Twitter Labels BBC as 'Government Funded Media'

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has drew a controversy with BBC after the broadcaster was labeled as a ‘government funded media’ on the microblogging site.

On the other hand, Britain’s national broadcaster was quick to respond on the categorization.

However, the label has not been given to the BBC's other accounts, including BBC News (World) and BBC Breaking News

It has come to the fore that the ‘government-funded media’ label appears on outlets that receive some government funding including PBS, NPR and Voice of America however, it doesn’t appear on other government-backed outlets such as Canada’s CBC or Qatar’s Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, in a statement provided to CNN, BBC said, "We are speaking to Twitter to resolve this issue as soon as possible. The BBC is and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee."

Amid this row, a twitter user asked, "CBC gets $1.2 billion per year from the Canadian gov (70% of its funding). @elonmusk, can you add a label?"

To this Elon Musk replied, "We need to add more granularity to editorial influence, as it varies greatly. I don’t actually think the BBC is as biased as some other government-funded media, but it is silly of the BBC to claim zero influence. Minor government influence in their case would be accurate."

We need to add more granularity to editorial influence, as it varies greatly. I don’t actually think the BBC is as biased as some other government-funded media, but it is silly of the BBC to claim zero influence.

Minor government influence in their case would be accurate.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 10, 2023

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