Sweden Public Radio Leaves Twitter Amid New Labels for Public Broadcasters

Due to Twitter's lack of relevance for its audience, Sweden's public radio, Sveriges Radio, has declared its decision to depart the social networking site, according to a report by AP.

This comes amid new labels on public broadcasters as "government-funded," which led to the exit of other media companies as well. However, Sveriges did not say that this was the reason for its departure.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and National Public Radio (NPR) have, however, cited Twitter's new policy for their exits, arguing that it undermines their credibility as news providers.

Twitter Deprioritized

Christian Gillinger, who is in charge of Sveriges Radio's social media efforts, revealed in a blog post that the broadcaster had deprioritized its Twitter activity for a while before deciding to fully stop using it and closing down multiple accounts.

Only 7% of Swedes use Twitter every day, according to Gillinger, who also remarked that Twitter had lost some of its significance over time. The news service of the broadcaster, SR Ekot, will still be accessible on Twitter but will now be flagged as inactive.

Since joining Twitter in 2009, Sveriges Radio has highlighted the recent "turbulence" involving the service's operations. Gillinger voiced concern that over time, Twitter's ability to deal with bogus accounts, bots, disinformation, hate messages, and threats may be harmed by its workforce reduction.

Conflict Over Labels

Reporters and Chief Twit Elon Musk are currently engaged in a new conflict over the classification of public broadcasters as government-funded organizations.

According to the CBC, the designation "government-funded" detracts from the objectivity and professionalism of its journalists' reporting and misrepresents the organization's independence.

As a result, it has chosen to halt its Twitter activity. A similar move was also made earlier this month by Public Broadcasting Service and NPR.

CBC has written to Twitter asking the company to reevaluate the classification. Musk tweeted about the issue and altered the title to read "69% Government-funded media."

However, CBC spokesperson Leon Mar claims that the CBC does not fit the criteria for the "government-funded media" classification on Twitter.

According to Mar, CBC is financed through a parliamentary allocation that is voted on by all members of Parliament, and its autonomy is safeguarded by the Broadcasting Act.

CBC's board of directors determines its funding. For the 2021-22 fiscal year, the government provided CBC with over $1.2 billion Canadian.

In April, Twitter removed The New York Times' verification check mark from its main Twitter account. The reason behind the removal is believed to be the newspaper's refusal to pay for verifying its institutional accounts.

Twitter's blue check marks were initially used to verify high-profile accounts like those of journalists, but anyone can get them by subscribing to Twitter's premium service.

This has become a cause of concern for news outlets since the check marks are indicative of the reliability of the source from which the information is shared.