An international journalism organization is asking Twitter to correct its description of public broadcasters in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea.
The Global Task Force for Public Media, currently chaired by CBC/Radio-Canada executive Catherine Tait, says it is misleading to label four of its members as “government-funded media”.
The group says Twitter applied the tag without warning to the accounts of the CBC and public broadcasters in Australia, South Korea and New Zealand.
The organization points out that Twitter’s own policy defines government-funded media as “media whose funding comes in part or in whole from a government, and whose editorial content is likely to be influenced to varying degrees. by this government”.
The Global Task Force for Public Media says that is not the case here, as the independence of these four public broadcasters “is protected by law and framed by their editorial policies”.
The organization believes that the most accurate label would be: “publicly funded media”.
Twitter initially labeled several British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) accounts as “government-funded media”, but changed the label to “publicly-funded media”, after the BBC objected.
The BBC is also a member of the Global Working Group for Public Media, along with France Télévisions and the German public broadcasters ZDF and Swedish SVT.
“The current wording misleads the public about the editorial and operational independence of these broadcasters from governments,” the task force said in a statement.
This call follows efforts by AMIS to change CBC’s Twitter tag. The organization, a “citizen movement that defends local voices in our public broadcasting”, said Monday that it had written to Twitter to point out that the designation was “incorrect and misleading”.
The president of the Professional Federation of Journalists of Quebec (FPJQ), Michaël Nguyen, also reacted Tuesday following the announcement of CBC and Radio-Canada to no longer use the Twitter platform.
“ Social networks have enormous power, they are the ones who dictate the rules of the game, but at the same time, the media have the right not to play this game ”, wrote Mr. Nguyen.
Billionaire Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and SpaceX, introduced several changes after buying Twitter for $44 billion last October. He also pledged to remove the little blue “verified” checkmarks for users who don’t pay a subscription.