Swedish public radio Sveriges Radio (SR) announced on Tuesday the end of its activities on Twitter, after similar decisions in the United States and Canada in the face of controversial decisions by Elon Musk’s social network.
“Sveriges Radio has for some time downgraded its presence on Twitter and we have now taken the decision to stop being active on the platform altogether, as well as to remove a series of accounts,” it said on its blog. the most listened to group of antennas in the Nordic country.
“We need to focus and prioritize SR’s online presence, and Twitter has just changed over the year and become less important to us,” explained the public outlet’s social media manager, Christian Gillinger.
Last week, the American public radio NPR became the first major media outlet to leave Twitter in protest against the new policy of the network, bought by billionaire Elon Musk in October for 44 billion dollars.
Monday, the public media group CBC / Radio-Canada had done the same after the decision of the platform of Elon Musk to attach the label of “media financed by the government”, deploring an attack on its “independence” via a “misleading” label.
Swedish public radio, whose main account has a “publicly funded media” label, however, did not protest the point, considering it to be a “correct definition” of SR funding.
Both Swedish Public Radio and Television (SVT) are 100% public.
The departures of major media from the Twitter platform come against the backdrop of the establishment of a controversial new certification policy, the network from April 20 granting its famous blue tick to those who will pay to take advantage of it.
At the beginning of April, she withdrew this tick from the main account of the American daily The New York Times (55 million subscribers), in another gesture of defiance towards a respected media but considered too left-wing by a part of the conservatives.
Since he bought the firm from the blue bird, Elon Musk has also relaxed the moderation of content on the network, letting back many users banned because of messages inciting hatred or falling under misinformation. He also dismissed with a vengeance, reducing the group’s workforce from 7,500 to less than 2,000 employees.
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