CBS News and Top Affiliates Pause Twitter Activity ‘Out of an Abundance of Caution’

Amid the potential impending demise of Twitter, mass resignations and the influx of rule changes instituted by Elon Musk, CBS News and some of the major affiliates under the company’s umbrella have suspended tweeting on the platform.

In the closing of a televised CBS News report about the chaos at Twitter, CBS News national correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti informed viewers that, “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.”

That exact statement soon trickled down to CBS affiliates like KPIX in San Francisco, which tweeted the same statement before pausing their own Twitter activity. While CBS Los Angeles, CBS Chicago, CBS Dallas and CBS New York didn’t tweet the statement, none of those affiliates have tweeted anything over the past 20 hours. CBS’ main Twitter account also hasn’t posted anything since Thursday.

The Twitter accounts for shows like CBS Evening News, CBS Mornings and CBS News itself also stopped tweeting since midday Friday, and many of their correspondents – including Vigliotti, Scott MacFarlane, and Vladimir Duthiers – have refrained from tweeting since the statement was put out.

While the Twitter activity has ceased, CBS News has continued to post prolifically on their Facebook, including segments from this Saturday’s CBS Mornings episode.

(However, not all CBS affiliates are adhering to the “abundance of caution,” as the station in cities like Seattle, Miami, Houston and Phoenix — to name just a few — continue to tweet their news stories.)

CBS News’ decision came hours before another eventful night at Twitter where Musk — after initially announcing that Donald Trump’s reinstatement was under review — tweeted a poll that asked whether the former president should be allowed back on the platform; Musk didn’t elaborate if he’d act on the results of the poll, which at press time leans towards Trump reinstatement by a few percentage points after nearly 12 million votes.

After Twitter HQ’s last-minute Friday night meetup, Musk and whoever’s still there are reportedly bracing to stave off what could be a crushing blow for Twitter and its skeleton crew: The World Cup, the soccer tournament that kicks off this weekend in Qatar and has, in the past, flooded the platform with so much traffic that it could break the remaining infrastructure.

“Between the lack of preparations and the lack of staffing, I think it’s going to be a rough World Cup for Twitter,” a former employee told the Guardian, adding that it’s a coin flip whether Twitter makes it out of the weekend unscathed. “If we’re lucky, it will recover with minimal disruption.”