Sweden’s public radio, Sveriges Radio (SR) Tuesday announced that it would cease its activities on Twitter, in a move which follows analogous decisions by US and Canadian public broadcasters.

SR stated that it has for a long time de-prioritised its presence on Twitter and has now decided to stop being active on the platform together. It attributed its decision to quit Twitter due to a loss of relevance to Sweden’s audience, claiming that the audience has simply chosen other places to be. As a result, SR chose to deactivate or delete its remaining accounts.

While SR expressed that it has ceased its activities on Twitter, it maintained that individual reporters employed to the public radio network are still allowed to use Twitter. Nevertheless, SR said it has noted the recent turbulence around the platform. SR said they find it worrying that Twitter has reduced its workforce dramatically. Furthermore, SR postulated that factors such as Twitter’s potential diminished capacity to manage fake accounts, bots and misinformation were also considered in their decision to cease editorial activity on the platform.

US public broadcaster, National Public Radio (NPR), was the first significant news organization to quit Twitter when it abandoned Twitter last week after Twitter classified the network as “state-affiliated media.” In addition, Canadian public broadcaster, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), “paused” its Twitter accounts Monday. The CBC claimed, they “object[] to how Twitter has defined and applied the label of ‘government-funded media’ to CBC’s main corporate account.” Major broadcast networks in the West assert that there is a prominent difference between government-run networks and editorially independent networks that receive public funding.