Twitter CEO Elon Musk has been in a dispute with news outlets such as CBC, BBC, and NPR. This has been going on for a few weeks now. Musk labelled Canadian public broadcaster CBC as “69% Government-funded Media” after they said they would pause their activities on Twitter. CBC spokesperson Leon Mar said that they were being “falsely described” and that Musk’s labelling undermined their credibility. As a result, CBC decided to pause their activity on their corporate Twitter account and all CBC and Radio-Canada news-related accounts. They said that their journalism is impartial and independent, and to suggest otherwise is untrue.
Elon Musk and mainstream media outlets are involved in a growing argument over who sponsors them. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO labelled UK’s BBC and the US’ NPR as “government-funded media” outlets. The @BBC account, which has 2.2 million followers, is currently branded as government-funded. The label has not been given to the BBC’s other accounts, including BBC News (World) and BBC Breaking News. Twitter has not given a definition for what it considers “government-funded media” to constitute.
BBC’s labelling has been changed to “Publicly-funded media” along with BBC Breaking News and BBC World. The BBC said that they are speaking to Twitter to resolve this issue as soon as possible. They are funded by the British public through the licence fee. The labelling of the news organisations has angered news media outlets because it leads to people believing that their editorial policy is being influenced by the US government, a speculation these outlets deny while claiming they have full editorial control unlike Chinese state-run Global Times or Russian state-run outlets like TASS, Sputnik or RIA Novosti.
NPR lashed out at Twitter and said it would stop using the social media site due to the “false” labelling.
