(LifeSiteNews) –– Twitter has now labeled the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) as “government-funded media” after many people, including Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leader Pierre Poilievre, called upon its CEO Elon Musk to do so.
Yesterday, users of the social media platform noticed that the @CBC account on Sunday afternoon began to carry the “government-funded media” label right below its logo. Both Australia’s and New Zealand’s public broadcasters, ABC News and RNZ respectively, also began to carry the label.
It seems that for now the only CBC Twitter page with the “government-funded media” label is its primary “@CBC” account, and not any of its multiple affiliate accounts such as “@CBCToronto” or “@CBCPolitics.”
Twitter users for weeks have been bombarding Musk with requests to label CBC as government-funded, however, its “government-funded” tag is different from the “state-affiliated media” tag put on Russian news outlet RT.
To that effect, LifeSiteNews launched its own petition calling upon Musk to label the CBC as “State-Sponsored Media on Twitter!” This petition as of today has over 3,000 signatures.
Last week, Poilievre wrote a letter to Musk and Twitter that he believed “Twitter should apply the Government-funded Media label to the CBC’s various news-related accounts, including @CBC, @CBCNews and @CBCAlerts.”
Poilievre stated that Twitter defines government-funded media “as outlets where the government provides some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content.”
“Twitter’s Platform Use Guidelines refer to a source that describes the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (the ‘CBC’) as a publicly funded broadcaster,” he added.
Yesterday, Poilievre said of the new label to CBC that the broadcaster has now been “officially exposed” as “government-funded media.”
“Now people know that it is Trudeau propaganda, not news,” he wrote.
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
Other politicians also took to social media to praise Musk’s move, including former Ontario MPP Roman Baber who tweeted:
It’s done! @cbc is indeed Government-funded Media.
Thank you @elonmusk. Please indicate same specifically re @CBCNews. News should not be funded by government! #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/0hyrDrIMBO
— Roman Baber (@Roman_Baber) April 16, 2023
Current CPC MP Andrew Scheer, who once served as the party’s leader, chimed in as well, tweeting simply, “There it is!”
CBC rejects new labeling
Despite the glee from conservatives, however, the CBC through its News/Radio-Canada Twitter account rebuked the new label, claiming it was “not the case with CBC/Radio-Canada.”
(1/3) Twitter’s own policy defines government-funded media as cases where the government “may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content,” which is clearly not the case with CBC/Radio-Canada.
→ https://t.co/VrGdwTCYzP— CBC/Radio-Canada (@CBCRadioCanada) April 17, 2023
(2/3) CBC/Radio-Canada is publicly funded through a parliamentary appropriation that is voted upon by all Members of Parliament. Its editorial independence is protected in law in the Broadcasting Act, as we said in our statement from last week.
→ https://t.co/CJeRlk7uc7— CBC/Radio-Canada (@CBCRadioCanada) April 17, 2023
Despite its rebuttal, the fact remains that the CBC, per its 2020-2021 annual report, receives about $1.24 billion in public funding every year.
This large sum accounts for roughly 70 percent of its annual operating budget.
Today, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau told reporters that Poilievre and others are trying to “attack a foundational Canadian institution,” and said that “the fact that he has to run to American billionaires for support to attack Canadians says a lot about Mr. Poilievre and his values.”
However, attacks against the CBC come not only from Poilievre, but some of their own past employees as well.
Last month, LifeSiteNews reported on former CBC producer Tara Henley, who last year left her job because of the outlet’s “radical political agenda.” Henley said the future of Canadian journalism lies with independent media outlets that don’t have a liberal bias.
In February, LifeSiteNews also reported on how the CBC will be joining a global “Public Spaces Incubator” initiative to combat online “misinformation,” despite recently coming under fire from its ombudsman for violating its own ethics code.
The most recent example came last month when it was reported that CBC ombudsman Jack Nagler said the network violated its own ethics code in 2021 in a piece falsely alleging the nation’s Catholic bishops were not coming through on a promise to raise money for an “Indigenous Reconciliation Fund.”
CBC viewership ratings have been steadily declining for years, with some estimates from 2021 putting the average national viewership rate at less than 3.9% of the Canadian market.
Despite this, in 2019 Trudeau promised that his Liberal government would give legacy media, including the CBC, an extra $595 million in federal assistance over the next four years.