[HN Gopher] NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affi...
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NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'
Author : davidbarker
Score : 510 points
Date : 2023-04-12 13:26 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wbur.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wbur.org)
| mleafer wrote:
| "Tesla has received more than $3.2 billion worth of direct and
| indirect California subsidies and market mechanisms since 2009,
| according to an estimate from Newsom's office." -
| https://www.govtech.com/policy/gov-newsom-says-california-su....
| [deleted]
| snowwrestler wrote:
| There's a lot of focus in comments on the funding. But let's say
| you are an engineer at Meta. And the next time you log into
| Twitter, your personal Twitter account has a label that says
| "Meta-affiliated account." Would that seem fair or accurate?
|
| Even though you get most of your personal income from your
| employer, that doesn't necessarily mean that they are directing
| what you do and say on your own social media accounts. Unless you
| are communicating in some professional capacity on behalf of your
| employer, like PR.
|
| It's similar with the concept of "state-affiliated media" (a
| concept which predates Twitter, by the way). The deciding factor
| is how much the media operation is doing, essentially, the PR
| work of the government.
|
| Maybe with Biden in office, some poorly-informed conservatives
| would be willing to believe NPR is taking direction from the
| government. But during the Trump presidency? It's obvious from
| even a cursory review of NPR content over the years that they are
| frequently at odds with the contemporaneous administration.
| Whereas state-affiliated media always is aligned, by definition.
| bhelkey wrote:
| > But let's say you are an engineer at Meta. And the next time
| you log into Twitter, your personal Twitter account has a label
| that says "Meta-affiliated account." Would that seem fair or
| accurate?
|
| It seems reasonable to disclose that one works at a company
| before posting an opinion related to that company online. The
| statement "I love CeraVe products" is worth a whole lot more
| from a happy customer than it would be from a CeraVe employee.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Well they literally are, and combined with being as biased and
| disingenuous as any MSM organization out there, they should be
| labeled as such. Twitter has become much better since Musk took
| the helm. The little people can finally speak truth to power
| without getting deplatformed.
| hidden80 wrote:
| It's so wild witnessing the degradation of Twitter.
| poisonarena wrote:
| People keep saying this but I haven't noticed at all, I stopped
| using it for years but now I am back and have noticed only
| improvements
| yamtaddle wrote:
| It's waaaaay better for those of us without an account. It
| loads every time, rather than failing about 2/3 of the time
| (at least on mobile--always figured that was some weird dark
| pattern to try to get me to use the app, did it to me
| consistently for _years_ across multiple devices), and doesn
| 't block me with a loginwall if I scroll too far before
| hitting "more replies" anymore.
|
| All the drama around Twitter's also flat-out hilarious if one
| doesn't care whether Twitter lives or dies, and lots of that
| drama's _on_ Twitter, so I 'd call that an improvement, too.
| vicktour wrote:
| Sometimes it wont show me current tweets. My timeline is full
| of accounts that I don't follow and nobody I follow replied.
| I had to block musk's account because it was the only thing I
| was seeing. Tweets disappear when I try to look at them. Its
| been frustrating to say the least.
| stiltzkin wrote:
| There is a following accounts tab, and you can make lists
| to improve your your timeline.
| poisonarena wrote:
| yeah, I noticed they divided your timeline to 'for me' and
| 'following' you just have to click 'following' and then its
| back.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| Ragequitting is also degrading to NPR.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Why engage on the platform when it's rigged by a narcissist?
| Like the Greyrock method, disengage.
|
| Twitter only has value so long as it has network effect.
| People leaving diminish it. So why not?
| sneak wrote:
| [flagged]
| sp332 wrote:
| State funded is not the same as state affiliated. The
| government doesn't have any editorial control of NPR.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| True but it does lean heavily in one political direction.
| If it is receiving any federal funding then it should be
| pushed to neutrality, and remove the one-sidedness of
| their news programing.
|
| I think NPR would be very upset if the government
| required political neutrality as part of its funding.
| sp332 wrote:
| When Trump threatened to cut their funding because they
| weren't friendly enough to him, their funding increased
| from donations quite a bit. They're making content their
| listeners want.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| NPR seems plenty neutral to me. Neutral is not defined as
| the midpoint between our two main US political parties
| (as your username would suggest you know).
|
| I always hear more than one side to each story, when
| they're long enough, and a good mix of brief stories
| about either side, positive and negative.
| FeloniousHam wrote:
| I am a regular listener to at least Morning Edition and
| All Things Considered, and I can assure you their
| reporting is very biased to the Left.
|
| The credulous reporting of politically left ideas,
| policies, and positions on news stories without even
| strawman explanations of competing ideas is very
| frequent.
|
| I listen to podcasts for long form, fair discussions of
| issues, but NPR used to (seemed to?) hew to an objective
| ideal of reporting, and the new crew happily crusades for
| their team/goals.
| tstrimple wrote:
| Or maybe your perception of what is actually neutral is
| too skewed by American political extremism. It seems any
| source that isn't ranting about trans folk and teachers
| being groomers or that the 2020 election was stolen is
| somehow "left leaning" to many people in this country.
| [deleted]
| trasz3 wrote:
| >The government doesn't have any editorial control of
| NPR.
|
| Yeah, it's not like the government literally put their
| own guy as NPRs CEO: https://www.usagm.gov/who-we-
| are/management-team/john-lansin...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| NPR hired him away from the USAGM; "selected by NPR's
| corporate board".
| https://www.npr.org/2019/09/05/758047287/npr-names-
| veteran-m...
| trasz3 wrote:
| [flagged]
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Yeah, no. https://medium.com/dfrlab/question-that-rts-
| military-mission...
|
| > RT's parent company, TV-Novosti, is registered as a
| state-owned Autonomous Non-commercial Organization (ANO)
| with the Russian Ministry of Justice. According to TV-
| Novosti's official filings with the Ministry, it is
| almost entirely funded by the state budget, with the
| exact figure ranging annually between 99.5% and 99.9%.
| trasz3 wrote:
| So if it was instead registered as a private company,
| with, say, Medvedev as CEO, it would be fine?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That would depend entirely on the specific details,
| including that 99% funding number. If you wanna allege
| specifics about NPR beyond "they once hired someone who
| used to work for the government", go for it.
| trasz3 wrote:
| So here's where we disagree: to me, any institution led
| by Medvedev won't be independent; funding formalities
| don't matter at all.
|
| Also, once again: there's a fundamental difference
| between "used to work" and "was a CEO".
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'd be very skeptical of Medvedev, yes. The burden of
| proof for his independence would be... high.
|
| Do I think Lansing is anything comparable? No.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Tesla and SpaceX combined have obtained $5 billion in
| subsidies from the US government. NPR's budget subsidy is
| less than one percent (~$3M).
|
| The label is not accurate, it's a weapon of childish
| behavior.
| byyll wrote:
| [flagged]
| nailer wrote:
| SpaceX doesn't report the news.
| byyll wrote:
| I was sarcastic, sorry if it wasn't clear.
| brandonagr2 wrote:
| They have not. You are relying on a false headline that
| calls things like contracts, loans, zev credits from
| other automaters as ' government subsidies', which is
| obviously incorrect.
|
| Tesla is only just now receiving subsidies to produce
| batteries from the IRA that was passed last year, but
| previously had received no subsidies from the federal
| government
| [deleted]
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| [dead]
| sneak wrote:
| Are Tesla or SpaceX media companies? I thought they were
| in manufacturing.
|
| You are comparing apples to oranges.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It feels like you're attempting to make excuses for bad
| faith behavior through contortions of criteria. That is a
| choice, but not one I think that would stand up to
| scrutiny (based on the facts of the matter, Elon's very
| public history of how he exists, operates, and "lashes
| out" whenever feeling challenged or sleighted).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law
| nailer wrote:
| No really SpaceX isn't a media company.
| rcme wrote:
| Having standards and self respect isn't rage quitting.
| [deleted]
| rideontime wrote:
| How, specifically, does it degrade anybody to stop using
| Twitter?
| mwsfc wrote:
| Not at all ragequitting and not degrading to NPR. Staying on
| the platform tacitly implies NPR accepts the label ...which
| would be degrading, from their perspective.
| kylecordes wrote:
| I think people should be slower to act.
|
| Around the time they left, the label had already been
| improved to mention funding instead of affiliation.
|
| If they could just be a bit chill about it, is quite
| possible within a month it might have been replaced with a
| approximate-percentage-funding label, which should not be
| particularly offensive.
|
| Would be really slick to see all media accounts have
| company ownership / funding listed.
| nailer wrote:
| If NPR doesn't wish to accept the label it should refuse
| government funding.
| orwin wrote:
| So any company accepting grants is a state-affiliated
| company?
|
| Honestly I kinda like it. I would extend it to any
| company accepting tax breaks.
|
| Imagine the headline 'The church of the Last days, a
| state-affiliated non-profit, is warning that the end is
| near'.
| nailer wrote:
| Any media company accepting grants from the state is
| indeed state affiliated, yes.
| dylan604 wrote:
| McDonalds, a state funded eatery,... (because they accept
| tax breaks)
|
| Amazon, a state funded company,... (because they shopped
| around for the best tax breaks)
|
| Or any single other company that does what a company does
| by making any deal they can to better their bottom lines
| by taking tax breaks or gov't funding in any form would
| need to be called state funded.
|
| It sort of loses its stigma from that view point.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| The "known to the state of California to cause cancer" of
| funding-labeling.
| dylan604 wrote:
| i was thinking the cookie consent banner numbing, but
| yeah, i've always joked that i'm glad to live in a much
| less carcinogenic state than california.
| rondini wrote:
| If Twitter wants to survive it should stop antagonizing
| large users to make political statements
| nailer wrote:
| The policy isn't political, it applies to all government
| funded media accounts.
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| BBC just had their state-affiliated label removed.
|
| https://twitter.com/BBC
| nailer wrote:
| It's been replaced with "publicly funded" which I think
| will also apply to NPR.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I think it speaks well of NPR.
| [deleted]
| nailer wrote:
| [flagged]
| fknorangesite wrote:
| Because "state-affiliated" specifically means the state has
| _editorial_ control - which is certainly not the case here -
| not merely that they provide some funding.
| zackees wrote:
| [dead]
| jjulius wrote:
| >... why is it bad to let people know?
|
| It's not, as long as you're not doing it to specifically
| target one company or be a dick about it. Is he going to
| label his own companies with the same thing?
|
| >According to a Los Angeles Times investigation, Musk's
| companies had received an estimated $4.9 billion in
| government support by 2015, and they've gotten more since.[1]
|
| [1]https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-
| su...
| nailer wrote:
| Musk doesn't own a media company.
| jjulius wrote:
| Tesla, a government-funded company, has the ability to
| remotely disable your car. Surely they'd be happy to do
| this at the government's request, no? Locking your car
| mid-drive and rerouting you using FSD because you said
| something the government didn't like?
|
| SpaceX, a government-funded company, has the ability to
| put all kinds of invasive, espionage-focused payloads
| into space.
|
| The point is, if we're going to insinuate that NPR is
| doing the bidding of the US government simply because a
| portion (however large or small) of the money they
| receive comes from the government, then we can insinuate
| the same kind of sentiment towards Musk's companies.
|
| If you think it's important to know that a media company
| takes government money, why _wouldn 't_ it be important
| to know if other companies in other industries are
| similarly connected?
| LastTrain wrote:
| Please act in good faith. You know why Twitter did what it
| did, and you know why it was wrong. We know you know that.
| NPR is not state affiliated, or even government funded. Fox
| news airs ads from the US Military - is it state affiliated?
| nailer wrote:
| Your logical fallacy is incredulity. What Twitter did was
| absolutely ethical, and since it applies to all government
| funded media, it is not political in nature. Yes anyone
| accepting government ad money should be labelled as well.
| LastTrain wrote:
| I'm not sure what ethical means in this context, or what
| it has to do with them being wrong. What responsibility
| does Twitter have to anyone? They are a privately held
| corporation. Where they were 'wrong' is in not being
| consistent in their labeling, and the subtext surrounding
| that - of which we are all aware but some of us (like
| you) are unwilling to acknowledge in order to advance an
| argument or to just Troll. But go on...
| waboremo wrote:
| Because the "government funded media" was a last minute save,
| the original "state affiliated media" is a false claim.
| Surely you grasp the difference between the two labels? The
| latter has corporate and editorial control in case you were
| unaware.
| nailer wrote:
| Anyone providing money to a media org has some amount of
| editorial control. The newer version is more specific but
| it doesn't mean state affiliated is inaccurate.
| waboremo wrote:
| It does mean it's inaccurate because state affiliated is
| already a specific term to describe editorial control. I
| don't know how else to put it to you, maybe an example.
|
| You can publish a podcast or article or whatever on NPR
| right now about how much you hate the current
| administration and want them replaced. You cannot do that
| with state affiliated media, if CGTN tomorrow did the
| same, the state has the direct ability to take action
| against that by firing people, changing management,
| altering funding, etc. That's if they even get past
| initial filters!
|
| To argue that "state affiliation" is meaningless by
| handwaving it as "anyone providing money to a media org
| has some amount of editorial control" is bad faith.
| nailer wrote:
| Aren't you assuming bad faith by claiming that Twitter is
| somehow conspiring against NPR by labelling the state
| sponsored media as being state sponsored?
| JohnFen wrote:
| It isn't. What's bad is that by singling NPR out for
| receiving less than 1% of their revenue from the government
| implies that's something unusual. It isn't. Almost every
| business receives money from the government.
| DrThunder wrote:
| [flagged]
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| It really underscores how the Internet needs a notion of social
| networking that is based on open standards and open
| infrastructures. Imagine if it was 2002 and Bill Gates pulled a
| similar gambit and just "bought the web."
|
| Fortunately that was actually impossible, but it underscores
| how a thing like Twitter is also too important to be a
| plaything of investors and playboys.
