CBS News declared on Sunday that its brief breakup with Twitter over “uncertainty” was over and that it would now resume its presence on the social media platform.
As breakups go, this one ended without a fuss. It was Friday when CBS’s accounts ceased posting on Twitter. This action came after the New York Times reported that new CEO Elon Musk issued a deadline for workers to accept a “hardcore” work environment or take a severance and leave.
Roughly 1,200 accepted his offer to vacate, and this followed layoffs that affected nearly half of the company’s 7,500 employees.
CBS News has decided it's once again safe to use Twitter – but only for the moment!
They are continuing to "assess security concerns" and "monitor the situation."
If there are more outbreaks of free speech or hearing from people journalists dislike, they may retreat again. https://t.co/o0ZtgFshCk
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 20, 2022
Back to CBS, which went dramatically overboard in a virtue-signaling move that fooled no one. In a statement, the company cited “an abundance of caution” for their move.
As it explained, “CBS News is temporarily pausing its activity on the social media platform as it continues to monitor the situation.” It added prophetically, “we are hopeful that we will resume activity very soon.”
Twitter survived their absence.
So Sunday, the news network tweeted that “after pausing for much of the weekend to assess the security concerns, CBS News and Stations is resuming its activity on Twitter as we continue to monitor the situation.”
And it did. Sunday morning the various accounts resumed their presence in the “virtual town square,” one that likely was missed by precious few.
Elon Musk, never one to shy away from a response, tweeted an emoji of a yellow face with its hand over its mouth as if embarrassed. Besides being a self-described “free speech absolutist,” Musk has taken the mainstream media to task for failure to do its job in an unbiased manner.
In fact, he clearly stated his support for “citizen journalism” to counterbalance the established outlets.
If CBS News and its affiliate stations have true “security” concerns, perhaps they should turn their attention to TikTok. The social media giant is Chinese-owned and legally beholden to turn over all of its data gleaned from U.S. citizens to the Chinese Communist Party.
Now that is a security concern.
