CBS News is hitting the pause button, indefinitely, on posting new tweets amid uncertainty under Elon Musk’s stewardship.
The network’s news division, CBS News, announced Friday that the network will be suspending all Twitter activity from its official profiles as it continues to monitor things. CBS News says it’s doing this out of an abundance of caution and in light of all the tumultuous updates.
“CBS Evening News” ran a piece on Friday night titled: “Twitter Turmoil.” The segment began with anchor Major Garrett saying – without evidence – that Musk is “scrambling, quite simply, to prevent the social media platform from collapsing.”
CBS News national correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti claimed that Musk offered “little reassurance he has a permanent plan” for the future of Twitter because the Tesla CEO asked users of the social media platform what Twitter should do next. On multiple occasions since acquiring Twitter, Musk has asked Twitter users how the social media platform could be better going forward.
Vigliotti interviewed one former Twitter employee who worked at the company until Musk acquired the company. Coincidentally, the former disgruntled employee is a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against Twitter. The former employee claimed that Twitter under Musk was “definitely a culture of fear and uncertainty, of anxiety.”
Justine De Caires worked at Twitter while Musk was the CEO for only a few days. Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter on Oct. 27, then quickly laid-off employees. Justine De Caires was one of five former Twitter employees who were immediately fired and swiftly filed a lawsuit on Nov. 4. The lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court claims that Twitter violated the federal and California laws of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN). The law requires employers to provide at least 60 days’ notice before “plant closings” or “mass layoffs.”
Vigliotti then announced that CBS News would quit posting on Twitter because of “uncertainty” on the social media platform.
“In light of the uncertainty around Twitter and out of an abundance of caution, CBS News is pausing its activity on the social media site as it continues to monitor the platform,” Vigliotti said.
At 9:40 p.m. on Friday, the CBS-owned news station KPIX in San Francisco shared a near-identical message on Twitter.
“In light of the uncertainty around Twitter and out of an abundance of caution, CBS News Bay Area is pausing its activity on the social media site as we continue to monitor the platform,” the news network tweeted.
At the time of publication, the official CBS Twitter account with nearly 9 million followers has not posted on Musk’s social media platform since Friday. The same goes for the CBS Twitter account with over 1 million followers, “CBS Mornings” Twitter account with nearly 500,000 followers, the “CBS Evening News” account with nearly 400,000 followers, and “CBS Sunday Morning” with over 260,000 followers.
CBS affiliates in Chicago, Colorado, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York have not posted in nearly 24 hours.
The official CBS News Radio Twitter account continues to tweet.
However, CBS continues to maintain an account on TikTok – which has often been described as possible Chinese spyware.
CBS News refusing to tweet is a major statement, and if it catches on among other big publishers, it could make Twitter even less relevant, sparking a true mass exodus.