After NPR, Canada’s CBC News quits Twitter over platform’s ‘government-funded’ label

Canada’s public broadcaster CBC and its French-language variation Radio-Canada reported on Monday that they had been quitting Twitter in excess of a new authorities-funded label, that it deems to be questioning its editorial independence. The Canadian community broadcaster’s Twitter exit comes days after the US radio NPR stop the system around a identical label. 

In a assertion, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation/Radio-Canada said Twitter experienced added a “government-funded media” label to its account. This, the Canadian condition broadcaster additional, branded it related to the main media retailers in countries these as Russia and China.

“In the situation of CBC/Radio-Canada this labeling is untrue and misleading,” the statement mentioned.

When the broadcaster is publicly funded, it claimed its editorial independence is guarded under Canadian broadcasting law.

“Twitter can be a potent resource for our journalists to communicate with Canadians, but it undermines the accuracy and professionalism of the work they do to enable our independence to be falsely explained in this way,” it mentioned.

“For that reason, we will be pausing our action on our company Twitter account and all CBC and Radio-Canada information-associated accounts.”

The broadcaster alternatively urged Canadians to abide by it on other social media.

CBC/Radio-Canada’s Twitter exit follows that of Countrywide Public Radio (NPR) in the United States over the tag, which has also been used to Britain’s BBC. But soon following, BBC’s ‘government-funded media’ label on Twitter was transformed to ‘publicly-funded media’. 

The NPR experienced a total of 52 official Twitter feeds and turned the very first significant news organisation to entirely stop Twitter.

ALSO Watch | Social media large Twitter labels BBC as ‘government-funded media’

CBC News quits Twitter: Political row erupts in Canada

Meanwhile, the Canadian Primary Minister Justin Trudeau accused Conservative rival Pierre Poilievre of enlisting U.S. billionaires to attack Canada’s general public broadcaster. Trudeau’s responses came shortly soon after Poilievre prodded Twitter owner Elon Musk to label the CBC “federal government-funded.”

Poilievre said on Twitter past 7 days that he had created to Musk to ask for that the Canadian Broadcasting Company be labeled “accurately”. Hrs later, CBC’s Twitter accounts were labeled ‘government-funded’.

Due to the fact Elon Musk acquired Twitter past November, the social media company has liberalised the moderation of content material on the network.

Musk also trimmed Twitter’s workforce from 7,500 to fewer than 2,000 workforce growing the submit-pandemic layoff spree in the Silicon Valley.

(With inputs from agencies)

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