CBC/Radio Canada tweeted that it’s “pausing” activities on Twitter, just hours after getting labelled by the platform with a government-funded media tag.
On Sunday, Twitter updated the CBC with the tag to inform readers of potential bias from the state-broadcaster.
On Monday, CBC responded with a tweet.
“Our journalism is impartial and independent. To suggest otherwise is untrue. That is why we are pausing our activities on @Twitter,” the outlet said.
The CBC News account (@CBCNews) account remains untagged.
CBC/Radio Canada’s departure — or “pause” — follows the same path that other state-funded outlets have taken over the past two weeks.
Last week, Twitter slapped the BBC, PBS, and NPR with government-funded media tags, which prompted Canadians to ask CEO Elon Musk when the CBC’s account will get the same update.
NPR and PBS have since announced they were leaving Twitter, alleging the label was unfair and, however accurate, misleading to the public.
Subsequently, CBC went to bat for the outlets with articles that implied leaving Twitter was a good thing.
CBC’s account also pinned an old tweet from 2022 that points users to other outlets they can access the state-broadcaster, including the Chinese Communist Party-affiliated Tiktok.
However unwanted by CBC, the decision seemed only a matter of time given that NPR reportedly only received 1% of its funding from the government, which is a far cry from the 70% government-funded CBC.
Earlier in the week, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre asked Twitter to label CBC with the government-tag.
“The CBC’s 2021-2022 Annual Report disclosed that it received almost $1.24 billion, the vast majority of its funding, from the Canadian government,” Poilievre said.
“I believe that Twitter should apply the Government-funded Media label to the CBC’s various news-related accounts, including @CBC, @CBCNews and @CBCAlerts,” he added.
Twitter’s policy states that media outlets in receipt of government funding will get labelled accordingly if the government “exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.”
On Monday, CBC tweeted that it was “clearly” not in violation of the policy.
