An NPR report about Donald Trump’s campaign team and its confrontation at Arlington National Cemetery was temporarily marked as “unsafe” and “spam” on Elon Musk’s social media platform X.
After NPR journalist Stephen Fowler wrote an update on the incident on Thursday, users noticed that a link he posted to the article appeared to be accompanied by a “warning” preventing users from accessing the original story on the public broadcaster’s website.
The detailed message from the platform formerly known as Twitter asked users to check whether the link led to “violent or misleading content that could cause real-world harm” or to “malicious” websites that could put users’ personal information or devices at risk before clicking “Ignore” and moving on.
Users who noticed the warning wondered if the labeling was an attempt to suppress the story.
However, about an hour after the original post, Fowler was able to easily share the same URL in subsequent posts.
Given X and NPR’s history, the social media platform’s decision to label the news post is interesting.
In April 2023, the platform labeled NPR’s account as “state-affiliated media,” a label often reserved for websites that spread propaganda from authoritarian countries. The label was eventually removed, but NPR has not posted anything on its X account since the dispute.
Thursday’s NPR report included a statement from the U.S. Army updating earlier reporting that broke news that Trump aides verbally abused and physically shoved a cemetery worker who tried to stop the team from filming and taking photos at a ceremony on Monday.
Under federal law, no Army National Cemetery may be used as a backdrop for campaign activities.
Trump and his colleagues were in Arlington to attend an event commemorating a terrorist attack at Kabul International Airport in 2021 that killed 13 U.S. service members.
The former president has often cited the incident as an example of the Biden administration’s mismanagement of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
A Trump spokesman called NPR’s reporting “defamatory,” and on Wednesday Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance (Republican of Ohio), issued a strong response to the allegations.
During a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, he said Vice President Kamala Harris could “go to hell” for criticizing the incident, although the Democrat has not yet commented on the matter.
