Image Credit: NurPhoto via Getty Images 
Canadian broadcaster CBC announced it was pausing its Twitter activity in response to being accurately labeled ‘state media’ by the social media network.
As we highlighted yesterday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had its Twitter accounts tagged with the term “government-funded media,” prompting the Conservative Party’s Pierre Poilievre to tweet, “Now people know that it is [Canadian PM Justin] Trudeau propaganda, not news.”
BREAKING: CBC officially exposed as “government-funded media”.
Now people know that it is Trudeau propaganda, not news.
Sign here to save $1 billion & defund the CBC: https://t.co/R8BvsAcR3O pic.twitter.com/Akf6IzdIb2
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) April 16, 2023
Despite the CBC protesting against the measure, the assertion that it is “government-funded media” is completely true.
In its own 2021-22 annual analysis, CBC reported receiving $1.24 billion Canadian dollars (US$930 million) in government funding. The broadcaster is a Crown corporation, and therefore owned entirely by the state.
This meets the requirements for Twitter’s guidelines, which note that the “government-funded media” label will be applied “where the government provides some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content.”
CBC claimed that the label was unfair because it is “wholly owned by the state but operated at arm’s length from government,” which has no influence on its editorial output.
Yeah, right. As if.
Now CBC has prolonged its hissy fit at being (accurately) defined as state media by hitting pause on all Twitter activity.
“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 spokesperson Leon Mar said on Sunday evening.
“Consequently, we will be pausing our activity on our corporate Twitter account and all CBC and Radio-Canada news-related accounts.”
In other words, the CBC is crying and taking its ball home over being rightly exposed as a government-funded platform.
In doing so, they are following the example of US outlets National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), who also stopped tweeting after being (again accurately) labeled government-funded media.
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