The not-for-profit news outlet says the description is misleading and undermines its credibility.
Image source, Getty ImagesNational Public Radio (NPR) has announced that it will stop using Twitter in a row over how its account is described.
The US not-for-profit news organisation clashed with the social media platform over its decision to describe the outlet as “government-funded media”.
NPR says it undermines its credibility, as US government funding accounts for less than 1% of its budget.
Twitter owner Elon Musk has promised to change the label on the BBC’s account.
In an interview with BBC News on Tuesday evening, Mr Musk said he wanted labels to be truthful and accurate, but did not refer to NPR.
NPR said in a statement on Wednesday that Twitter was “taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent”.
“We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence,” the statement said.
The decision makes NPR the first major US news outlet to suspend its use of Twitter, despite the organisation having 8.8m followers on the platform.
The outlet encouraged people to instead subscribe to its newsletters and follow NPR on other social media.
On its website, NPR defines itself as “an independent, non-profit media organisation”.
It operates on a mixed-funding model that it says mostly includes corporate sponsorships, fees paid by NPR member organisations and donations.
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It comes after the BBC disputed the same “government-funded media” label added to its @BBC account.
The BBC operates through a Royal Charter agreed with the UK government, which states the corporation “must be independent”.
Its public-service output is funded by UK households via a TV licence fee, as well as income from commercial operations.
On Tuesday, Mr Musk – who bought Twitter in October – pledged that the BBC’s “government-funded media” label will be changed.
“We want [the tag] as truthful and accurate as possible. We’re adjusting the label to [the BBC being] publicly funded. We’ll try to be accurate,” Mr Musk said.
Twitter has not publicly defined how it determines media organisation funding or what constitutes “government-funded media”.