TV.

Twitter has not responded to a request for comment on the label’s removal, and controversy remains over Twitter’s labeling of publicly funded media accounts. NPR and PBS had both suspended Twitter activity, with NPR saying that the label “undermines our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent.”

The sources for this piece include an article in Axios.