Last week, Musk appeared to change Twitter’s definition of “state-affiliated media” by briefly adding the label to NPR, an outlet that right-leaning Americans often accuse of having a liberal bias.

The label was removed within days after blowback from critics who defended NPR’s record of editorial independence and noted that government funding accounts for only 2 percent of the outlet’s budget, although some US conservatives and Chinese-state media employees welcomed the state media tag.

Twitter added a new “government-funded media” label to NPR’s account in its place.

The designation, which has also been applied to the BBC, PBS and Voice of America in recent days, refers to “outlets where the government provides some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content”.

The new label has not been added to some other state-funded media, including Al Jazeera and France 24, which are funded by the Qatari and French governments, respectively.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

But in an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, Musk said: “We want it as truthful and accurate as possible – we’re adjusting the label to “[the BBC being] publicly funded – we’ll try to be accurate.”

Earlier this week, Musk was quoted telling one of NPR’s reporters: “If you really think that the government has no influence on the entity they’re funding then you’ve been marinating in the Kool-Aid for too long.”

Taken together, the changes at Twitter make it easier to spread propaganda and “fake news” about current events, including major conflicts like the war in Ukraine, said Graham, the QUT lecturer.

“Some of them are conspiracy theories about neo-Nazis taking over Ukraine. All of them are trying to justify and provide this narrative justification for what Russia is doing, and all of them are trying to appeal to audiences who will amplify them in one way or another,” he said.

“It’s not this kind of hypodermic needle model as if they inject you with false information, and then you believe it and start spreading it,” Graham added.

“But it’s more than like we get into a situation where these false and misleading narratives that pollute and just cause chaos … [and] get oxygenated by the rest of the media ecosystem. When that happens, it’s payday, essentially, for state media.” (Al Jazeera)

•Elon Musk has been criticised for briefly designating NPR as “state-affiliated media” [Charles Dharapak/AP]

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