PBS dumps Twitter over 'government-funded' label, following NPR

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has stopped tweeting from its account and does not plan to use Twitter after the platform attached a "government-funded media" label to its primary handle.

The @PBS account currently sports the label, which sits above an account description seemingly referencing the designation.

"PBS’s editorial independence is central to our work and will never change. We produce trustworthy content that features unbiased reporting," it reads.

PBS confirmed to Fox News that it would cease using its account, which currently boasts 2.2 million followers, saying, "PBS stopped tweeting from our account when we learned of the change and we have no plans to resume at this time. We are continuing to monitor the ever-changing situation closely."

The network's decision to essentially abandon one of the world's largest social media platforms follows a similar move from NPR, which opted to cease using its myriad accounts after Twitter first designated them "US state-affiliated media."

Twitter CEO Elon Musk later adjusted the label to read "government-funded media," a reference to grants from the publicly-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That change failed to placate the network, which insisted that Twitter had sought to undermine its credibility and falsely assert that it was 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," NPR said at the time.

Musk has stood by the labels as being accurate. Many of his recent tweets and retweets highlight either NPR or PBS's past statements regarding the necessity of federal funding to their operations.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.