Elon Musk has changed CBC’s “government funded” label to read “69% government funded media” after the public broadcaster announced Monday it will be pausing its activities on Twitter. CBC and Radio Canada’s move comes after the broadcaster’s main account received the label on Sunday night, days after Conservative Leader Pierre Poillievre posted a public request for Musk to do so.
CBC’s break will extend to all the public broadcaster’s news and corporate Twitter accounts, a spokesperson for the company told the Star. The CBC has since sent a letter to Twitter asking the platform to reconsider the designation, they continued.
While it’s unclear how long the break would last, CBC’s spokesperson said: “We hope this pause will be temporary.”
Just trying to be accurate. Would they be ok if we said 70% govt funded?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 17, 2023
Musk appears to have responded to CBC’s outcry later that night, posting: “Their concern has been addressed” with a photo of CBC’s new label reading “70% government funded media.” He later amended this to 69 per cent.
CBC/Radio-Canada had previously disputed the labelling, writing that Twitter’s policy defined “government-funded media” accounts as outlets that “may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content.”
(1/3) Twitter’s own policy defines government-funded media as cases where the government “may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content,” which is clearly not the case with CBC/Radio-Canada.
→ https://t.co/VrGdwTCYzP— CBC/Radio-Canada (@CBCRadioCanada) April 17, 2023
While it’s true that CBC is publicly funded through a parliamentary appropriation, its editorial independence is cemented by law through the Broadcasting Act, the outlet said in a Monday statement.
“Twitter can be a powerful tool for our journalists to communicate with Canadians,” CBC said in its statement, “but it undermines the accuracy and professionalism of the work they do to allow our independence to be falsely described in this way.”
Notably, only the main account @CBC was given the label. Its affiliates and related accounts, including Radio-Canada, CBC/Radio-Canada, CBC News Alerts and its myriad of local networks didn’t get the designation.
In the minutes following the broadcaster’s announcement, several CBC journalists said they’ll follow suit and take a leave from Twitter. The spokesperson noted the publication’s pause won’t apply to individual staff accounts, like those of journalists.
CBC’s move echoes that of U.S. news outlets NPR and PBS last week, which quit posting to the platform after being slapped with the same label.
CBC’s label appeared days after Poilievre posted a letter to the platform asking Musk to classify the national broadcaster and several of its affiliate accounts as “government funded.”