Elon Musk has threatened to transfer NPR’s twitter handle to “another company” if the organization doesn’t begin tweeting again.

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• According to NPR, Elon Musk threatened to reassign NPR’s Twitter handle.
• NPR announced mid-April it would no long tweet from its 52 Twitter accounts.
• Twitter had referred to NPR as a "state-affiliated" media outlet.

Elon Musk warned that he would reassign NPR’s Twitter handle to another organization if the broadcaster didn't tweet again.

NPR reported on Musk's email to Bobby Allyn on Tuesday, asking: "So, is NPR going back to posting on Twitter, or should we assign @NPR to another firm?"

Musk wrote in a second email: "Our policy requires us to recycle handles which are permanently dormant." The same policy is applied to all accounts. "No special treatment for NPR."

NPR announced mid-April it would cease tweeting from its 52 official accounts on Twitter, citing Musk’s decision to label it as “state-affiliated” media. This move aligned it with state-controlled media like China's Xinhua News Agency.

Twitter changed the label of the outlet to "government funded media", but NPR stated that the label is still "inaccurate" and "misleading" because the organization has editorial independence, is nonprofit and private.

Musk escalated the feud by responding to NPR's decision of leaving its platform with a series insults and jokes. Musk even tweeted: "Defund NPR."

Twitter was initially hit with a flood of fake accounts and impersonations when it introduced its first paid verification system, which allowed users to purchase blue ticks for just $8. The company was forced to temporarily stop the rollout due to the flood of fake accounts. Later, it granted gold ticks for some verified accounts and news organizations.

Elon Musk initially said he intended to remove all "legacy verification" on Twitter. Last month, the billionaire made a dramatic U turn by restoring blue checkmarks for some users, after removing them previously. This caused chaos on the platform.

Twitter's Press Service did not respond immediately to Insider's out-of-hours email asking for confirmation of the details. They only sent an automated reply that didn't address the question.

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By: insider@insider.com (Mia Jankowicz,Beatrice Nolan)
Title: Elon Musk threatened to hand NPR’s Twitter handle to ‘another company’ if the organization didn’t start tweeting again, report says
Sourced From: www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-npr-twitter-threatened-give-away-handle-2023-5
Published Date: Wed, 03 May 2023 12:27:39 +0000

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