CBC News is back on Twitter, well, just sort of back.
After nearly taking nearly a month off Twitter due to what it deemed an unfair “Government-funded media” label, the public broadcaster announced on Tuesday—it’s back. The CBC’s 2022 funding from Canadian taxpayers was $1.24 billion.
“Today, we will resume some activity on a handful of umbrella Twitter accounts, including @CBCNews, but we will significantly reduce our overall Twitter footprint and continue to assess the platform against our strategy,” said the CBC’s Brodie Fenlon, Editor in Chief.
"Today, the CBC will resume some activity on a handful of Twitter accounts, including @CBCNews, but we will significantly reduce our overall Twitter footprint and continue to assess the platform against our social media strategy." https://t.co/ZEJrRPCA7t
— CBC News (@CBCNews) May 9, 2023
It didn’t take long for Twitter’s “Chief Twit” Elon Musk to poke fun at the CBC, sharing a meme from the 2005 film ‘Brokeback Mountain’, and the line “I wish I knew how to quit you” from the Western romance about two cowboys in love, starring the late Heath Ledger as CBC News, embracing Musk.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 10, 2023
The meme has been viewed 14.8 million times and saw some even funnier meme responses.
The CBC and other public broadcasters that received ‘Government-funded media’ labels united and demanded that Twitter change their account labels to ‘Publicly-funded media’ instead. Later, Twitter removed all labels from government-funded and publicly-funded media outlets.
NPR journalist Bobby Allyn reported that Elon Musk verified to him that Twitter did indeed remove all media labels. Musk, when questioned about the reason, attributed it to Walter Isaacson’s recommendation. Isaacson, who is currently penning Musk’s biography, also authored Steve Jobs’ biography previously.
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and all 30 of CBC’s actual followers noticed…
One could say, CBC needed Twitter more than Twitter needs CBC
Nobody needs twitter anymore, its dead.
Well then, I guess they both belong together.
As I see it, one is using our money and the other is using their own. I think we lose.
Twitter and the tesla semi at least have this in common, they’ll both be dead in a year or two. At least twitter had a good run whereas the Tesla semi….well, didn’t, and never will.
Musk just needs to go back to where he was pre Tesla.
Paypal? Haha
Twitter has fundamentally changed. People who subscribe have their replies boosted to the top of any tweet effectively killing the egalitarian aspect of the site. No one scrolls endlessly to get to the replies from people who haven’t paid. Elon said he wanted to make it a ‘public square’ but he’s turned it into a pay to play system. Your voice only carries if you pay the $8 for the mic.
Correct: it used to be that people who espoused socialist talking points had their replies boosted – so the most stupid failed ideas got pushed to the top.
In the past when you replied to a Tweet it did not matter what your political affiliation was. Moreover, there are lots of topical posts on twitter that have nothing to do with politics at all. All replies were ranked according to engagement. Now irrespective of engagement only those with subscriptions have their posts boosted. Hence pay to play. It’s exactly the opposite of Elon’s vision of a ‘public square’.
“In the past when you replied to a Tweet it did not matter what your political affiliation was.”
This is a flat-out lie: posts were boosted based on “blue checkmarks”, which were heavily controlled by political considerations. Moreover, those that did not confirm to Twitter’s designated political Overton Window were “deboosted” (in their parlance), censored and outright banned.
It’s not perfect, but it is leagues ahead of where it was, certainly in terms of being apolitical if, nothing else.
You are confusing/conflating the issue of blue checks (verification) with the issue of ‘boosted replies’. Please understand the critical difference between ‘posts’ and ‘replies’. This is also not an issue of censorship which I agree with you on.
The average twitter user, like me, never had or sought a blue checkmark. ‘Replies’ to ‘posts’ were always ranked on engagement. There is nothing stopping Elon giving blue checks to people who subscribe without boosting their replies. Boosting ‘replies’ undermines a fundamental aspect of the ‘town square’ vision. It is pay to play.
Elon has made some great changes with regard to censorship etc. while at the same time undermined a critical aspect of the site.