Less than 70% government funded

Washington:

Elon Musk responded Monday to the Canadian public broadcaster’s announcement that he would be ceasing his activities on Twitter after being labeled as a “state-funded media”.

In response to CBC’s threats, Elon Musk tweeted, “Canadian Broadcasting Corp said they were less than 70% government funded so we corrected the label.”

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp said they were “less than 70% government funded,” so we corrected the label pic.twitter.com/lU1EWf76Zu

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 18, 2023

Earlier, CBC spokesman Leon Mar said, “Twitter can be a powerful tool for our journalists to communicate with Canadians, but it undermines the accuracy and professionalism of their work to allow our independence to be misrepresented in this way,” reported cbc .

“As a result, we will be pausing our activity on our corporate Twitter account and all CBC and Radio-Canada news-related accounts,” he added.

Meanwhile, CBC said on Twitter: “Our journalism is impartial and independent. To claim otherwise is wrong. Therefore we are pausing our activity on @Twitter.”

The BBC and NPR used to be described as “state-funded media” organisations.

The @BBC account – which has 2.2million followers – is currently being branded as government-funded. The label was not given to the BBC’s other accounts, including BBC News (World) and BBC Breaking News, CNN reported.

Twitter has not provided a definition of what it means by “government-funded media.”

In a statement to CNN, the BBC said: “We are speaking to Twitter to resolve this issue as soon as possible. The BBC is and always has been independent. We are funded by the UK public through the royalty.”

The BBC’s branding comes after a row erupted between Musk and America’s NPR network after Musk changed NPR’s label to “state-affiliated media” – effectively suggesting the US government is influencing its editorial policies and could compare to media like Kremlin-funded Russia Today.

After being labeled “government-funded,” NPR said it would stop using Twitter altogether, the New York Times reported.

Isabel Lara, NPR’s chief communications officer, said in a statement: “NPR’s organizational accounts will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent. “

“We do not publish our journalism on platforms that have shown an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence,” she added.

(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and was published by a syndicated feed.)