Canadian TV quits Twitter over ‘state-sponsored media’ tag

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) announced that it has halted its activities on Twitter due to the “state sponsored media” tag added to its social media account.

“Our journalism is unbiased and independent,” the CBC’s official Twitter account said in a statement. It is not correct to say otherwise. For this reason, we are suspending our activities on Twitter.”

The news shared on the CBC website included the words of agency spokesman Leon Mar. “Twitter can be a powerful tool for our journalists to communicate with Canadians, but allowing our independence to be misrepresented in this way undermines the integrity and professionalism of his work,” Mar said in a statement.

MUSK: WE FIXED THE LABEL

The CBC profile originally included the tag “70 percent state-sponsored media.” CBC said in a statement on its Twitter account: “We are funded by the state, but it only covers a part of our expenses. Ads help us pay our bills across all platforms.”

Following the statement in question, Elon Musk said, “We fixed the tag,” while the CBC profile was updated with the tag “69 percent state-sponsored media.”

FRENCH PUBLIC PUBLISHERS ALSO Tagged

On the other hand, Twitter has also labeled France’s public broadcasters as “government-funded media.”

The accounts for France TV, Radio France and France Medias Monde were described by Twitter as “government-funded media” as of Monday. According to Twitter’s statement, the hashtag reveals whether a media outlet’s license fee is public, individual, or commercially funded.

On the other hand, the Twitter accounts of the other public broadcasters in France, France Inter, France Info and France 2, have not yet been tagged.

Twitter had also recently labeled one of the main Twitter accounts of the British public broadcaster BBC as “government-funded media.” (AGENCIES)