Aug 30, 2024 10:55:00

Twitter warns that links to articles by public media outlets may be 'unsafe,' with some pointing out that this is because the content was negative about Donald Trump.

When American public media

NPR published an article with negative content about US presidential candidate Donald Trump, X (formerly Twitter) reported that when clicking on the link to the article, a message saying 'Warning: This link may be unsafe' was displayed. X explained that it was a 'false positive' and said that it had already been fixed at the time of writing.

X caught blocking links to NPR, claiming the news site may be 'unsafe' | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/29/x-caught-blocking-links-to-npr-claiming-the-news-site-may-be-unsafe/

X labeled an unflattering NPR story about Donald Trump as 'unsafe'
https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-is-labeling-an-unflattering-npr-story-about-donald-trump-as-unsafe-163732236.html

An article published by NPR stated, 'Although political activities are banned at Arlington National Cemetery, Trump and others attempted to take videos and photos to be used in the election. When cemetery staff warned them, Trump pushed them away. The U.S. Army issued a statement condemning Trump's 'physical confrontation.''

Army says Arlington National Cemetery worker was 'pushed aside' by Trump aides : NPR
https://npr.org/2024/08/29/nx-s1-5092087/trump-arlington-cemetery-altercation-tiktok

When I tried to access the link to this article from X, I got the message 'Warning: This link may not be safe' and 'The link you are about to access has been identified by X or a partner as potentially spam or unsafe, as determined by X's URL policy.' NPR has changed the URL of the article in question, but it is unclear whether this change is to avoid the warning from X.

NPR later received a short email from X stating that the article link warning was a false positive and had been fixed, but NPR technology correspondent Bobby Aleen said, 'Questions remain.'

Questions remain, but X says the NPR Arlington Cemetery link that was being blocked was a “false positive” and that it's been corrected. pic.twitter.com/rbNymVwxYw

— Bobby Allyn (@BobbyAllyn) August 29, 2024

This is not the first time that there has been trouble between NPR and X; in April 2023, NPR announced that it would quit Twitter (at the time) in protest after X labeled it as a 'national media outlet.'

NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-run media' - GIGAZINE

In addition, the fact that X's owner, Elon Musk, had expressed support for Trump on the platform has led to suspicions that the warning was displayed because the article was negative about Trump.