As Twitchy readers know, NPR got into a public snit with Elon Musk when he started labeling it and other public broadcasters as ‘government-funded.’ This is despite the fact they are literally funded (in part) by the government. Eventually, NPR declared it wouldn’t use Twitter anymore because of it. The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) which is paid primarily for by a tax on televisions followed suit as did the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). Even Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau got involved, for some reason, accusing Musk of doing the bidding of Canadian conservatives:
Trudeau reacts to @elonmusk accurately labeling CBC as "government-funded media" pic.twitter.com/i4JOnRGKuE
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) April 17, 2023
Musk responded:
What’s he talking about and why is it sponsored by Erik’s son?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 18, 2023
And then Elon Musk trolled the CBC, hard.
It started when ‘T(w)itter Daily News,’ reported on the CBC boycott:
NEWS: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has halted its use of Twitter after being labelled “government-funded media,"
The public broadcaster says this label undermines its credibility. pic.twitter.com/u9BrwgzGci
— T(w)itter Daily News (@TitterDaily) April 17, 2023
As they noted, the CBC is truly funded by the government of Canada:
The CBC's 2021-2022 annual report revealed it received almost $1.4 billion (70% of its funding) from the federal government. pic.twitter.com/ZvAQojFoi6
— T(w)itter Daily News (@TitterDaily) April 17, 2023
And they admit it:
The @CBC argues that it funds the other 30% on its own so it should NOT have the label. pic.twitter.com/LuZFkgLnUj
— T(w)itter Daily News (@TitterDaily) April 17, 2023
The CBC, NPR, and BBC complained that by pointing out that they were government funded, it implied control based on Twitter’s explanation of what the term meant. For instance, this is what CBC Editor-in-Chief Brodie Fenlon said:
The real issue is that Twitter’s definition of government-funded media means open to editorial interference by government. As the Editor-in-Chief of CBC News has said the government has no — zero — involvement in our editorial content or journalism.
Except that is completely misleading. This is what Twitter’s help pages said at the time about the label: ‘Government-funded media is defined 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.’ Saying it ‘may have’ government involvement doesn’t mean it definitely does. It may or may not.
(That page has disappeared sometime in the last twenty-four hours for reasons that will become clear in a moment.)
And so the trolling began:
Just trying to be accurate. Would they be ok if we said 70% govt funded?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 17, 2023
Their concern has been addressed pic.twitter.com/pSm6KotlZL
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 18, 2023
69% Give them the benefit of the doubt
— 💸💸💸 (@itsALLrisky) April 18, 2023
Good point, generosity is always the right move. 69% it is!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 18, 2023
UPDATE pic.twitter.com/ozazGIoslX
— T(w)itter Daily News (@TitterDaily) April 18, 2023
Canadian Broadcasting Corp said they’re “less than 70% government-funded”, so we corrected the label pic.twitter.com/lU1EWf76Zu
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 18, 2023
So that brings us to today when Twitter removed all such government affiliation labels:
Twitter drops 'government-funded media' tag on NPR, other media accounts https://t.co/icYUT54m3p pic.twitter.com/FnwYe2AYGb
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 21, 2023
The tweet makes it sound like it is just about NPR, BBC, and the CBC, but the article revealed it went a lot further than that:
Twitter dropped the ‘Government-funded’ and ‘China state-affiliated’ labels, which implies government involvement in editorial content, from the accounts of various global media organizations, their profiles showed on Friday.
In other words, they dropped all such labels. For instance, the People’s Daily (@PDChina) has long been a major organ of the Chinese government. Currently, there is no label indicating any affiliation with the Chinese government.
Previously Chen Weihua’s account was labeled as ‘Chinese state-affiliated media.’
— CommunityCorner (@EdenfieldPl) April 21, 2023
As of this writing the label has been removed. Likewise, Lee Stranahan was labeled as Russian state media. That label has been removed:
Here’s what I see https://t.co/gx3Xy1C3YZ pic.twitter.com/KvE3mVijPA
— Lee Stranahan 🇷🇺 (@stranahan) April 21, 2023
Even RT, a.k.a. Russia Today (@rt_com) has had any affiliation labels removed.
So Musk quietly removed the "Russia state-affiliated media" label from all the Russian propaganda accounts. I suspected he would do that at some point, and it became pretty clear when he labeled CBC "69% government-funded." The whole point was to turn the label into a joke. pic.twitter.com/QwfOfvA3QX
— Spenol (@SpenolPalinUSA) April 21, 2023
One suspects that Musk’s game is to force the media to start complaining about a lack of such labels, and then say something like this: ‘What do you want? You complained when I accurately said that companies like NPR, BBC, and CBC are government funded. You complained when I stopped labeling any by government affiliation. So what do you want? For me to tell the truth about some of you but not others?’
Really, for these alleged news organizations to throw a hissy fit because Musk accurately stated that they received government money is nothing less than Orwellian.
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