It appears Twitter is honing its label accuracy and updated the CBC’s official Twitter account label from “Government-funded media” to “69% Government-funded media.”
On Monday evening Elon Musk tweeted out an update to the CBC official Twitter account, “Canadian Broadcasting Corp said they’re ‘less than 70% government-funded'” Musk wrote, adding the label has been corrected.
Musk shared a screen shot of the CBC account with a more accurate description that now says “69% Government-funded Media.”
Musk issued this “correction” after CBC/Radio-Canada and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau complained of the first label that was applied as “Government-funded Media.”
Earlier, CBC spokesperson Leon Mar said, “Twitter can be a powerful tool for our journalists to communicate with Canadians, but it undermines the accuracy and professionalism of the work they do to allow our independence to be falsely described in this way,” CBC reported.
“Consequently, we will be pausing our activity on our corporate Twitter account and all CBC and Radio-Canada news-related accounts,” he added.
Leon Mar, a spokesperson for CBC said “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 complained that “Twitter did not consult with CBC before applying the label.”
For years the state broadcaster has evaded the Government-affiliated media label as Twitter applied them to others like Russia Today and Al Jazeera. The new policy more accurately describes the government being the source of funding for the CBC.
Trudeau claimed that the CBC was an “independent media organization.”
Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh were outraged with the label accusing Canadian Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of running to “American Billionaire” Elon Musk to conspire about labelling the CBC as Government-funded Media. However Elon Musk has Canadian citizenship, his mother is a Canadian and he lived in Canada in his late teens attending University.
According to CBC’s 2020 – 2021 Annual financial report it received closed to $1.4 billion in government funding as it is titled in CBC’s own report.
According to CBC’s 2021 – 2022 Annual financial report it received closed to $1.3 billion in government funding as it is titled in CBC’s own report.
Twitter’s new “government and state-affiliated media account labels on Twitter” policy now covers four scenarios.
- How government accounts are defined
- How state-affiliated media accounts are defined
- How government-funded media accounts are defined
- How publicly-funded media accounts are defined
The CBC was slapped with the “How government-funded media accounts” label which is defined by Twitters as:
“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. We may use external sources similar to this one in order to determine when this label is applied.”
