CBC Account on Twitter Gets ‘Government-funded Media’ Label

One of CBC’s Twitter accounts now has a “Government-funded Media” label, and the news was shared by Conservative MP for Carleton (Ontario) Pierre Poilievre. Poilievre also shared a link for a petition to defund the CBC. CBC media relations director stated that Twitter is defying its own policy by doing this.

The CBC Twitter account, ‘@CBC’, now has a label that describes the broadcaster as “Government-funded Media.” The news was shared on Twitter by Pierre Poilievre who said, “BREAKING: CBC officially exposed as ‘government-funded media’. Now people know that it is Trudeau propaganda, not news.” He also shared a link to a petition to defund the CBC and save $1 billion.

Poilievre had asked the social media company to add the label for the English part of CBC but not for its French counterpart.

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

In response, CBC media relations director Leon Mar said that Twitter is defying its own policy which dictates that government-funded media “may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content.” He added that it is “clearly not the case with CBC/Radio-Canada.” Mar explained that CBC is funded by parliamentary appropriation that is voted upon by all MPs, and that its editorial independence is protected by law under the Broadcasting Act.

The Canadian Press tried to reach out to Twitter for a comment, but it responded with a poop emoji.

Such a label was previously applied to BBC as well and at the time, after pushback from the broadcaster, Twitter changed the tag to “publicly funded media.”

Vineet Washington