Weeks after it was falsely labeled “state-affiliated media” by Elon Musk, NPR said Tuesday that Musk has threatened to give the outlet’s Twitter handle to “another company” unless it starts tweeting again.
National Public Radio stopped using Twitter on April 12 after the label “State-Affiliated Media” was added to its account, a move apparently ordered by Musk himself. The label was later changed to “government funded,” which is also inaccurate.
According to NPR, this week Musk sent an unprompted email to the outlet asking, “So is NPR going to start posting on Twitter again, or should we reassign @NPR to another company?”
After some back and forth, Musk eventually told NPR, “Our policy is to recycle handles that are definitively dormant. Same policy applies to all accounts. No special treatment for NPR.”
NPR says it asked Musk if he intends to change Twitter’s terms of service which, the outlet notes, states that inactivity is based on whether or not a user has logged in at least once every 30 days, not on how often it actually tweets. The exact phrasing is: “To keep your account active, be sure to log in at least every 30 days. Accounts may be permanently removed due to prolonged inactivity.”
While NPR didn’t say so expressly, it has only been 20 days since it stopped tweeting. According to NPR, Musk refused to explain why he reached out and asked if it intends to resume tweeting.
The labels “state-affiliated” and “government-funded” were previously applied to Twitter accounts that served as either propaganda outlets or official government mouthpieces, such as the Russian news site RT and accounts associated with the Chinese government. In response to criticism of his actions against NPR and PBS, Musk removed those labels from all accounts it was applied to, meaning that known propaganda and disinformation sources are no longer clearly identified on Twitter.
It’s been a tumultuous time for Twitter since Musk purchased the social media company. Bloomberg reports from September to October, the top advertisers on Twitter spent $71 million on ads. But in February and March, that figure dropped to $7.6 million, a decline of 89%, Bloomberg cited research firm Pathmatics.
In April, Musk ended verification on Twitter and removed blue check marks from all “legacy” verified accounts. The intent was to encourage prominent Twitter users to subscribe to Twitter Blue, which provides blue checks to anyone who pays $8 dollars a month. After almost no one subscribed, Musk began restoring blue checks to accounts with more than 1 million followers, very often over the account holder’s express objections, while dishonestly labeling them as subscribers to Twitter blue.