|
| Every time someone mentions Mastodon here, we get a bunch of
| responders saying "they blew their chance" as if they're copy-
| pasting off of a script... I hate to be conspiracy-brained, but
| a quick note to those guys: if you are Twitter insiders, you're
| not being very subtle.
|
| From where I'm sitting, Mastodon -- and more importantly,
| ActivityPub -- is doing great. For those that thing the
| standard is too weird for normies, keep in mind that the way
| things are going, more startups are going to follow Medium and
| Substack's approach.
| colanderman wrote:
| Right?
|
| > Twitter's communications shop now simply responds to
| reporters' emails with poop emojis.
|
| Like, does Musk realize the market of trolls, clowns, and
| morons who enjoy his adolescent antics is... not worth $44 B?
| ModernMech wrote:
| It's not worth it to you, of course.
|
| But if you already have $100 billion dollars; and all you
| wanted in the world was adoration and accolades from adoring
| masses; and you didn't care those masses are trolls, clowns,
| and morons; then maybe $44 billion is the right price.
| jfengel wrote:
| He certainly figured it out, which is why he worked so hard
| to back out of the deal.
|
| Though he never really expected it to earn its price back. As
| a large-fraction-of-a-trillion-aire, he may well have found
| that having trolls, clowns, and morons to enjoy his
| adolescent antics is worth $44B in pure enjoyment. He was
| buying a chance to put a significant thumb on the finger of
| world culture.
|
| Musk has so much money that he doesn't really care if there's
| a net positive return to his purchases. He spends money to
| enjoy it. Which I actually find bizarrely refreshing,
| compared to the ones who want to use it for the purpose of
| acquiring more money, plus the occasional conspicuous
| consumption that seems more like a performance than actual
| enjoyment (e.g. megayachts).
|
| Too bad he's such an asshole, though.
| jrussino wrote:
| > he may well have found that having trolls, clowns, and
| morons to enjoy his adolescent antics is worth $44B in pure
| enjoyment
|
| This is the most disappointing part. I have a hard time
| imagining that any of these billionaires are "good people"
| in a way that I would recognize. But before this Twitter
| thing I felt like at least I can respect the things Musk
| chooses to spend his time and money on. How much would that
| $44B have moved the needle on on his Mars dream? Seems like
| a waste to me.
| brandonagr2 wrote:
| > How much would that $44B have moved the needle on on
| his Mars dream
|
| It would make 0 difference, SpaceX is already moving as
| fast as possible, throwing money at them would not make
| things go faster. In the future when actual ships start
| flying to Mars Elon will still have plenty to fund that
| personally if he needed to.
|
| In other news, the first flight test of the largest
| rocket ever built is scheduled for Monday the 17th
| bdhe wrote:
| Forget about Mars, what about spending that $44B to lobby
| the government to end poverty for children in the US,
| feels like a noble cause. Senators and Congressmen/women
| are bribed, excuse me, lobbied, for peanuts (< millions).
| jfengel wrote:
| For $44B, he could have just given every child $2,000.
| Not enough to end poverty, but surely enough to keep them
| fed for a year.
|
| I realize that this isn't practical; the causes of
| poverty are complex and just giving people money won't
| solve all of it. But it does give some notion of the
| scope of what could have been accomplished directly.
| whydoyoucare wrote:
| If NPR is really concerned about getting balanced news to the
| masses, then their decision to quit twitter, in the lack of an
| alternative and equivalent platform, seems short-sighted and more
| like a temper tantrum of a kindergartner, than that of a
| thoughtful and mature news organization.
|
| It also reinforces the conspiracy theories that they were never
| truly independent. By making a stinker about this issue, they are
| trying to paint Musk as the evil overlord hell bent on strangling
| anyone he dislikes. NYT, WaPo and other leftist media outlets are
| going to join (yet again) this bandwagon, guaranteed.
|
| Did BBC quit? No.
|
| NPR, grow up, be an adult.
| TobyTheDog123 wrote:
| I'm one of the people who thinks "government-funded" is a fair
| label (though "state-affiliated" isn't as it implies editorial
| control).
|
| However, not putting up with someone's (or a company's) antics
| is not a temper-tantrum, nor a factor in if their decision was
| "adult" or not. If an organization is offended by a company's
| decision, then what's wrong with their decision to leave?
|
| Why would they tarnish their brand by having all of their posts
| accompanied by a label that they deem to be false?
| whydoyoucare wrote:
| While I don't have proof, I believe the screaming of NPR
| about this issue was deliberate (yet again) attempt at
| painting Musk as the "Evil Overlord" about to destroy the
| very fabric of fairness, democracy and society.
|
| And I never implied NPR cannot or should not leave if they
| disagree. The BBC example was simply drawing parallels with
| someone who made no stink about this and chose to stay. To my
| knowledge, there was no attempt from NPR to have that label
| corrected, which seems to be the first logical step.
|
| Off topic, I never found NPR to be neutral or unbiased. They
| are great pretenders of neutrality though.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Well, there is an interesting history here. E.g. in 2000 NPR (and
| CNN) allowed the US Army's Psychological Operations division to
| place military members in the newsroom as interns as part of a
| media training program:
|
| https://fair.org/home/psyops-in-the-newsroom/
|
| > "PSYOPS is a division of the U.S. Army mandated to "develop and
| disseminate propaganda designed to lower the morale" of "enemy
| forces," and to "build support among the civil population" in
| other countries for U.S. objectives (U.S. Army Field Manual No.
| 100-15)."
|
| I'm fairly certain that if a Russian media company had a history
| of hosting Russian military psyops people in its newsroom, or if
| hired ex-military and ex-intelligence officers as commentators,
| it'd get the 'state-affiliated' label on platforms like Youtube,
| Facebook, Twitter etc. without any controversy.
| hn2017 wrote:
| Considering Musk has openly endorsed Russia's talking points,
| his changes don't surprise me. Such a shame to see Twitter
| destroyed completely.
|
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2023/04/07/elon-musk-...
| warner25 wrote:
| For what it's worth, I'll give some perspective here as a
| career Army officer.
|
| I think this is one of those things that sounds like the
| plausible work of a highly intelligent and effective monolith,
| which is how conspiracy theorists often seem to view "the
| government." I think the reality is that "the government" and
| the US Army is not. It's a sprawling bureaucracy with insanely
| high turnover and many internal divisions, in which every sub-
| organization has its own goals, and people are operating
| independently at every level of those sub-organizations (and
| mostly to advance their personal career goals which are often
| quite limited, like making it to a 20-year active duty
| retirement or 30-year FERS civilian retirement, getting an
| education, and transitioning to a good job in the private
| sector as soon as possible).
|
| 2000 was before my time, but this sounds like a program which
| still exists called "Training With Industry." The ideas behind
| TWI are that: (1) The Army has people in uniform who've been
| working hard and doing good things, feeling burned out, and are
| on the fence about whether they should continue in uniform or
| find another career path. (2) The Army would like to retain
| their valuable experience and expertise. (3) Letting people do
| an internship in private industry for a year, trying out
| "civilian life," on the condition that they do three more years
| in uniform afterwards, might be a win-win. It gives people a
| break and something nice to put on their resume for later. They
| learn and experience some things from the internship that the
| Army can't teach. It's like offering a sabbatical more than
| anything else. The Army lets people go to civilian graduate
| school for a year or two for the same reasons. My main point is
| that it's very divorced from the operational side of the Army,
| even though it's placing people in companies or graduate school
| programs that relate to their operational career fields.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Your arguments are cogent, but it's still 'state-affiliated
| media' - I mean, that also applies to the whole 'media
| embedding program' that got started in Desert Storm (Gulf War
| I, or perhaps II if we count the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s).
|
| Independent media is not necessarily adversarial to
| government, but it can't be dependent on government or it
| turns into nothing but the propaganda arm of the government.
| E.g. reporting on military failures is necessary, even if
| this upsets the brass because it damages morale.
| bfeynman wrote:
| Isn't it interesting that a few months ago a few people in
| twitter spaces were shouting to the world that twitter ITSELF
| had backchannels to govt and payments and thus was also state
| affiliated media? What about that?
| VulgarExigency wrote:
| Yes, but the United States are the Good Guys, so their
| propaganda outlets must not get the label identifying them as
| such.
| kelipso wrote:
| The 'state-affiliated' label is a bludgeon that the US gets to
| use, not get used against the US haha.
| carapace wrote:
| Please, in Soviet Russia interns tell you what to do. (I'm
| sorry, that was a terrible Yakov Smirnoff reference, I
| apologize to him and to anyone reading this.)
|
| Anyway, in the USA military interns at NPR are learning how to
| run a radio station or whatever. I mean, if the military tried
| to tell NPR what to say there would be howls from coast to
| coast.
|
| - - - -
|
| And now I have read the article you linked to, and it does
| sound like there may have been some influence from OPD to NPR.
| As I would expect, when this came to light, there _was_ howling
| from coast to coast, and it got shut down right quick. In fact,
| the article says the whole OPD was shut down. Good. (WTF
| people?)
| md_ wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/12/julianborger
|
| "Cable Network News (CNN) and National Public Radio, (NPR)
| denied that the "psy-ops" officers influenced news coverage and
| said the internships had been stopped as soon as senior
| managers found out . For its part, the army said the programme
| was only intended to give young army media specialists some
| experience of how the news industry functioned."
|
| That...seems like a pretty reasonable explanation?
|
| Just to be clear, the alternative theory you have is that the
| US government wanted to influence NPR's coverage, and thought
| the best, most inconspicuous way to do so would be _by using an
| intern placement program targeting Army media officers_?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I'd perhaps distinguish between 'state-sponsored' (i.e. all
| the operating funds come from a government) and 'state-
| affiliated' (i.e. media employees and government employees
| are intermingled and move back and forth from media to
| government jobs.)
|
| If MSNBC hires a Biden spokesperson (Jen Psaki) or if CNN
| hires a intelligence officer (e.g. James Clapper) or if Fox
| hires a White House communications director (Hope Hicks),
| that's 'state-affiliated' in the same sense that if RT hired
| Putin's press secretary or some FSB/GU officer we'd say, 'oh,
| right, they're state-affiliated.'
|
| News reports are more reliable if the people reporting on
| government activities are not themselves from the government,
| it's called an independent press and is generally held to be
| a critical component of democratic systems.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > 'state-affiliated' (i.e. media employees and government
| employees are intermingled and move back and forth from
| media to government jobs.)
|
| By that definition, every company in every significant
| industry is "state affiliated".
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Yes, that's mostly true. In terms of the tendency of
| government regulators to have been ex-corporate middle
| managers, this is called 'the revolving door'.
| acdha wrote:
| There's another aspect you have to consider: the power
| dynamic. If MSNBC hired Jen Psaki or Fox News hired Hope
| Hicks because she got sick of working in government, they
| might have a bias towards their former colleagues but it
| would be voluntary and clearly a job either would be
| qualified for. That's pretty different from, say, Russian
| government going to RT and giving them a list of qualified
| candidates or even, say, the Tories appointing their
| loyalists to the BBC because the decision isn't being made
| by the government and there isn't a threat explicit or
| implicit that there would be consequences for not hiring
| them.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Another power dynamic to consider is that MSNBC or FOX
| have owners (Comcast and Murdoch respectively) and those
| owners have shareholders (Blackrock, Fidelity etc.) who
| also have holdings in corporations that get their revenue
| from government contracts (Lockheed etc.) and so MSNBC
| executives feel pressure to hire employees who will
| generally take a positive view on the delivery of large
| government contracts to corporations, government-
| structured tax breaks and bailouts for corporations, and
| so on, and of course a government employee with an eye on
| possibly returning to a government career is an
| acceptable option, because they will promote the opinion
| that this is a great system that doesn't need say, more
| audits or investigation into misappropriation of public
| funds and so on.
|
| Now the word for this kind of integration of the
| corporate world and the government world is....?
|
| "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism
| because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
| -- Benito Mussolini
| colpabar wrote:
| It's insane to me that we're all just supposed to give a US
| army program literally titled PSYOPS the benefit of the doubt
| because their corporate partners said there was nothing to
| worry about. Does _anyone_ remember that the entire
| mainstream media was in full support of _everything_ the bush
| administration did in the middle east, NPR included?
| md_ wrote:
| I remember. I don't think it was because of some unpaid
| interns in the mail room or whatever.
|
| I think this kind of cloak-and-dagger conspiracy theorizing
| trivializes the real, challenging, human issues of
| editorial independence, the complexity of fairly
| representing reality, etc, etc.
| colpabar wrote:
| We must have very different trust levels in the military
| industrial complex then. I think it's worth pointing out
| this program happened in 2000. Do you think it just went
| away? Do you think that when obama legalized spreading
| propaganda in the US no one capitalized on it?
|
| I agree that the issues you listed are indeed real and
| challenging, but I also think that the media's heavy
| reliance on the "intelligence community" making claims as
| evidence when there is none is a more pressing one.
| md_ wrote:
| > I agree that the issues you listed are indeed real and
| challenging, but I also think that the media's heavy
| reliance on the "intelligence community" making claims as
| evidence when there is none is a more pressing one.
|
| I totally agree that an over-emphasis on "access" leads
| to inaccurate reporting. You're certainly right to tie
| that to the invasion of Iraq.
|
| But I don't think there's any evidence that the US
| military is running domestic psyops, and certainly if
| they were doing so it would not be via unpaid
| internships.
|
| Of course there are broader problems. A lack of trust in
| the media and a lack of attention span--no doubt driven
| by social media intermediation and a lack of
| accountability for individual publishers--reduces
| incentives to get stories _correct_ , and increases
| incentives to get _stories_. A public that misunderstands
| the role of reporters thinks analysis equals bias and is
| obsessed with up-to-the-minute stories, and high
| production values--the latter of which can only be
| afforded in large metro and national markets, leading to
| a hollowing out of local content.
|
| These aren't original observations, of course. But they
| are indeed real problems. I think they have very little
| to do with the prospect of Pentagon psyops, which,
| frankly, are unnecessary given the underlying structural
| flaws.
| artificial wrote:
| Plenty of evidence spanning decades:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
| https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/06/john-
| bren... I immensely enjoy the opinion of the mainstream
| that "yes the CIA did bad things in the 50s, 60s, 70s,
| 80s, 90s, and 2000s but nobody was ever prosecuted an
| there were no reforms so now they don't do bad things
| today you conspiracy theorist."
| md_ wrote:
| I must be getting different webpages when I click those
| links than you do. Do you think it's the cia?
| kdkdkdosp wrote:
| [flagged]
| KyeRussell wrote:
| The point they're making is the point they're making. Take it
| exactly for what it is. If the same thing was reported to
| have happened In Russia, it wouldn't be terribly
| controversial to label the media outlet "state-sponsored".
| [deleted]
| user3939382 wrote:
| [flagged]
| weinzierl wrote:
| Most western countries have media comparable to NPR. In the UK
| that would be BBC, in Italy there is Rai, in Spain RTVE, in
| Portugal RTP and in Germany there is ARD. That makes me believe
| that they warrant their own label.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The BBC isn't comparable to NPR. The Chairman of the BBC is
| appointed by the UK's King-in-Council, on the advice of the
| Secretary of State. Similarly, RAI is owned by the Italian
| Ministry of Economy and Finance; RTVE is state owned. Not sure
| on RTP and ARD; they sound more NPR-ish from their Wikipedias,
| although ARD appears to be paid for by a mandatory license fee
| like the BBC is.
| weinzierl wrote:
| That is a bit my point. The details differ and the naming
| differs but I'd argue that by and large and in the broad
| public perception there are three categories: Privately-owned
| commercial, state controlled and a third category that is
| really neither. Regardless of the details and legalities
| people know it when they see it, so an own label would be
| justified.
| jeffbee wrote:
| BBC clearly meets certain definitions of "state controlled"
| and NPR does not meet any. BBC itself cannot sack its
| chairman. Only the government can appoint and remove them.
| manquer wrote:
| There is significant controversy on the current one , how
| his appointment came about and links to then PM Boris
| Johnson.
|
| Also recent controversy over Match of the day program
| presenter Gary Lineker on twitter(!) comparing government
| language on immigration to the ones used by Nazis and his
| suspension following that .
|
| Given all this it is fair to say they are government
| controlled
| [deleted]
| redleggedfrog wrote:
| I read/listen to NPR daily. Twitter is blocked at my router. My
| very tech savvy family hasn't even mentioned the block once.
| Making good choices Mom...
| crisdux wrote:
| NPR's funding does not come solely from direct appropriation. NPR
| receives a higher amount of federal funding than what is commonly
| believed. It is difficult to determine the exact amount of
| federal funding because it is hidden within the fees paid by
| local affiliates. These local affiliates receive a significant
| portion of their funding from the Corporation for Public
| Broadcasting, which is itself funded by federal tax dollars.
|
| Congressional appropriation > Corporation for Public Broadcasting
| > grants for local affiliates > fee paid to NPR
| jtr1 wrote:
| NPR is very up front about its funding:
| https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...
| AraceliHarker wrote:
| Who wouldn't resent being thrown in the same basket with the
| likes of Voice of America, Xinhua News Agency and Sputnik under
| the same label?
| Eumenes wrote:
| NPR has been insane since Trump/2016. I play a game with a few
| friends/family, we tune into NPR, and see how fast they'll talk
| about trans issue or white supremacy ... its literally 90% of the
| time within 60 seconds
| [deleted]
| adultSwim wrote:
| I've been uncomfortable with the uneven application of those
| labels. I think they are a good idea and should be applied to all
| government sponsored media. It should be basic transparency,
| instead of a selective scary warning.
| costanzaDynasty wrote:
| Good. Maybe more companies, media/new outlets will quit and be
| forced to realize that pandering to the amen chorus on Twitter is
| bad for business.
| marstall wrote:
| well done. losing NPR clearly is giving Musk pause.
| illiarian wrote:
| By "clearly giving him pause" you mean he finally went to bed
| after spending the evening joking about BBC?
|
| (At this moment the last tweet is 8 hours ago after several
| tweets about BBC including dick "jokes")
| [deleted]
| r721 wrote:
| Bobby Allyn (Tech Reporter for @NPR):
|
| >NPR's analytics show that less than 2% of our traffic comes from
| Twitter. It's not a surprise to people who work in media, but
| even before the labeling saga, there was a pretty strong business
| case that the game wasn't worth the candle
|
| https://twitter.com/BobbyAllyn/status/1646195092661891072
| mfer wrote:
| > By David Folkenflik
|
| According to Wikipedia...
|
| > David Folkenflik ... is an American reporter based in New York
| City and serving as media correspondent for National Public
| Radio.
|
| Interesting conflict of interest in news reporting.
| jacquesm wrote:
| What conflict of interest do you perceive? Would you rather the
| article was by Rush Limbaugh or do you see any items in the
| article that you feel misrepresent reality and that this was
| done because of the reporters' bias?
| mfer wrote:
| The conflict of interest is that he is writing about an
| organization he works for.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That does not mean there is a conflict of interest. By your
| standards no news organization would ever be able to report
| on things that they themselves are a player in. But in the
| real world this happens with some regularity and editorial
| boards have set ways of dealing with this sort of
| situation. They tend to become _far_ more careful as soon
| as their own name is part of the story on the off chance
| that it could be used as proof that they are not able to
| report cleanly, which is then used to extrapolate to
| everything else they write about.
| mfer wrote:
| > But in the real world this happens with some regularity
| and editorial boards have set ways of dealing with this
| sort of situation
|
| Conflicts of interest are things to know and look out
| for.
|
| This is not the case of an editorial board. And, when
| publications write about themselves, even when there are
| editorial boards, there is a conflict and they may very
| well report the story differently than a 3rd party.
|
| Not realizing the conflict of interest is akin to being
| just fine with content on a news site about a product
| written by someone at the product company with no label
| of sponsored content or something similar.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > they may very well report the story differently than a
| 3rd party
|
| They may well do so, but that needs samples and analysis,
| not blanket statements.
|
| Unless you have a particular beef with this article I do
| not think that is a strong argument to make.
| neom wrote:
| Why doesn't AlJazeera have a label?
| starbase wrote:
| Here's what NPR's own website says about their federal funding:
|
| "Federal funding is essential to public radio's service to the
| American public and its continuation is critical for both
| stations and program producers, including NPR."
|
| "Public radio stations receive annual grants directly from the
| Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)"
|
| "The loss of federal funding would undermine the stations'
| ability to pay NPR for programming, thereby weakening the
| institution."
|
| "Elimination of federal funding would result in fewer programs,
| less journalism--especially local journalism--and eventually the
| loss of public radio stations, particularly in rural and
| economically distressed communities."
|
| https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...
| kodah wrote:
| Elon's playing word games. When the average person talks about
| State Affiliated Media they're referring to editorial control.
| As far as I know NPR has always had editorial control and goes
| to great lengths to maintain neutrality in their writing.
| They've certainly screwed up in major ways before, but compared
| to MSNBC, Fox, the NYT, NYP, and CNN I'd say NPR looks like a
| saint.
|
| The irony I see here is that Twitter is on record as to being
| involved in suppression exercises around COVID, where they
| basically acted as the governments hands to suppress legitimate
| voices. Given that, Twitter needs to wear its own State
| Affiliated Media badge. Hell, what do you even call an entity
| that willfully suppresses valid and good information that is
| not favorable to the government? A state apologist?
| preseinger wrote:
| what do you call an entity that suppresses conspiracy
| theories which subvert the public good? i dunno, moral?
| ethical? the baseline expectation for rational participants
| in society?
| kodah wrote:
| Normal? That's not what I was talking about in this
| specific instance of Twitter though. Maybe you can make
| your point more clear.
| lostlogin wrote:
| The parent comment isn't referring to Twitter surely?
| kodah wrote:
| I think they were trying to say because Twitter
| successfully suppressed conspiracy theories in the past
| that it gives them a pass when the information happened
| to not be a conspiracy theory. If that was the takeaway,
| I fully disagree. If you get into the suppression game,
| even for the right reasons, you deserve whatever comes
| your way when you're wrong even once. That's how we keep
| powerful entities honest.
| preseinger wrote:
| covid misinformation is a conspiracy theory, suppressing
| idiocy is virtuous
|
| "oh but if you allow a platform to suppress stupid shit
| then how do you know that they won't suppress other blah
| blah blah" judgment my bro, it is ok if things are
| subjective
| adamrezich wrote:
| it's a good thing that everyone who holds any amount of
| power is always purely, perfectly virtuous and altruistic
| in their judgement--if this wasn't the case, that sure
| would complicate things, wouldn't it?
| petsfed wrote:
| I was going to mention Radio Free Europe as a really good
| example of egregious, western state-sponsored media, but then
| on a lark, I looked up how well regarded they are, bias-wise,
| and now I don't know what to think.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| Your quoting was rather disingenuous. How could you not quote
| the last line (regarding how much of their budget comes from
| this source), when you quoted almost all the rest regarding
| federal funding?
| [deleted]
| giaour wrote:
| At least as of the time of this comment, no special label was
| applied to Stars and Stripes (50% funded by the US Department
| of Defense), Al Hurra (100% funded by the US Agency for Global
| Media), or CBC (>50% funded by the Canadian government).
|
| Maybe that's just a mistake, and every news organization that
| gets a dollar of funding from any government will eventually
| get its own "Government-funded Media" label. Or maybe Twitter's
| new owner is being a petty little despot and didn't like a
| recent NPR story. -\\_(tsu)_/-
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That excerpt isn't about _their_ funding. The CPB funds (in
| part) public radio _stations_.
|
| Many of those public radio stations _purchase NPR-produced
| content_. (And from other similar providers like American
| Public Media (Marketplace), PRX (This American Life), etc.)
|
| NPR's customers can't afford NPR's offerings without said
| Federal funding, which is why NPR's particularly interested in
| it.
| wyager wrote:
| An agency that is federally funded through 1 layer of
| intermediaries is still, in the most practical sense,
| federally funded.
| roflyear wrote:
| That would make probably almost all businesses in the US
| federally funded, as the US government is the single
| largest employer of people, and those people spend their
| money at private businesses. The US government purchases
| things from private businesses.
|
| Come on.
| wyager wrote:
| Yeah? Lockheed Martin could be reasonably described as
| "federally funded".
| ceejayoz wrote:
| As the article indicates, those stations receive an average
| of 8% from CPB, and 5% from Federal/state/local government.
| The other 87% comes from elsewhere - 43% of it as
| individual donations.
|
| If they're "government funded" as a result, slap the label
| on Walmart and McDonalds. They can't operate without
| Federal funding, either.
| https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-
| among-...
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Are you suggesting that Walmart and McDonald's receive
| more in government subsidies than they pay in taxes?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'm suggest Walmart similarly benefits from indirect
| Federal funding of their business, in the form of
| wages/benefits they don't have to give out to their
| employees receiving public assistance to be able to live.
| burkaman wrote:
| Yes, probably. Not only does Walmart receive significant
| wage and benefit subsidies for its employees, but they
| also receive income from customers using food stamps. In
| 2014 that food stamp spending was estimated to be $13
| billion, far more than they pay in taxes.
|
| - https://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/0
| 4/big...
| anderber wrote:
| By this logic there would so many companies that are
| "federally funded" that the label itself would become
| irrelevant.
| floatrock wrote:
| Including SpaceX. Starlink is a cute and a useful
| consumer product, but most of their balance sheet is
| defense money or giving rides to nasa.
| vicktour wrote:
| You could chuck most of Musk's portfolio into that
| category TBH. What ever company does that dumb tunnel
| idea and Tesla are the two additional companies that come
| to mind.
| mcguire wrote:
| Does the federal government assert editorial control over
| NPR?
| wyager wrote:
| It doesn't matter in the slightest if they do this
| _explicitly_. NPR would be stupid to bite the hand that
| feeds it.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| NPR gets 1% of funding directly from the government.
|
| 13% of the 31% (4%) they get from member stations comes
| from the government, for a total of 5%.
|
| The "hand that feeds" NPR is mostly corporate sponsors
| and member stations' listeners.
| lamontcg wrote:
| 39% of NPR revenue comes directly from corporations.
|
| Another 12% comes from foundations (the wealthy donor
| class).
|
| Only 31% of their revenue comes from member stations and
| only 13% of that comes from CPB or government sources,
| which totals up to 4% coming from the government.
|
| So corporate interests fund NPR more than 10x times as
| much as the government.
| kube-system wrote:
| Does that include Fox News when the Ad Council buys ads? Or
| when cable companies accept infrastructure subsidies?
| civilized wrote:
| That funding page says 31% of NPR's revenue comes from
| programming fees from member stations. Some of the 8% "other
| revenues" and 5% "PRSS contract" sound like they may come
| from member stations too, so let's call it 40% total from
| member stations as a best guess.
|
| Member stations themselves receive 13% of their revenue from
| the CPB (8%) and "federal, state, and local governments"
| (5%). Let's call that piece about 10% as a best guess of the
| federal-only part.
|
| 40% from member stations, which themselves get 10% from the
| Feds, is 4% additional from the Feds, bringing up NPR's
| federal revenue from the 1% they said to an all-in total of
| 5%.
|
| It seems that NPR's statement is a bit misleading, but not
| that materially so.
|
| (I'm as surprised as many of you may be, readers -- I thought
| they were much more federally funded as well.)
|
| My accounting skills are less than amateur, so please point
| out anything I may have missed. I'm not quite sure if 40% of
| 10% computation is a sound representation of what's going on.
| brewdad wrote:
| Those member stations choose to spend that money on NPR
| content. They are under no obligation (aside from standing
| contracts) to continue to give that money to NPR in the
| future. They could opt to license programming from other
| sources.
