Twitter labelled the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) as a “government-funded media” on April 16.
The social media platform under the leadership of business tycoon Elon Musk had recently applied similar labels to the National Public Radio (NPR) in the United States and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the UK.
According to Twitter, the label is used in cases where “the government provides some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content.”
CBC rejects Twitter’s labelling.
“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,” CBC’s director of media relations Leon Mar told The Epoch Times in an email on April 16.
The national broadcaster received $1.2 billion in funding from the federal government last year.
On April 4, Twitter labelled NPR as “state-affiliated media,” the same label as Chinese-state media Xinhua and Russian state-controlled RT. After criticism, Twitter changed the label to “government-funded media.”
NPR said on April 12 that it is quitting Twitter, and won’t be posting new content on the platform. Reacting to the development and questions about the platform’s move, Musk said on Twitter: “Defund @NPR.”
The BBC also objected to its initial label of “government-funded media,” saying: “The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee.”
Musk said in an email to the BBC that Twitter is “aiming for maximum transparency and accuracy.”
“Linking to ownership and source of funds probably makes sense,” he said.
Twitter later changed the label on the BBC’s account to “publicly-funded media.”
Elon Musk speaks at the 2020 Satellite Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C., on March 9, 2020. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre, who often spars with the CBC and has asked for it to stop receiving federal funding, had written to Twitter to request the social media platform apply the “government-funded media” label to the broadcaster.
He welcomed the April 16 labelling.
“CBC officially exposed as ‘government-funded media,’” Poilievre wrote on Twitter. “Now people know that it is Trudeau propaganda, not news.”
The Prime Minister’s Office couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Poilievre had also asked for the same label for CBC’s @CBCNews and @CBCAlerts accounts, but the label wasn’t imposed on those two accounts as of April 16.
CBC’s Mar says the outlet has editorial independence.
“CBC/Radio-Canada is publicly funded through a parliamentary appropriation that is voted upon by all Members of Parliament. Its editorial independence is protected in law in the Broadcasting Act,” Mar said.
Owen Evans, Bryan Jung, and Noé Chartier contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This article was updated to add CBC’s response to the development when it was provided.
