Canada’s public broadcaster quits Twitter, joining US outlets

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) announced it will quit posting content on Elon Musk-owned Twitter, joining other U.S.-based media outlets. 

“Our journalism is impartial and independent. To suggest otherwise is untrue. That is why we are pausing our activities on @Twitter,” CBC wrote in a tweet on Monday. 

Twitter hit CBC, along with other media outlets receiving some public funding, with a “government-funded” label on its account, which amassed more than 32,000 followers. 

According to Twitter policy, government-funded media is defined as outlets where the government provides some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content.

“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 said in a Twitter thread in response to the social media platform’s recent labeling of their account. 

“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, as we said in our statement from last week,” CBC added. 

CBC followed other media outlets, such as PBS and NPR, who have called it quits on using Twitter after Musk slapped “government-funded” and “state-affiliated media” labels on their accounts. 

NPR was the first to announce its decision last week, saying it would let its Twitter accounts go dormant and no longer post on the social media platform in response to Twitter adding a “state-affiliated media” label to a number of media outlets that receive some public funding.

Twitter then dropped the “state-affiliated” label and changed it to say “government funded,” after receiving widespread pushback from the decision. In a statement, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said that NPR is an independent news organization, saying “If anyone were to follow their coverage, it is clear that they are indeed an independent news organization.”