|
| That's like saying a federal employee who chooses to donate
| some of their income to NPR is giving them government
| funding.
| civilized wrote:
| I agree to some extent, but when the federal government
| is funding similar organizations with a similar mission,
| they have a strong incentive to work together. Public
| radio stations are operated and listened to by the kind
| of people who like NPR programming.
|
| It's more like a federal employee who works for NPR and
| believes in NPR's mission donating to NPR. Yes, it's not
| compulsory, but the money is flowing towards entities
| with closely related missions that have a strong
| incentive to cooperate.
|
| But again, I agree with you that the voluntary nature of
| the cooperation makes it quite different from merely some
| kind of shell game.
| burkaman wrote:
| It would be helpful to add some numbers to your comment. 31% of
| NPR revenues are from member stations, and 13% of that 31% is
| federal funding. So ~4% of NPR revenue is indirect federal
| funds. This is, to give one example, substantially less than
| the portion of grocery store revenues that come from SNAP. Do
| we consider all grocery chains to be government sponsored
| businesses? Is Y Combinator government sponsored, since so many
| of its investments received money from the SVB bailout?
|
| My answer would be yes, government support is essential for
| most businesses, but that makes this label useless in theory
| and malicious in practice when only applied to a tiny subset of
| government-funded companies.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Besides the fact that they receive only a tiny percentage of
| their funding from the government the bigger issue is that of
| editorial control and NPR is pretty clean as far as I can see.
| Unlike most of the other entities labeled 'State Affiliated
| Media'.
|
| Naming NPR in one breath with those others is intentionally
| tarnishing them and playing to the crowd, which is something
| that Elon has been engaging in in a very specific manner since
| he took over Twitter. Trying to suggest that this is
| appropriate is edging pretty close to that cartoon about people
| jumping in to defend Musk in the most weird ways.
|
| I don't see Tesla's account labelled as State Affiliated and
| yet, if we were to judge solely by the amount of funds received
| they would qualify _long_ before NPR would.
| [deleted]
| freemanofthewan wrote:
| Since when did Tesla start producing media? Specifically,
| media funded by the government? Can you provide proof of this
| funding and links to what they produced?
|
| This comment is edging pretty close to that cartoon about
| people who can't help but try to find reasons to dislike
| Elon, because NPR told them to do so.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Tesla has a massive PR department, and their CEO/large
| shareholder happens to have 1500 people on staff to run his
| private mouthpiece.
|
| I don't need to do your homework for you, if you don't know
| about the amount of funding that Tesla has received over
| the years that is your problem.
|
| NPR has never told me to dislike Elon, I came to my current
| view of Elon Musk by evaluating his actions over the years,
| actions which he himself has boasted about.
| nostromo wrote:
| If the public funding isn't important to them, then don't
| take it and become truly independent. Or keep the funding and
| be open about it.
|
| I suspect most of NPR's followers are fine with their public
| funding, it's literally in the name. They're probably more
| upset about all their corporate funding.
|
| Tesla's funding is neither here nor there; it's not a news
| outlet.
| burkaman wrote:
| It's not up to them, the 4% of their revenue that comes
| from federal funds comes to them through member station
| payments. They don't control the member stations or how
| they are funded.
|
| Also, how could they be any more open about this? If you
| listen to any NPR member station you'll hear an
| acknowledgement of federal funds like once an hour.
| jacquesm wrote:
| NPR needs money _and_ they need editorial freedom, they
| seem to have both. I really can 't fault them for that,
| editorial independence is the yardstick by which media
| should be judged unless there is outright ownership.
| nostromo wrote:
| Money can be easily tracked. Editorial independence
| cannot be.
|
| I actually think NPR has been captured by their audience
| in the same way MSNBC and Fox News has been. They know
| member donations are their biggest funding source, so
| they largely tell their audience what they want to hear.
|
| Put another way, I don't think perfect editorial
| independence exists. Everyone knows where their bread is
| being buttered. Having a badge on Twitter saying you're
| independent would be entirely a judgement call.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > I actually think NPR has been captured by their
| audience in the same way MSNBC and Fox News has been.
|
| I... don't know. When the topic comes up there sure are a
| lot of us NPR listeners who are in rather a love-hate
| relationship with it, leaning toward "hate". Half the
| time I'm listening I'm shaking my head at how very self-
| parody-like _NPR_ they 're being or yelling at them to
| stop doing such shitty coverage. Like, the best news on
| my local station, far and away, is when they rebroadcast
| BBC content. If I could tune into actual BBC stations
| when driving, I'd probably listen to that a lot more than
| NPR. These days especially, NPR's only got a very-few
| programs I'd bother to save from a fire, as it were, or
| that I even _might_ go out of my way to listen to when
| not in the car.
|
| It's just that there's not a lot of better
| news/commentary/talk programming on the radio dial.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > I actually think NPR has been captured by their
| audience in the same way MSNBC and Fox News has been.
|
| Not even close from my outsider perspective.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| State funding of media, regardless of how it's
| structured, creates an obvious conflict of interest with
| editorial freedom. Theoretically it's possible for a
| state funded media company to exercise editorial freedom,
| just like it would be theoretically possible for a
| climate study funded by ExxonMobile to exercise academic
| freedom, but not without acknowledging that the conflict
| of interest exists. Maybe they are a high integrity
| organisation, but the existence of this conflict of
| interest isn't really up for debate. Maybe it's not
| necessary for any state funded media to be labelled on
| Twitter, but if you're going to label any of it, then you
| should label all of it.
| danaris wrote:
| > State funding of media, regardless of how it's
| structured, creates an obvious conflict of interest with
| editorial freedom.
|
| How is this not true of _any_ funding of media?
|
| At least with government funding--even if there is
| outright editorial control--in a democratic country, you
| as a citizen have the ability to vote on how you think
| that funding and control should be exercised.
| Furthermore, it is _massively_ easier to get laws in
| place that mandate transparency for government-funded
| entities than for private ones, so whatever influences
| there may be on their reporting would be much more
| visible.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| The concern that media companies can have interests that
| don't align with journalistic integrity does apply to any
| media company. Whenever you see Rupert Murdoch's name
| being discussed, it's probably in relation to this topic.
| However it is harmful in a unique way when the government
| creates a conflict of interest between editorial
| independence, and serving the states agenda, due to the
| way in which that undermines the principle that a
| democratic society requires freedom of the press.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| put a better way, theoretically it's possible for an
| entity that has received a small amount of funds from the
| state, to be controlled by that state, just like SpaceX,
| which is state funded, could be controlled by that state,
| and just like theoretically I could give you a dollar and
| then control you, but any actual accusation of such or
| implication thereof would need actual evidence behind it,
| or else such conspiracy theories based only on incentives
| and no evidence can be dismissed out of hand.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| No evidence of bias is required to establish that a
| conflict of interest exists. One reason that people are
| interested in knowing when a conflict of interest exists,
| is that is generally not possible to prove what
| influences are motivating decision making.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The NPR makes no secret of its funding. But stamping a
| label on it like this implies that they are at the same
| level as the Chinese and Russian official state channels
| and lapdog institutions, which is the effect that Musk is
| going for here, which _clearly_ is unfair to the NPR.
|
| Any attempt to whitewash even aspects of it is in part
| giving credit to it and I'm just not going to carry
| Musk's water on this. It's a petty move by a petty
| person, who uses the platform that he bought to further
| his new best buddies interests by fomenting distrust in
| media institutions that he can't buy or control.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| NPR has exactly the same conflict of interest in regards
| to funding that RT has. You can make your own judgements
| about how influential that conflict is for different
| outlets, but the existence of it cannot be denied. If you
| think labelling the conflict of interest is worthwhile
| (as other social media platforms also do), then you have
| to do it for all outlets that have it. Otherwise you're
| revealing that you're actually pursing some other
| alternative agenda.
|
| Personally I think it's a stupid idea in general. But
| that's because I'm against any organisation attempting to
| establish itself as an authority over the concept of the
| truth.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > NPR has exactly the same conflict of interest in
| regards to funding that RT has.
|
| Sorry, but that is factually incorrect.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| Media companies receiving public funding is a conflict of
| interest with editorial independence, both RT and NPR
| receiving public funding. These are facts.
| toast0 wrote:
| NPR is not Stars and Stripes, Voice of America or even
| the BBC. Assuming 4% in direct government funding (from
| all levels) as estimated elsewhere in the thread, plus
| some amount in government subsidization of donations to a
| registered non-profit; the fiscal contributions from
| government is meaningful, but not sufficient to assume it
| biases coverage.
|
| Stars and Stripes has a mix of funding, including about
| half its budget from the department of defense, but has
| editorial independence; although I imagine it's hard not
| to be influenced.
|
| Even Voice of America has safeguards for editorial
| independence, although its budget is fully state funded.
| vicktour wrote:
| I am not sure what you mean by them being open about it.
| Looks to me that they are open about the funding they get.
| Them getting grants to service communities that are not
| profitable doesn't mean that they take marching orders from
| Washington.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| > they receive only a tiny percentage of their funding from
| the government
|
| There are at least two ways they get government funding:
|
| - direct funding from the federal government
|
| - payment from member stations (at least 31% of revenue) who
| are themselves supported by government funding
|
| Without looking at the funding sources of each NPR member
| station, it's hard to come up with a good estimate, but it's
| probably a double digit percentage, which exceeds what I
| consider 'tiny'.
| burkaman wrote:
| Why not just look at the NPR page we're discussing, which
| says 13% of public radio station revenue is from federal
| funds? 13% of 31% is 4%.
|
| Edit: The 13% is from all government funds, not just
| federal.
| [deleted]
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Because not all government funding is federal funding.
|
| Random example from an NPR member station's web site:
| KCRW is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County
| Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County
| Department of Arts & Culture. The Department's
| Organizational Grant Program helps fund a wide variety of
| arts, culture, and music programs that you hear on air
| each day!
| burkaman wrote:
| I apologize for my imprecise language. The 13% I quoted
| includes "Federal, state and local governments". Again
| this is all on the web page we're all discussing, in a
| very easy-to-understand chart.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| [flagged]
| petsfed wrote:
| >- payment from member stations (at least 31% of revenue)
| who are themselves supported by government funding
|
| I have a hard time understanding this as "state sponsored",
| much less as evidence that NPR has ceded editorial control.
| NPR estimates (and InfluenceWatch believes this estimate)
| that about 4% of their revenue ultimately comes from
| federal, state and local governments [0], via direct grants
| to NPR, and via grants to member stations that are in turn
| paid to NPR. InfluenceWatch, you'll note, is run by the
| Capital Research Center, a conservative think tank which
| has an axe to grind about NPR's apparent left-wing bias.
|
| This feels a lot like the accusations against Bellingcat
| that they are state-sponsored/controlled. And I think those
| accusations are equally specious. Accepting money via
| indirect grants is not at all the same as accepting payment
| for invoiced work.
|
| 0. https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-
| public-ra...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Indeed. Meanwhile, the message has had its intended
| effect and NPR is now seen as 'tainted' by the people who
| would do a lot better to listen more to NPR than to
| various other _far_ more biased news sources. It 's the
| same old playbook, and Musk getting away with this is
| highly annoying.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, and this gives their funders editorial control how?
| anonporridge wrote:
| If I'm giving you a regular flow of money that keeps you
| well fed and housed in a nice area, you're going to at
| least subconsciously care about how I perceive you and if
| I approve of the things you're doing, because I have the
| power to cut off that flow of money at any time.
|
| This is why many wealthy individuals and organizations
| donate to both political parties. The implicit threat of
| losing a flow of money you've become accustomed to is
| more powerful that the vague promise of a new flow of
| money that you can currently live without.
|
| Old money and power don't control things with a loud
| command, but with a subtle flash of facial displeasure.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Show how the NPR is pulling their punches when they
| report on the Federal government and I'll consider it.
| But from where I'm sitting - far outside of the USA -
| they offer some of the most balanced and clean reporting
| out there (and that includes the BBC).
| tenpies wrote:
| > Show how the NPR is pulling their punches when they
| report on the Federal government and I'll consider it
|
| Here you go! NPR on the Hunter Biden laptop story:
|
| > We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not
| really stories, and we don't want to waste the listeners'
| and readers' time on stories that are just pure
| distractions.
|
| The words are from Terence Samuels, Managing Editor. [1]
|
| So now lets run some thought experiments:
|
| How would an impartial party convey this message? Would
| the implication that it is a "pure distraction" and a
| "waste of time" be made?
|
| And now how do you think NPR coverage would have differed
| if the laptop had belonged to Donald Trump Jr? Do you
| think, under the exact same circumstances, NPR would have
| chosen not only to ignore the store completely, but also
| categorize it as "pure distraction" and a "waste of
| time"?
|
| ---
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/NPRpubliceditor/status/1319281101
| 2239400...
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| Ah yes. The definitely real story of a man abandoning his
| laptop at a repair shop (which apparently had no way to
| contact him to pick up said laptop?), where once the
| laptop was abandoned the shop owner (rather than wiping
| and selling the computer) read through his emails and
| found some definitely real incriminating evidence that
| was super believable? It should tell you something that
| even Fox wasn't willing to run the story at first.
| mikrotikker wrote:
| It's easy to lose track of things when you're high on
| meth.
| mikrotikker wrote:
| He admits it was his.
|
| https://nypost.com/2023/02/01/hunter-biden-admits-
| infamous-l...
| fortuna86 wrote:
| It was his, that doesn't mean the origin story is
| correct. Also he's not an government employee so what is
| the newsworthiness of any of it?
| mikrotikker wrote:
| His father flew him on Air Force 2 to China to make
| private equity deals.
|
| "Hold 10 for the big guy".
|
| You gotta be pretty naive to think that's above board.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I _fully_ stand behind the NPR on this. I think the
| Hunter Biden laptop story is and was a distraction, and
| that the lives of family members of politicians should be
| off-limits for news coverage, positive or negative until
| they themselves insert themselves into the political
| arena. Let 's face it squarely: the _only_ reason why
| this story was blown up as much as it was was because it
| was used to damage his father politically, not because
| there was anything of substance there.
| no_circuit wrote:
| The lives of family members of politicians and government
| employees should be completely on-limits for news
| coverage, provided that could be newsworthy, because
| using one's family is one method of laundering
| corruption.
|
| Let's say for example you need a permit approved by the
| CITYNAME Department of Buildings. CITYNAME is slow to
| process permit applications, but it is common knowledge
| that using a particular expeditor consulting company
| actually helps to get your permit approved quickly. It
| would definitely be newsworthy if that consulting company
| was owned by a spouse, sibling, parent, cousin, etc. of
| someone in the building department. I personally know
| someone who was not able to open up a store in a city I
| lived because the inspector literally said something was
| deficient and recommended some local company nearby to
| "fix it" for approximately $50,000.
|
| It is a similar reason why working in an investment bank,
| at least in the US, you have to agree that both you and
| your close family members must agree to trading
| restrictions so as not to pose a conflict of interest
| with any of the bank's clients. If such a restriction was
| not in place, then it would be easy to just pass insider
| information to your spouse or brother and have them make
| money based on news that is about to be announced.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, using one's family _can_ be used to launder money.
| But it can also be used to smear others. And because of
| that some prudence is required. And since all of the
| facts on that particular case have come out by now - or
| at least, given the ones that did come out without
| knowing whether or not that is exhaustive - I 'd say the
| NPR made the right call.
| no_circuit wrote:
| It is unfortunate that the news would have been too close
| to the election, so I have some understanding why some
| news organizations handled the story they did.
|
| I liken this to the Google, and other tech companies,
| interviewing process. It is better to miss out on a good
| hire, than hire (or elect) someone that was a false
| positive for good. So based on reasonable doubt or
| suspicion, a story like this should cause anyone
| connected to be considered not a good choice for
| government employment anywhere since it could cause the
| US to be taken advantage of by any relevant other
| countries.
| frumper wrote:
| They didn't just pass on the story, they put out negative
| commentary about it by calling it a distraction without
| even bothering to explain how they arrived at that.
| mikrotikker wrote:
| His father needs to be damaged politically when he is
| flying his son on Air Force 2 to China to make private
| equity deals.
|
| "Hold 10 for the big guy" as confirmed by ex business
| partner Bobulinski.
| vuln wrote:
| > the only reason why this story was blown up as much as
| it was was because it was used to damage his father
| politically, not because there was anything of substance
| there.
|
| Have you reviewed all of the information contained on
| said laptop? How can you state an opinion and present it
| as a fact? Do you have any data or evidence that the data
| contained within the laptop was compromised or had "lack
| of substance?"
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Have you reviewed all of the information contained on
| said laptop?
|
| This is not a productive discussion I think so you're
| going to have to talk to yourself.
| vuln wrote:
| Right you haven't. You present your opinion as fact as
| you have throughout this thread. I'd ask that YOU please
| stop pushing your opinion as fact when it is just your
| opinion.
| frumper wrote:
| To be fair, that's pretty much what Terence Samuels did
| and he stands behind him.
| vuln wrote:
| Right, DARVO.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO
| jacquesm wrote:
| Haha, that mentions Trump and Kavanaugh... maybe not the
| reference you were looking for?
| fortuna86 wrote:
| Not fair, no news organization including Fox thought this
| was worth publishing.
| kube-system wrote:
| I agree with your perception. There are many within the
| US that simply have a different window of what they find
| to be acceptable sources, topics, and opinions to
| entertain. The word 'balanced' implies a sort of central
| tendency, which can vary depending on what someone finds
| worthy of consideration.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| They aren't even slightly balanced anymore, especially
| their radio stuff. They took a hard turn left after Trump
| was nominated. They refused to report on the Hunter Biden
| laptop story. I didn't hear a single positive thing about
| anything the Trump administration did during his
| presidency, only after the last election. You can't turn
| on your local station without hearing some identity
| politics within a few minutes - either from them or NPR
| itself. They often only have one "side" being interviewed
| for their reporting.
|
| It just so happens that Republicans want to pull their
| funding and Democrats don't. That's a bit of a chicken or
| the egg type situation.
|
| It's sad because they used to be pretty good, and were
| probably the last bastion of somewhat balanced reporting
| in our country.
| jacquesm wrote:
| So you thought they were pretty good until Trump came
| along and then they did a hard left? Have you considered
| the possibility that they didn't change at all and that
| their reporting was on the money?
|
| People that urgently want to believe the Hunter Biden
| laptop story was somehow relevant tend to be hardliner
| Trump supporters and I find it hard to see how if that is
| their perspective they could be convinced that Trump has
| been a disaster for US politics if they haven't come to
| that conclusion on their own by now.
|
| Think about it: Republicans want to pull their funding.
| Why would that be? Because they are reporting the facts
| and that is inconvenient to them? Or for some non-
| partisan reason that I'm currently unaware of? There is
| this quote by Colbert: "Reality has a left wing bias" or
| something to that effect. NPR reporting leans 'left' only
| if you are far to the right of center. For the rest of
| the world - me included - it is still center or center
| right depending on the context.
| mansion7 wrote:
| Polls have demonstrated that if the public had known the
| full extent of the laptop revelations (among them that
| Hunter calls Biden "Pedo Peter") they may have voted
| differently.
|
| Instead, the media & NPR schemed to not only keep it
| secret, but gaslight the public that it was Russian
| propaganda.
|
| Similar to how the Ashley Biden diary (where she stated
| that Biden's childhood visits to her shower really messed
| her up). The media, NPR included, deliberately covered up
| "inconvenient facts", to help a specific candidate win.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Polls have demonstrated that if the public had known
| the full extent of the laptop revelations they may have
| voted differently.
|
| How the public reacts to news is _precisely_ why you have
| to have some restraint as a news editor. Because if you
| don 't have restraint you end up being James Comey.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Polls have demonstrated that if the public had known
| the full extent of the laptop revelations (among them
| that Hunter calls Biden "Pedo Peter") they may have voted
| differently.
|
| "May have" is exactly what the complete absence of any
| evidence gives you, so this is basically saying "polls
| have provided no useful information to differentiate this
| counterfactual from any other counterfactual".
| frumper wrote:
| Republicans have been wanting to pull their funding for
| 60 years because they don't think taxpayers should be
| funding it.
| smileysteve wrote:
| > They took a hard turn left after Trump was nominated.
|
| This would seemingly support that they are less than
| state controlled; The idea that the executive branch, the
| senate majority, and the house majority would be
| criticized by a state sponsored media in recent history
| suggests independence.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| discussing incentives is understandable (even though your
| analogy doesn't fit because the government's minor
| funding isn't what's keeping NPR funded)
|
| suggesting that actual impropriety or improper influence
| occurs as a result is a conspiracy theory, and we'd need
| to see actual evidence that it actually happened to avoid
| dismissing it out of hand
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I was so surprised by the first statement in your
| comment, that I stopped reading right there, and searched
| online to see if I could confirm/deny the statement. Then
| I wrote a reply without reading the rest of your comment.
|
| I didn't say anything about editorial control.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| it sounds, then, that you'd agree with an accurate
| compromise:
|
| _" receives a small amount of funding from the federal
| government but maintains editorial independence"_
|
| all true, so better than the current label
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| yes
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's the thing that matters. The funding isn't
| relevant, but making a ruckus about the funding is the
| tool through which Musk has plausible deniability that
| this was ever about editorial control. It is factually
| correct but conveys no information other than
| misdirection and you are falling for it hook, line and
| sinker. NPR has a lot of staffers, want to bet that at
| least a number of them have prior government employment
| on their CVs? Want to bet that some of them will leave
| NPR for government? That too would be utterly irrelevant,
| but you could make a nice argument about it and maybe
| even prove it to be factually correct. In the end it's
| all just noise and no signal.
|
| State affiliated media are those media institutions that
| are editorially controlled by the nation state where they
| are based, and funding is secondary to that by a very
| large distance.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| > you are falling for it hook, line and sinker
|
| I haven't made any statement (nor drawn any conclusion)
| about whether NPR's content is controlled or influenced
| by any level of government. So I'm not sure what I've
| fallen for?
|
| I've only talked about funding. That may be irrelevant,
| but I only talked about it in response to something you
| brought up -\\_(tsu)_/-
| jacquesm wrote:
| The whole point is that this discussion is the result of
| a label that is applied maliciously, focusing on the
| label and/or the accuracy of the label misses the point:
| the label should not have been applied because
| historically it has been applied on entities that are
| vastly different from the NPR. So now you have to wonder
| why it was applied, instead of trying to figure out if it
| applies or not.
| haberman wrote:
| > So now you have to wonder why it was applied, instead
| of trying to figure out if it applies or not.
|
| Now the question is whether you are willing to apply the
| same analysis to Twitter's decision to apply its "Hacked
| Materials Policy" in 2020 in order to block any
| discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
| jacquesm wrote:
| See other comments on exactly that subject in this
| thread.
|
| Really, it's a bit like 'but her emails' or 'Benghazi' at
| this point. Let's not pollute HN, shall we?
| haberman wrote:
| Asking this question is the only way of determining
| whether a person is acting from a truly principled
| position, or whether they are using situational ethics.
|
| The only true principle is one that binds your allies and
| your opponents equally. If it only applies to your
| opponents, then it's merely a rationalization.
|
| I'm interested in finding like-minded people who are
| committed to applying principles equally. It's the only
| way of mediating conflict that does not devolve into pure
| tribalism. Unfortunately few people seem to be
| interested.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I think you will find that dragging in unrelated subjects
| isn't going to help make your argument because you are
| trying to find purchase on the individuals that you are
| talking to rather than to discuss the subject matter.
|
| Applying principles equally implies that the subjects are
| comparable, which may be the case in your world view but
| you will find that your worldview rarely if ever overlaps
| the worldview of another person. So instead of trying to
| match worldviews we discuss topics individually of each
| other so that there is room for less than 100%
| black/white differentiation. Given two subjects that two
| people may or may not agree on there will be four
| populations of results given a large enough sample size.
| Whether you believe that those people are able to
| rationally apply their own principles or not isn't really
| the question the question is whether _they_ believe that
| they are doing so and cherry picking your subjects doesn
| 't give you more grip on their worldview, it only serves
| to reinforce your own.
| haberman wrote:
| It sounds like you don't think anyone should ever have to
| defend the question of why they apply different standards
| to different cases.
|
| Suppose we have two warring factions that both constantly
| accuse each other of wrongs that they also commit. How do
| we escape the cycle of escalation?
| mikrotikker wrote:
| Looks like a lot of words to say "rules for thee but not
| for me"
| unethical_ban wrote:
| The only reason in theory for a place to put a "state
| media" label is to imply the State has editorial control.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Why else do they get this source of funding that other
| networks don't have? (Though this is still just a theory
| and not reason to slap "govt-affiliated" on them. "Govt-
| funded" is fair.)
| jacquesm wrote:
| You should look into their origin story if you want an
| answer. And no, Govt-Funded is also not fair absent an
| indication of editorial control. The BBC in the UK, the
| NOS in NL, NPR in the United States, and so on are all
| official channels _but_ they also have their own
| editorial staff and only in very rare cases does the
| government directly intervene in the production (and
| usually simultaneously on other channels as well). So
| this is simply Elon playing stupid games, which he seems
| to be very good at.
| hot_gril wrote:
| NPR was created after the signing of the Public
| Broadcasting Act of 1967 aiming to increase public
| education through media, which doesn't really answer my
| question.
|
| > Govt-Funded is also not fair absent an indication of
| editorial control
|
| But they're govt-funded. BBC is too.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They get this source of funding _because that is how they
| were created_ and entities that were created through a
| different mechanism (for instance: to become the
| mouthpiece for a political stream or for commercial
| reasons) are a different kind of animal.
|
| The government allocates funds to many things that it may
| consider useful, such as health care, infrastructure and
| education. This does not necessarily imply that the
| government does this to create a mechanism of influence,
| as opposed to their counterparts in countries that are
| run as dictatorships. Naming the NPR in the same breath
| as the Chinese, Russian, Iranian and North Korean state
| media is mistaken at best and maliciously dishonest at
| worst. Knowing what I know about Musk it is a fair bet
| we're looking at the latter.
| hot_gril wrote:
| It should be under the same label as BBC, just govt-
| funded. Up to you what you think of that. State-
| affiliated means definite editorial control. Syria etc
| call those outlets education too.
| jacquesm wrote:
| And I'm pretty sure they'd have been fine with that,
| however, the BBC label reads 'Publicly funded media', not
| 'Government funded'.
| hot_gril wrote:
| "Publicly-funded" is fine too.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| You'll be more persuasive you actually answer his
| question instead of further casting aspersions.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I don't have evidence of federal editorial control over
| NPR, nor does anyone have evidence of the absence, which
| is why I say that only "govt-funded" is a fair label.
| roflyear wrote:
| Primarily, because NPR affiliate stations service areas
| where there aren't incentives for private stations.
| Meaning, without these public radio stations, these areas
| would be without news and the entertainment broadcasting
| NPR provides.
|
| This isn't true for stations like WNYC, but it is true
| for much of the US.
|
| The small affiliates need subsidies, because it costs a
| lot to run the stations.
|
| NPR has done like, a million segments on this. It's
| interesting stuff. Easy to learn about!
| hot_gril wrote:
| NPR, the national organization, receives federal funding.
| Maybe not a lot, but still more than anyone else.
|
| > NPR has done like, a million segments on this
|
| Yeah, and I've heard one of them, but are you really
| going to take NPR's own explanation for its funding
| without a grain of salt?
| woooooo wrote:
| It's still federally funded.
|
| Twitter probably shouldn't have gotten into labeling who is
| and isn't state funded, but if they are, US/UK/NATO orgs
| should be fair game alongside the Russians and Chinese.
|
| NPR labeling the "state-funded media" claim as "false" when
| its trivially, factually true is a bad look for them as a
| fact-based organization.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's irrelevant, the label implies control like with the
| Russians and the Chinese, and that control simply isn't
| there.
| woooooo wrote:
| 1. "True but we think it's irrelevant" does not equate to
| "false".
|
| 2. "But america are the good guys" is the exact kind of
| thing you see uniformly from all American media including
| NPR.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| NPR being state affiliated is false. NPR being funded by
| the state is not, but it leads people to believe that
| it's affiliated with the state, which is false.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| Funding is a very important kind of affiliation, I would
| think.
| davorak wrote:
| State funded media is a phrase, it has meaning beyond the
| literal meaning of the words. Wikipedia's 'State media'
| page seems to have it covered:
|
| > State media or government media are media outlets that
| are under financial and/or editorial control of the state
| or government, directly or indirectly. [1]
|
| Even that page makes a distinction between state funded
| and state media[2], but that is not how youtube[3] or
| others [4], [5], and I am sure many others[6 time based
| google] do not make the distinction. For better or worse
| 'State funded media' is often interchangeable with 'state
| media' and NPR is not state media even if some of its
| funds come from the state.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_media#:~:text=Sta
| te%20me.... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_media#
| :~:text=Not%20to%2.... [3]
| https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/state-
| media-wa...
| [4]https://www.prindleinstitute.org/2019/03/whats-wrong-
| with-st... [5] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.11
| 77/194016122092283... [6] https://www.google.com/search?q
| =%22State+funded+media%22&rlz...
| lostlogin wrote:
| You really believe that NPR and the BBC belong in the
| same basket as Russian and Chinese state media?
| woooooo wrote:
| Fish don't know they're in water.
|
| If you've been ingesting a narrative since middle school,
| and the BBC reinforces it, well that's just good neutral
| unbiased reporting.
| roflyear wrote:
| It's always telling when people with narratives to push
| don't directly answer questions.
| lostlogin wrote:
| I don't regularly read the BBC or NPR. I have watched the
| BBC skirmish with government over their independence and
| it's an active fight (see Gary Lineker fighter recently,
| interesting, on Twitter).
|
| Do you see these fights for independence in Chinese and
| Russian news channels? And do you really think them
| similar to the BBC and NPR?
| woooooo wrote:
| You will never, ever see a mainstream western news org
| demonize the US the way they do to Russia and China
| routinely.
|
| Are they the exact same? No, but they're not so different
| when you zoom out. You don't need explicit censorship
| when you can manufacture consent at the hiring and
| promotion stages.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Do you think the US, China and Russia similar?
|
| I have a lot of criticism for the US, but the US can at
| least punish its rulers at the ballot box. The US isn't
| chucking journalists out the window or vanishing them on
| a regular basis. Objectively, it's hard say the three are
| similar, as two of those countries deserve more
| criticism. They are not the same when you zoom out.
|
| I am not an American.
| woooooo wrote:
| I could criticize or compliment all 3 depending on the
| topic or my mood.
|
| If we're so much better in the west, maybe we can hold
| ourselves accountable and question our own biases.
| lostlogin wrote:
| If we are so much worse, why isn't accountability and
| criticism a thing in a Russia and China?
| alfor wrote:
| Exactly, I have been trying to explain it to people here
| (Quebec/Canada) Here people believe the CBC is an
| impartial view of reality, it's through that filter they
| see all the events of the world.
|
| Information that contradict their narrative become
| disinformation or conspiration. Or you get labeled
| racist/transphobe/Trump supporter at the first doubt
|
| Give me little hope for our country at the moment.
| d23 wrote:
| It's not that it's impartial or unbiased. It's that it's
| not an editorial arm for the state. The United States
| doesn't even have a centralized, consistent state-run
| party that would exercise consistent pressure on NPR to
| publish certain stories or frame them in a certain way.
| It's an absurd comparison to link these to Chinese or
| Russian state-affiliated media.
| skrowl wrote:
| Do a quick internet search for "Hunter Biden Laptop NPR"
| and see what you turn up.
|
| The US government literally told them to spike a story,
| so they did. You know... like the state media does is
| Russia.
| d23 wrote:
| The burden on is on you to provide evidence for your
| claims, not for me to go fishing for them.
|
| Regardless, I doubt whatever you have in mind is anything
| similar to an authoritarian regime that literally murders
| critical journalists and poisons opposition politicians.
| It is an absurd comparison.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| It doesn't have to be on the level of russia or china to
| be bad. What a weird arbitrary goalpost.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| What do you think about Al Jazeera's funding and level of
| control?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Trustworthy when it is about non-local affairs,
| hopelessly biased when it is about local affairs. But Al
| Jazeera doesn't really pretend to be unbiased. Sometimes
| I'm positively surprised by the quality of their
| reporting. But them being Qatar based the amount of local
| news that would affect me is nil. They definitely offer
| an interesting perspective on the world as seen from the
| Arabic perspective, meanwhile I'm well aware of the fact
| that their English language news isn't always a 1:1 with
| their coverage of the same subject in languages that I
| can not read unaided.
| ghiculescu wrote:
| Replace "Al Jazeera" with "NPR" in your comment and
| you're also spot on.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Sorry, but aljazeera is on the level of RT. That you
| think otherwise just shows that you are more willing to
| ignore a biais when it is in your favor.
|
| It has always been known in the arabic world that AJ is a
| complete puppet of the Qatari royal family (and even
| staffed by members of the royal family) and it can't be a
| coincidence that AJ's coverage is almost always a mirror
| image of qatari foreign policy talking points/positions.
| It is the equivalent of Saudi Arabia's Al Arabiya, just
| with more international presence.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| not OP, but I watch Al Jazeera a lot, they're more fair
| than NPR, they at least invite the "other party" to the
| talkshow, no matter how ridiculous they sound (e.g.
| russian people supporting the war). NPR hasn't done that
| in years, they do a literal strawman: they quote what a
| republican said (or they replay a short part from a
| speech) and then the all democratic leaning attendees
| talk about the subject. It's laughable. I wouldn't just
| blindly trust Al Jazeera either, I would double check
| whatever they say, but at least I can learn about the
| world from a different perspective: they cover a lot from
| Africa, Asia, eastern Europe, which are places that
| Western Media usually ignores (unless it's something
| really big).
|
| NPR is very high quality when it comes to art, science
| and other shows, but fails spectacularly when it's a
| political subject.
|
| NPR has the opportunity to be a world class media group,
| like BBC and Al Jazeera, but they chose to waddle in mud
| together with the democratic party, estranging half of
| the US population - which could have been an easy win for
| them.
| cauch wrote:
| What you are saying is that NPR is left-wing, not
| "controlled by the government".
|
| "controlled by the government" means: left-wing when the
| government is left-wing, right-wing when the government
| is right-wing. Was NPR right-wing when Trump was
| president?
|
| If not, it is the proof that the label "government
| funded" is really really bad: it does not identify
| outlets that are biased by their funding, it just find an
| excuse to label as biased while not labeling as biased
| others than are as biased.
|
| It does not mean NPR is not biased, but if you want to
| add a label to warn of a potential bias, you need to do
| it properly, and label ALL outlets that are similarly
| biased and identify properly the reason they are.
|
| Funnily, NPR could also drop the 4% of revenue from
| government funding and continue to publish the same
| stories with exactly the same bias, and people who are
| arguing that NPR is biased should therefore argue then
| that NPR is not biased anymore.
| preseinger wrote:
| the claim is trivially and factually false
|
| what are you talking about
| DrThunder wrote:
| And this proves they're not government funded / affiliated how?
|
| Didn't they tweet that their funding by the government was so
| minuscule that they shouldn't be labeled state-affiliated? You
| cannot simultaneously say that while also declaring you can't
| exist to your full capacity without government funding.
| skybrian wrote:
| You might compare with a government contractor like SpaceX.
| Private organizations can depend on government funding
| without being fully government-controlled. Speaking of SpaceX
| as a privately owned company is still accurate. Calling it
| state-affiliated wouldn't be entirely wrong (they work with
| NASA), but a bit weird.
|
| In NPR's case, their customers (public radio stations)
| receive a lot of government funding, so it's one step removed
| compared to a government contractor.
|
| NPR is a nonprofit with a board of directors that includes
| NPR member station managers, though. Control over NPR seems
| rather diffuse? Nonprofit boards are often kind of weird that
| way.
| [deleted]
| guywithahat wrote:
| The irony is that it's likely not minuscule. Although NPR
| claims its around ~5%, independent investigations usually put
| it closer to 20-40%
| fortuna86 wrote:
| Yes, every organization when faced with potential budget cuts
| refers to all of their budget as "essential". This should not
| be surprising.
| veec_cas_tant wrote:
| There is also this part that you did not quote:
|
| >On average, less than 1% of NPR's annual operating budget
| comes in the form of grants from CPB and federal agencies and
| departments.
|
| It is irrelevant to most of the controversy, however. The
| original Twitter label declared that NPR did not have editorial
| independence from the government.
| DrThunder wrote:
| They don't. Just because you say you do doesn't make it so.
| When a big part of your funding comes from the people that
| can vote to cut it at any moment you do not have true
| independence.
|
| This is as silly as the argument saying the 1st amendment
| isn't violated by social media when you have the government
| literally asking these companies for censorship.
| hilbertseries wrote:
| NPR continuing to publish programming critical of Trump
| during the Trump presidency, is a pretty strong indication
| they have editorial independence.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| not necessarily. It just means it's not as bad as it
| would be in China or Russia.
|
| NPR knew the democrats would be back in power in a couple
| of years...they weren't risking much by being anti-Trump.
| But they did gain goodwill from the democrats, which can
| extend them support every time they are in power.
|
| I am not arguing for or against either side, I am just
| pointing out a flaw in your logic.
|
| I think NPR is so solidly on the democrats side, that
| it's hard to distinguish what came first: the chicken or
| the egg?
| kube-system wrote:
| Heck, Voice of America also did the same and they are
| _definitely_ state affiliated.
| ashwagary wrote:
| Threats were made by the Trump admin when NPR had
| unfavorable reporting.
|
| 'Trump proposes eliminating federal funding for PBS, NPR'
| https://thehill.com/homenews/media/373434-trump-proposes-
| eli...
| generic92034 wrote:
| Can you name any media company being truly independent? Or
| is any owner excluded from the potential list of
| dependencies?
| DrThunder wrote:
| I'm discussing government independence specifically, not
| whether companies are beholden to someone else.
|
| Obviously all businesses are beholden to someone. Yes you
| should always have an interest in what/who companies are
| beholden to.
|
| There's a reason Nike and Apple don't chastise the
| Chinese government.
| generic92034 wrote:
| If I have understood you correctly you were concerned by
| funding being cut off. Why would that not be a concern
| with other media, not receiving any government funds, as
| well? I also do not really understand why you are more
| concerned with government dependencies than with any
| other dependencies. Actually I think the latter
| dependencies might be the stronger influence on a media
| company, especially if it is a large part of the budget.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Twitter is funny in this regard, why is Musk so keen on
| Russia and China?
| d23 wrote:
| To call NPR state-affiliated media to abuse the term to
| the point of incoherence. You may as well, by your own
| logic, say every media company ultimately has at least
| one dollar that's passed through the government and is
| thus state-affiliated. Thus they all deserve the label.
| Thus the label is meaningless, which incidentally,
| appears to be the point of this authoritarian-apolgistic
| nonsense.
|
| It's continued abuse of language in the hopes of making
| it impossible for people to determine what's true -- in
| the hopes of making people give up even caring about
| facts.
| guelo wrote:
| They do. If after 50 years of existence you can't come up
| with a single example of government interference then
| they're independent.
| tims33 wrote:
| That could apply to a huge portion of all businesses on
| Twitter. How many of the F500 have benefitted from a gov't
| bailout or some other taxpayer subsidy. No one is really
| squeaky clean on this front.
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| Most F500 companies aren't media companies, and the
| interests motivating any public statements they make are
| well understood by the public.
| roflyear wrote:
| How many media companies got PPP loans? Probably all of
| them, right?
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| This is an excellent point. If you review my comment
| history I think you'll find some of my most downvoted
| comments being about how rolling out the biggest
| infringements upon civil liberties since WWII, and then
| creating a financing program that media companies rely
| upon to survive, was one of the most corrupt things I'd
| seen during my life time.
| segasaturn wrote:
| I wonder if this will have any domino effect, right now the only
| thing holding Twitter together is its network effects. According
| to the article on NPR's site[0], they have 8.7 million followers
| and run 52 different accounts so Twitter is losing a pretty
| important partner.
|
| Also, no mention of Mastodon in this announcement. It sounds like
| they're just going to use Facebook for the time being.
|
| 0: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/12/1169269161/npr-leaves-
| twitter...
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Wonder what all those social media interns are going to do all
| day long when they shut down those 52 accounts.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I would assume a single account with 8.7 million followers
| isn't a big deal to Twitter. It's not like the 8.7 million NPR
| followers are unique to NPR and are going to disappear. Those
| 8.7 million followers probably follow 8.7 million other things
| themselves.
|
| I'd be willing to guess a single Kardashian has more followers
| than NPR (maybe I'm too cynical). Eventually, the way Musk is
| running Twitter, he'll give a free blue check mark for the
| Brawndo Corp. Maybe he could just rename Twitter to "Ow, my
| balls"
| acdha wrote:
| That's true to some extent but NPR and its people provide a
| ton of timely content which keeps users active. People like
| the "what's going on" aspect and news organizations
| disproportionately help provide that.
| gkbrk wrote:
| Worst case, Twitter can set up something like "system
| accounts" that automatically fetch headlines from news
| websites or RSS feeds and post them with links on Twitter.
| galleywest200 wrote:
| Twitter has recently been playing cat and mouse with its
| API access -- why wouldn't these news sites just block
| twitter's RSS agents?
| gkbrk wrote:
| How do you even block one organization from accessing
| your RSS feeds or your homepage HTML while allowing
| others to access it? How do you tell apart my requests
| and Twitter's requests if they both come from a
| residential IP or a common VPN?
| moralestapia wrote:
| >8.7 million followers and run 52 different accounts so Twitter
| is losing a pretty important partner
|
| Nah.
| pixxel wrote:
| 8.7 million followers but take a look at their feed. Go back a
| week in time (for a snapshot) and the like/retweets/comments
| are generally in the 10s or low hundreds, with a few exceptions
| (low thousands). Same with NYT. Last time I looked they had 50+
| million followers with similar low engagement.
|
| So how many of their followers are bots and what's NPRs true
| value to Twitter? I don't know. I've got a small 5k following
| and I have similar engagement.
| effingwewt wrote:
| You hit the nail on the head.
|
| Most twitter account followers are nothing but bots. Millions
| of 'followers' but likes and retweets only in the dozens.
|
| It also makes for huge egos. Like, they _know_ they bought
| all their followers, but they wake up one day and forget, and
| start to believe their own bullshit.
|
| To be fair it is everywhere, youtube accounts will millions
| of followers do the same. Never more than 200 comments or
| likes on them.
|
| Seems to me the only organic accounts are the ones with only
| a few K.
|
| I assume anything with 100k-1 million followers is 95% bots.
|
| No one ever thought it was odd that these accounts all got
| their million followers in the first few days of acct
| creation, then literally didnt gain any more ever?
|
| Or how odd it is that _every_ celebrity or business just
| _happened_ to hit 1mil+?
| philistine wrote:
| Low engagement does not absolutely equate paid bots.
| Twitter is _ooold_. I bet the overwhelming majority of NPR
| followers are inactive accounts by people who signed up
| somewhere in the '10s and went to the website twice.
| effingwewt wrote:
| Not when all their followers were gained the first week.
|
| Please show me the celebrity/business/politician with
| even a quarter as many retweets or likes as their
| follower count.
|
| It doesn't happen. It's an open secret they _all_ buy
| their followers. They call it 'growth hacking' or 'fake
| it till you make it'- I call it bullshit.
|
| There are firms that do nothing _but_ increase follower
| count.
|
| Simply do an internet search for 'where to buy twitter
| followers'. It's pretty sad its literally that simple.
| Kye wrote:
| I got 0 engagement with hundreds of real followers by the
| end, but the situation got worse every year with a tangible
| nosedive in the new era. This was a carefully curated
| following where I blocked and reported every bot that
| showed up. The problem is Twitter.
| belltaco wrote:
| Fox News probably had more followers when they stopped posting
| on Twitter a few years ago. Not to mention all the right wing
| momentum behind Parler, Gab, Telegram, Truth Social etc. didn't
| make a noticeable dent.
| RobAtticus wrote:
| For a company that "stopped posting on Twitter" they sure
| post a lot: https://twitter.com/FoxNews
| rvz wrote:
| > Also, no mention of Mastodon in this announcement. It sounds
| like they're just going to use Facebook for the time being.
|
| I think it is time that we can call it a day after 7 years, and
| we should also admit that the Mastodon experiment has become
| unviable, unscalable, obsolete and already extinct as a
| _serious_ alternative against Twitter. It had its slither of a
| chance, and it still failed.
|
| Maybe a lesson in networks effects will tell you why the 220M+
| daily active users on Twitter still continue to use the
| platform. Unsurprisingly.
| riffic wrote:
| mastodon as an open source project is wildly successful what
| are you even talking about?
| rvz wrote:
| Had you read my comment, you would know that my point still
| stands unrefuted.
| spir wrote:
| Last week, the Federal Reserve issued an important update on
| twitter. So no, I don't think twitter is worried about losing
| NPR. Twitter has the strongest network effects of any
| contemporary social network.
| reset2023 wrote:
| No dopamine hit with twitter anymore.
| fknorangesite wrote:
| Well, I'm sure they didn't issue it _only_ on twitter, right?
| That 'd just be part of their normal media processes. Post it
| on the website. Post it on twitter. Post it on Facebook. Send
| press releases to media outlets. Blah blah blah.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _no mention of Mastodon in this announcement_
|
| Mastodon blew its moment. It could have eaten Twitter's lunch.
| But onboarding--specifically, choosing a server--was too
| tedious for non-niche adoption.
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| This is by design, Mastodon goal was never to replace
| Twitter, it's an alternative but with different goals.
| Mastodon isn't a centralized platform. This is good. The
| people that after a broad global audience shouldn't expect
| Mastodon to replace Twitter. Mastodon is its own thing.
| jpmattia wrote:
| > _But onboarding--specifically, choosing a server--was too
| tedious for non-niche adoption._
|
| I'm not entirely sure that's a bug. Specifically, I'm curious
| whether it squelches non-niche conversations like: Are
| vaccines a nefarious plot by Bill Gates to implant mind-
| control chips?
| hklgny wrote:
| Everyone likes to blame the server interface, but honestly
| that's not so bad and I think most people get over it.
|
| Mastodon's real problem in my opinion is that its primary
| audience today doesn't actually want anyone new to join -
| it's VERY toxic for newcomers who don't fit a specific mold.
| It's a shame, cause we really do need something new.
|
| I'm hoping some of the new decentralized ones take off.
|
| Edit: I think the comment about this being survivor bias is
| fair, but I still believe the community itself is a bigger
| hurdle for Mastodon than the signup flow
| iudqnolq wrote:
| I'm pretty technical, but neither of those were the reasons
| I quickly abandoned Mastodon.
|
| I don't care about federation, and I want algorithmic
| discovery. Specific I want to follow all sorts of people
| from around the world (on multiple mastodon servers) and
| have more people suggested to me based on that. Mastodon
| can't even reliably search across servers.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| I looked at joining Mastodon.
|
| The first "recommended" server on the Mastodon's official
| website was something about anime, and the second seemed to
| be about some "Queer friendly furry community", whatever
| that means. Then there was one about tech and and the local
| Bay Area one.
|
| At least, unlike GNU Ring (or whatever it's called
| nowadays) it didn't just crash on startup.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| This is survivor bias. If you're a non-tech person signing
| up for a new service, the federation aspect is just wizard
| talk and it's not obvious what difference it makes. Most
| people do not want to go on side quests to find other
| people they know or figure out which digital village they
| live in, _especially_ not as the first stage in the
| onboarding process.
| donio wrote:
| People manage to deal with this when they sign up for
| their email account. It's just that we don't (yet) have
| the equivalent of gmail (or hotmail, aol before that) as
| a default option.
| hklgny wrote:
| Fair point, then I guess I'd adjust my comment to say "in
| ADDITION to the server issue....".
|
| The reality is even once you're connected, it can be a
| rough place to explore for newcomers.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| > it's VERY toxic for newcomers who don't fit a specific
| mold.
|
| I have not experienced that ... at all. Surely this is
| highly instance dependent.
| nilptr wrote:
| Have you considered you fit the mold?
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| I have considered that I don't fit most molds, but I am
| very observant.
| hklgny wrote:
| I could believe that it's possible to stumble upon an
| instance that fits who you are and offers a great
| onboarding experience - but it's far from the norm.
|
| The reason I'm confident saying that is that it's
| actually by design for the platform. The community is
| very hostile towards any kind of discovery tools or
| enhancements that help you explore the network without a
| direct introduction. Any attempt to provide that
| functionality is blasted with an intense amount of
| aggression and shut down.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Which instance is nice?
| brewdad wrote:
| I understand the hesitancy in some respects. Longtime
| Mastodon users fear a mass migration of the toxic elements
| of Twitter into what has been their private sphere. If
| Mastodon becomes Twitter 2.0 then we have solved nothing.
| Kye wrote:
| It's a well-founded concern, too. Every new wave has a
| cacophony of people demanding it change to work exactly
| like Twitter so they don't have to learn anything new or
| change, dooming them to experience exactly what they left
| if they got their way.
|
| It reminds me of how Metro Atlanta has grown. People move
| out a bit to get away from Atlanta traffic. Then they
| miss all the stuff they had in Atlanta, and start
| clamoring for all they miss from where they moved from.
| It often starts with a Target or a movie theater. Ten
| years on, they're complaining about Atlanta traffic
| again, and they move. And the cycle repeats until half of
| North Georgia is consumed by a web of crumbling asphalt
| roads dangling off packed highways.
|
| The difference here is Mastodon, as a community, said
| "No. Learn a new way or buzz off." Most people buzz off,
| and occasionally complain about how hostile the community
| was to them to anyone who'll listen. Some people stick
| around and appreciate the different way of doing things.
| Repeat.
| hklgny wrote:
| I don't agree with this take - I joined mastodon with the
| best intentions and really wish I could have found my
| folks there. I did not want it to be like Twitter.
|
| The challenge is that it's intentionally difficult to
| find your community on there unless you're invited in
| from an existing connection outside of Mastodon. I
| understand that's how some people want it - but blaming
| users for not understanding how to "learn a new way" in
| the first place IS hostile - whether you want to hear it
| or not.
|
| Ultimately, doesn't matter. Mastodon will be what it will
| be, and folks like me will find something else that's a
| little more welcoming to people who aren't quite as my-
| tribe-only focused.
| Kye wrote:
| >> _" I don't agree with this take - I joined mastodon
| with the best intentions and really wish I could have
| found my folks there. I did not want it to be like
| Twitter."_
|
| Then you're not who I'm referring to.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Twitter has always been a cesspool. You're fighting not
| only other people but also the algorithm / popularity
| contest. I actually hate it and never want to go back, but
| for some it's engaging. People probably don't use Mastodon
| just cause nobody they care about is on it and the whole
| multi-instance thing is weird.
| donio wrote:
| That hasn't been my experience. I joined a couple months
| ago and I have yet to see a single instance of toxicity in
| my feeds or replies. But I am guessing it greatly depends
| on the type of groups and content you interact with.
|
| The great thing about Mastodon is that it doesn't push
| anything in my face that I didn't subscribe to.
| dylan604 wrote:
| This will always be a problem with federated vs unfederated
| services. It's hard to get a network effect when things are
| so spread out without a central place.
| runako wrote:
| Email stands as a notable counter-example.
| dylan604 wrote:
| but that's not how you use email. you don't sign up for
| an email account, and then go searching for other users
| to follow and what not with in the same server.
|
| with social platforms, you do just that. you want to see
| a centralized list of available users to choose to follow
| or subscribe or join cult or whatever.
|
| i'm deliberately using centralized here as not needing to
| know that multiple servers exist with different users in
| each. maybe i'm showing my ignorance of mastodon, but it
| seems like mastodon.com or whatever central website could
| just publish a list that mastodon clients can refer to
| rather than making users discovery a hunt and fetch kind
| of process. like a torrent index site. if that already
| exists, then i'll TIL the workings of mastodon. if it
| doesn't exists, then it seems very short sited.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| If people wanted email 2.0 they wouldn't have flocked to
| social media 1.0 and begun doing most of their
| correspondence through messaging instead of email.
| spankalee wrote:
| You don't need _a_ central place, but you do need places
| that are large enough, mainstream enough, and trusted
| enough, for the masses. Email is like this now.
| iak8god wrote:
| > you do need places that are large enough, mainstream
| enough, and trusted enough, for the masses
|
| I think you don't necessarily even need that if you have
| a better way to support discovery and interaction with
| content from other places.
| [deleted]
| icehawk wrote:
| The internet blew its moment. But onboarding--specifically,
| choosing an ISP--was too tedious for non-niche adoption.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| You joke, but Mastodon could've learned from the history
| there, at least in the US. AOL in particular had a huge
| mainstream user base that didn't really understand what was
| AOL and what was Internet. Witgout that gentle
| introduction, yes, many would've have been stuck trying to
| figure out which company to use to get online for longer.
| smoldesu wrote:
| AOL also charged you $15 a month for an email subdomain,
| whereas on Mastodon that kind of lock-in wouldn't exist.
| Creating an AOL-like company for Mastodon doesn't work
| unless your ultimate goal is to be blocked by every major
| federated community.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Sure. AOL was also a commercial service and joining
| Mastodon.social is free. A facade over the Internet would
| look different than a facade over a federated social
| network in many ways.
| preseinger wrote:
| lol you wish
| aquova wrote:
| I don't think there's anything they can really do about that.
| It's a federated platform, the user is going to have to pick
| a server. Aside from some landing page that shows you servers
| based on your interests, I don't know what else they could
| do.
|
| I do agree that migrating between servers could be a more
| streamlined process though.
| eastbound wrote:
| Like wordpress.org has wordpress.com, they could have had
| this commercial domain. They could even have had a signup
| form on their .org website that would return "Your account
| has been created! Yours is on [xyz].com! But don't worry,
| it will connect to other accounts from all others of the
| federation."
| detaro wrote:
| > _Like wordpress.org has wordpress.com, they could have
| had this commercial domain._
|
| soo... mastodon.social? the instance listed as first
| option, clearly marked as being run by the Mastodon
| company?
| eastbound wrote:
| Weird TLDs don't inspire trust. I would have never
| guessed that mastodon.social were the most serious place
| to start a Mastodon account.
| detaro wrote:
| luckily you didn't need to guess, because it's presented
| as the first entry, including the information that it is
| run by the company, when you go look at the .org page for
| where to sign up, just as you wanted.
|
| But I'm sure you'll find another reason why doing exactly
| what you suggested isn't reasonable.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| Also a "decentralized" social media network is something an
| engineer thinks is great, but no user does.
| [deleted]
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| I don't think they "blew it" but it could have been better. I
| think it would be better if they have a blurb about how it is
| very much like email; you pick a provider and sign up then
| after that you can message anyone else via your "address" and
| provider. Also, they could be a LOT more clear about which
| instances are accepting new signups.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| My experience was bad. A lot of servers my friends used
| didn't take new sign ups so I was forced to pick my own which
| went offline a few weeks later and I haven't tried using it
| since because there's no indicator of server quality that I
| know of and all the servers with a lot of active users are
| not taking signups. Recommendations from HN would be
| appreciated.
