For years, government-funded propaganda – err, news outlets in the West have enjoyed favored roles as the arbiters of truth on social media.
If PBS said something was true, then it was merely the independent, objective media declaring it so, regardless of the fact that PBS is the U.S. federal government's public broadcasting service.
Last week, NPR stormed off Twitter because owner Elon Musk slapped it with a "state-sponsored media" label (which he later softened to "government-funded" because of NPR's temper tantrum).
On Tuesday, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, another government broadcaster that enjoys exalted privileges due to its connection to powerful politicians, also quit Twitter after being slapped with the label.
Read that again. The CBS gets 70% of its funding from the Canadian government.
What would be an appropriate term for an entity like that? 🤔
Do you think the public deserves to know that a media outlet is controlled by their government? If not, I'll buy you a plane ticket directly to North Korea so you can watch government TV tell you about the glories of the Supreme Leader every morning and night.
The CBC still argued that they are just like one of the private little guys:
To address their concerns, Elon changed the label again (I love new Twitter):
But then, and you knew there was going to be a "but then," Twitter users appealed to Elon's inner 12-year-old and got him to lower that percentage by one point for totally mature reasons:
