Twitter ‘state-affiliated’ label raises questions for public broadcasters
Twitter running afoul of public and non-profit broadcasters like NPR in the US and the BBC over its ‘state-affiliated media’ label has raised questions about Australia’s own public broadcasters.
NPR yesterday announced it would suspend its use of Twitter over the social media platform’s decision to label the network as “state-affiliated media”.
The nonprofit was the first major news organisation to go silent on the platform, saying it will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, according to NPR’s own report.
NPR is stepping away from Twitter, and this includes this NPR Politics feed. Please read the thread to find other ways to find our work, including:
NPR Politics Instagram: https://t.co/UJ2HzXYsR0
NPR Politics newsletter: https://t.co/mrWXwUrXrn https://t.co/5kmu5kGogV— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) April 12, 2023
Following the decision, NPR technology reporter Bobby Allyn reached out to Twitter CEO Elon Musk for his reaction. Musk later tweeted out a screenshot of Allyn’s email and followed it with a tweet saying “Defund @NPR”.
Defund @NPR
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 12, 2023
Earlier this week, the UK’s public broadcaster BBC was labelled by Twitter as “government-funded media”, which the company objected to due to how it was funded.
The BBC is mostly funded by licence fees that are set by the UK government (£159 or A$295 per year), paid for by individual UK households. In 2022, the licence fee raised £3.8 billion (A$7 billion) for the network, comprising 71 percent of its total income of £5.3 billion (A$9.8 billion).
Twitter later updated the label to “publicly funded”.
What does this mean for Australia’s public broadcasters?
The ABC was historically funded in a similar way to the BBC, but is now mostly funded through direct government grants and revenue from commercial activities. SBS is also similarly funded, with government grants making up the majority.
All of the ABC’s and SBS’s Twitter accounts do not have labels at this stage.
Mumbrella has contacted the ABC for comment on whether it would follow NPR’s lead if its Twitter accounts were given an incorrect label, which the broadcaster declined. SBS also declined to comment.
Earlier this month, Crikey reported that the ABC ruled out paying for Twitter’s monthly subscription service Twitter Blue, after the platform started winding down its legacy verification program. After initially announcing an end date of April 1, Elon Musk changed it to April 20.
The ABC also closed three accounts in February – Insiders ABC, News Breakfast and ABC Politics – to consolidate its Twitter activity to its main @abcnews account.
Added to this, the new boss of ABC News, Justin Stevens left the platform last year, with the broadcaster increasingly tightening the rules on its journalists’ use of the platform.
Stevens told The Sydney Morning Herald in August: “I’m not saying I hate or dislike Twitter. I think there is an aspect of it which is useful, but the discourse has descended such that it is less positive and constructive, and therefore less constructive or useful to journalists. Secondly, the taxpayer is not paying me to spend my day on Twitter.”
How does Twitter define state-affiliated and government-funded media?
Twitter introduced labels with the aim of providing additional context for accounts with some ties to governments. The labels also contain information about the country the account is affiliated with and a small icon of that country’s flag.
The four labels are “government”, “state-affiliated media”, “government-funded media” and “publicly-funded media” accounts.
Government accounts are given to those owned by senior officials and entities” that are the official voice of the nation-state abroad”, like foreign ministers, institutional entities, official spokespeople, and key diplomatic leaders.
State-affiliated media is defined 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”.
Government-funded media is defined as outlets “where the government provides some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content”.
Publicly-funded media is defined as outlets that “receive funding from licence fees, individual contributions, public financing and commercial financing”.
Yes label it 🙂
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