Social media platform X added a “warning” to links to NPR’s follow-up stories on the Trump campaign clash at Arlington National Cemetery, deterring users who click on the article and warning them that the link is “unsafe” or “spam.”
The warning allows users to continue reading the story if they wish, but notes that the link has been identified as “spam.” The page explains that the flagged link may fall into several categories that could lead to the theft of personal information or direct users to “violent or misleading content that could result in real-world harm.”
Screenshot via X.
The linked story follows the ongoing fallout from NPR’s original reporting on Tuesday about an incident at the cemetery on Monday when former President Donald Trump visited the site to mark the anniversary of the 2021 Kabul airport terrorist attack that killed 13 U.S. service members during the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
NPR reported that members of the campaign verbally abused and shoved a cemetery employee who tried to stop the team from filming and photographing the ceremony. Federal law prohibits political campaign activities at all Army cemeteries, including Arlington. Links to the original story are not marked with the same warning.
Trump campaign staff continued to abuse the Arlington Cemetery employee, calling him “mentally ill” and a “disgrace” to the “hollowed out” military cemetery.
Remarkably, the platform is owned by a pro-Trump billionaire Elon Muskwhich NPR described as a “state-affiliated media outlet” in April. NPR objected to this label, a term typically used to describe propaganda channels in autocratic countries, and announced that it would no longer publish content on the platform.
The move to blacklist the backlink came in the wake of Musk’s public support for Trump in July and the damage that continued coverage of the cemetery visit is causing to the Trump campaign, which denies any wrongdoing and is “considering” releasing its own footage of the incident.
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