BREAKING: Pierre Poilievre calls on Elon Musk to label CBC 'government-funded media'

On Tuesday, Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre formally requested that Twitter owner Elon Musk label the CBC as "government-funded media."

"We must protect Canadians against disinformation and manipulation by state media," Poilievre tweeted. "That is why I'm asking @Twitter @elonmusk to accurately label CBC as 'government-funded media.'"



"It is a fact. And Canadians deserve the facts."

The letter from Poilievre states, "I am writing in respect of Twitter's practice of identifying certain accounts as 'Government-funded Media."

The letter outlines Twitter's Platform Use Guidelines on designating accounts as government-funded media, stating, "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."

"Twitter's Platform Use Guidelines refer to a source that describes the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (the 'CBC') as a publicly-funded broadcaster. The CBC's 2021-2022 Annual Report disclosed that it received almost $1.24 billion, the vast majority of its funding, from the Canadian government," the letter added.
 

The letter includes a link to the CBC’s financial overview of 2020-2021, which stated that the outlet received $1.394 million in 2020-2021, and $1.209 million in 2019-2020.

"As a result, and in the interest of transparency, I believe that Twitter should apply the Government-funded Media label to CBC's various news-related accounts, including @CBC, @CBCNews, and @CBCAlerts."

Elon Musk recently noted in response to a request the CBC be given such a label that "We need to add more granularity to editorial influence, as it varies greatly."

This comes on the heels of NPR and BBC receiving similar designations from the social media giant.