Staff Reports
Twitter CEO Elon Musk strikes again as he labels Canada’s largest public news organization the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), “69% government-funded media.” This labeling has brought Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to chime in and defend the public broadcasting efforts. Trudeau accused Musk of trying to delegitimize public broadcasting efforts to inform the general public.
BREAKING: Justin Trudeau complained that the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) is not fully publicly funded so Elon Musk has changed their Twitter label to ‘69% Government-funded’.https://t.co/vStB3DK8OD
— Proud Elephant 🇺🇸🦅 (@ProudElephantUS) April 18, 2023
It’s appalling to witness Mr. Musk degrade a foundational Canadian institution’s hard work by running to American billionaires for any support to attack the Canadians,” stated Trudeau in defense. Pierre Poilievre, the leader of Canada’s conservative opposition party, also criticized Musk for his recent actions.
Justin Trudeau isn’t too happy that Twitter labelled @CBC “Government-Funded Media” 🤣
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) April 17, 2023
CBC/Radio-Canada has paused activities on its corporate and news Twitter accounts, after the social media platform put a "government-funded media" label on its @CBC account, in its latest move to stamp public broadcasters with designations. https://t.co/NcndZXiDj5
— CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) April 17, 2023
The CBC produces valuable news for all Canadians, receiving less than 70% of its revenue from taxpayers. Therefore, it’s unclear why Musk targeted them as part of his continued vendetta to flag media as “state media” and “publicly-funded.”
This is not the first time Musk has caused controversies in social media. Previously, he labeled the British Broadcasting Company as “state media” as well. Musk’s outspokenness towards biased news organizations has been a lot lately. He has been creating his own artificial intelligence called “TruthGPT” to counteract “politically correct” AIs with perceived biases.
Twitter’s government-funded label has brought controversies in other countries as well. NPR (National Public Radio) canceled its Twitter account as well as dozens of others for its local affiliates as it received the same designation by Musk. PBS also followed.
It is not surprising to see the opposition and the public outraged by Twitter’s move. The attack on the freedom of press has now gone beyond borders, and it is time to stand up for what is right.