| gnramires wrote:
| I use social.coop, and it seems to work well. They have
| some kind of participatory administration too that I don't
| know very well.
|
| My recommendation is to find an instance with some kind of
| governance plan, and hopefully a stable stream of
| donations. Volunteer instances indeed could go at any time.
| And of course, if you can, donate to one or a few instances
| out of good citizenship.
|
| I think it's also worth mentioning there are other services
| built around ActivityPub as well (and federation). I found
| friendica pretty good (as a Mastodon/facebook alternative),
| although I don't use it.
|
| Instances I can recommend to HN fellows are probably
| https://floss.social/about, https://chaos.social/explore
| and https://mathstodon.xyz/about. But don't worry too much,
| you can move later without too much issue (though moving
| posts themselves is not possible).
| jeffwask wrote:
| I think the Dominoes have been falling for a while. I mostly
| quit the bird in November. I pop over once or twice a week
| these days to see what's happening and the degradation of
| content is very apparent. It may be because of departures or it
| may be because his constant weaponizing, sorry monetizing, of
| the algorithm but it's a lot quieter. A lot of the people I
| liked to follow from our industry are gone. It's a stark
| contrast to what the app was even a year ago. All while their
| CEO rebrands them as Titter and has people repaint signs.
|
| The most recent gaff of exposing people "private" circles to
| the main feed (including private nudes) is probably going to
| create a new slew of legal issues.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| I am viewing Twitter more than before because I am attracted to
| the open speech where political banning is no longer occurring.
| I do not know all who have been blocked under Musk but it feels
| more open.
| [deleted]
| agluszak wrote:
| Network effect is literally the only thing holding non-
| federated social networks together
| mdaniel wrote:
| And too bad, also, since the On The Media hosts seem to have
| joined a journalist-centric server that would have been the
| perfect place for them: https://journa.host/about
|
| I wouldn't envy the hosts having to read our their addresses
| but npr.org could absolutely implement WebFinger if they were
| thus inclined
| guidorice wrote:
| national: (adjective)
|
| relating to a nation; common to or characteristic of a whole
| nation: this policy may have been in the national interest | a
| national newspaper. * owned, controlled, or financially supported
| by the federal government: plans for a national art library.
| bunnyswipe_com wrote:
| [flagged]
| misssocrates wrote:
| > It receives less than 1 percent
|
| Why do they keep saying they receive almost nothing, yet at the
| same time say government funding is essential to their operation?
| waboremo wrote:
| Let's say you're being paid $1k per month by your job. You
| would say you receive almost nothing, right? Simultaneously,
| you would also say what you do get is essential to your
| livelihood. Same here, larger scale.
|
| Hope that helps you visualize the situation.
| sahila wrote:
| That's not an accurate analogy if what you're saying the
| $1k/month is your entire pay.
|
| More accurate would be saying I make a $100k/month of which
| $1k comes for a certain source, and then me saying that
| thousand is essential to my livelihood. I'd be lying if I
| said that; I make a whole lot less than $100k/month and I
| could easily forgo $1k/month today which just goes into my
| savings anyways.
| waboremo wrote:
| No, that's incorrect. You're comparing unstable funds vs
| stable funds.
|
| Income from a job is stable (relatively), income from other
| sources like say a monthly donation, is unstable.
|
| So yes, my example is still accurate: they rely on the
| 1k/mo as STABLE funding.
| sahila wrote:
| Where do you address the fact that npr says that "stable"
| funding represents only 1% of total funding?
| waboremo wrote:
| What's there to address? 1% stable funding is still 1%
| you can rely on, just because you receive additional
| funds from private sectors or alternative sources that
| are unreliable, doesn't negate this. You can literally
| see this in CPB funding, where private sources are
| incredibly variable, and that is what CPB gets, NPR is
| only allotted a portion.
| giantrobot wrote:
| It's disingenuous to talk as if the relationship to NPR
| content to their funding is some simple linear
| relationship.
|
| Every penny of their income is important. If they had less
| content to provide to member stations, those stations would
| have less content and would pull in fewer donations. It
| then becomes a death spiral since less content results in
| fewer donations.
|
| While federally originated dollars are a small portion of
| NPR's total income they're not unimportant since they can't
| be replaced by other sources. A 1% reduction in income
| means they need to reduce expenses by 1%.
|
| In your analogy, $1k/month goes into savings. Losing that
| wouldn't break you financially. You're not spending your
| all of your income. If you _were_ you 'd need to cut your
| expenses by the $1k/month. In that case you'd consider that
| 1% pretty important.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I think it has more to do with preserving the fiction that
| they're significantly more independent from commercial
| interests than other news media. Losing dedicated public
| funding would make them a commercial network that also begs for
| donations a few times a year, probably harming donation and
| removing some of the halo-effect that advertisers are looking
| for by "sponsoring" them (paying for ads).
|
| In short, it'd push them farther out of the ad niche they've
| carved for themselves, which could have serious revenue
| consequences beyond that 1%.
| bilekas wrote:
| Because every penny counts. What business would turn around and
| say : "We don't need that 1%, you can have it back".
|
| It's state affiliated. Like Tesla. Like any company who
| received covid relief. Tax breaks etc.
|
| Less than 1 percentage is simply not influential. It's
| disingenuous to say it's owned by the government.
| rdtsc wrote:
| It depends on the perception one has of the US govt. If one
| considers them benign and aligns with their policy, 1% seems
| is not a big deal. If one doesn't, even 1% funding is
| considered influence. Imagine one politician you don't like
| receiving 1% from the Russian or North Korean government, or
| say from the Meta corp, I wouldn't have a problem calling out
| them as being "funded" or even "influenced".
|
| > What business would turn around and say : "We don't need
| that 1%, you can have it back".
|
| The one which would try to claim independence and non-
| influence from said entity?
| Georgelemental wrote:
| Either the money is important to NPR, or it is not. If and
| only if is important, it gives the government leverage over
| the organization.
| tjnaylor wrote:
| Infrastructure like roads are important to NPR, or they are
| not.
|
| NPR (and every other company) that relies on US roadways is
| giving the US govt levarage over the organization no?
| sidfthec wrote:
| > It's state affiliated. Like Tesla. Like any company who
| received covid relief. Tax breaks etc.
|
| So... everyone and everything is state affiliated and should
| be labeled as such?
|
| That's obviously not the case. State affiliated should be
| limited to organizations that are influenced/controlled
| significantly by the state, which NPR is not. This is
| actually the definition that Twitter advertises.
| adamrezich wrote:
| if "every penny counts", and the federal government gives
| them a single penny, then by definition they owe their
| continued existence to the federal government.
|
| there is a difference between a company that makes electric
| automobiles, and a company that influences the thoughts and
| (crucially) feelings of the populace through opinion and
| reporting.
|
| we all agree that all of these things are true for
| government-dependent media organizations outside of the West,
| but for some reason many refuse to believe that the same
| thing happens here domestically.
| deelowe wrote:
| This isn't just about NPR itself. They depend on local
| broadcast networks to reach their audience. How much does
| government grants influence the local stations? I know in my
| state, the majority of local public radio funding comes from
| the government.
| dghughes wrote:
| Grocery stores traditionally or supposedly only make 1% to 3%
| profit. These days it's probably 1%. So I'd say 1% is a lot if
| it's the thing keeping the company from going under if that
| income disappears.
| fwungy wrote:
| Yes, but food is incredibly popular and buying it the most
| popular way to get it, so they're making a small margin on
| good volume.
| DrThunder wrote:
| [flagged]
| Arborealist wrote:
| [dead]
| js2 wrote:
| In 2022, CPB got $465M from the Federal government. Of that,
| $72M goes to "Direct grants to local public radio stations",
| $24M to "Radio National Program Production and Acquisition
| grants" and $7.3M to "Radio Program Fund".
|
| https://cpb.org/aboutcpb/financials/budget
|
| According to NPR's 2020 budget, total revenue was $275M, of
| which $92.7M was "Station dues, programming and digital fees".
|
| https://media.npr.org/documents/about/statements/fy2020/Nati...
|
| So ~ 1/3 of NPR's revenue is from member stations, and some
| percentage of that revenue is part of the $72M that the
| stations were granted from CPB.
|
| Looking at WBUR's budget as a randomly picked example, its 2022
| revenue was $39.7M of which $1.8M was grants. Let's call that
| 4.5%.
|
| https://media.wbur.org/wp/2023/01/WBUR-Special-Purpose-Finan...
|
| Let me pick another random station, WUNC. In 2018 its total
| revenue was $13.8M. of that CPB grants were $617.8K. Again,
| about 4.5%.
|
| http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/wunc/files/wunc_2018_...
|
| Using 4.5% as the percentage of of the $72M from CPB that ends
| up as part of the 1/3rd of NPRs revenue. 4.5% x 33% = ~1.5%.
|
| I gather then that even though it's a small part of NPR's
| revenue, it's very high leverage in helping to keep all of the
| member stations afloat. I guess that's how they can
| simultaneously downplay the dollar amount while also speaking
| of how critical it is.
|
| https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...
|
| I may have gotten my math wrong here somewhere, corrections
| appreciated.
|
| I ignored the $24M and $7.3M of the CPB budget because I wasn't
| sure what to do with them, but you can read more about those
| here:
|
| https://www.cpb.org/funding/
|
| It's probably fair count some part of those dollars as part of
| NPR's funding, I just don't know how much.
| user3939382 wrote:
| Let's graph all their sponsors and their connection to the
| corporations that also puppet our elected officials. My guess
| is the vast majority of their funding looks like:
|
| Megacorp -> NPR Megacorp -> Exec -> NPR Megacorp -> Political
| NGO -> NPR
|
| In addition to the direct Federal grant which is under the
| control of the same politicians in turn owned by these
| corporations.
|
| The idea that it's some independent real news organization is a
| farce.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Not to mention it is conveniently a non-profit so all those
| donations are tax write-offs. What better way to influence
| the voice of a media company?
| ismokedoinks wrote:
| Disconnect between direct federal funding and aggregate funding
| from a variety of public institutions or grants from publicly
| funded NGOs at national/state/local levels I imagine.
| judge2020 wrote:
| https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...
|
| > Public radio stations receive annual grants directly from the
| Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that make up an
| important part of a diverse revenue mix that includes listener
| support, corporate sponsorship and grants. Stations, in turn,
| draw on this mix of public and privately sourced revenue to pay
| NPR and other public radio producers for their programming.
|
| Sounds like it may be more than 1% in total?
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| If you look at the breakdown lower in the page, 31% of NPR's
| revenue comes from member station licensing fees and of the
| member station funding 13% comes from government sources, so
| in total that would be 4%.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| NPR is one of several providers to individual public radio
| stations. The government supports those individual stations;
| they use some of that support to purchase programs from NPR,
| American Public Media, PRX, etc.
| thelittlenag wrote:
| The numbers I am last aware of, while ten years old now, were
| that Federal funding was roughly 10% of their operating
| budget, with 90% coming from other sources.
|
| This came more or less directly from our NPR station in DC as
| they talked about fund raising in their many, many drives.
| And this wasn't for the station itself, I believe this was
| for NPR, since they then went on to talk about how many
| stations, mostly in rural areas, had a funding inverse of
| that.
|
| Basically, if you are listening to NPR outside a major
| population center, then its almost certainly because Federal
| dollars make that possible. And if you listen and contribute
| to a major station, then you are one of the few that pay the
| 90% or so of the budget for the content on NPR.
| mbreese wrote:
| You're conflating the local NPR affiliate with the news
| company and radio content aggregator. It like you're saying
| that my local NBC station is owned by NBC News, when it's
| locally owned (well, in my case owned by a company with a
| lot of stations, but not NBC itself).
|
| Less than 1% of NPR's budget comes directly from the
| government itself through competitive grants, etc.
|
| _Some_ of the budget comes from member stations
| (presumably more than 1%) who themselves receive some level
| of state or federal funding. Those are the entities that
| receive ~10% of their budgets from a government of one kind
| or another (the rest coming from donations or other non-
| profit funding). But those stations can get content from a
| variety of other public radio sources. I believe NPR can
| (did?) handle some of the distribution of non-NPR content
| via their satellite services.
|
| Originally NPR was directly funded by the CPB to a much
| greater extent. However that changed substantially in the
| 80s when the stations themselves started receiving funding
| from the CPB instead of NPR.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding
| stametseater wrote:
| > _The numbers I am last aware of, while ten years old now,
| were that Federal funding was roughly 10% of their
| operating budget, with 90% coming from other sources._
|
| If that's accurate, then I'd love for NPR to explain the
| order of magnitude gap between their claim of 1% and that
| 10% figure. That's a huge difference.
|
| _to upon_drumhead_ : Federal funding laundered through
| sub-orgs that share the same "NPR" branding is still
| federal funding.
| vharuck wrote:
| From the article:
|
| >Most of NPR's funding comes from corporate and
| individual supporters and grants. It also receives
| significant programming fees from member stations. Those
| stations, in turn, receive about 13 percent of their
| funds from the CPB and other state and federal government
| sources.
|
| Also, here's NPR's report on financing:
| https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-
| finance.... It also includes breakdowns of member station
| financing. 8% average from CPB, 5% from other government
| sources.
| upon_drumhead wrote:
| Member station funding is different then the actual NPR
| organization funding.
|
| Member stations paying NPR is the bulk of NPRs funding.
| pigbearpig wrote:
| They also say my $60/yr is essential so I can't see NPR saying
| $3 million as non-essential.
| mikeryan wrote:
| Because the bulk of NPRs funding comes from the dues of member
| stations most of which are non-profits and receive funding from
| a myriad of sources.
|
| Hard to say what percent of their funding comes from some
| governmental source but it's all indirect and arms length.
|
| A lot of folks confuse NPR With PBS which is publicly funded
| and many of NPR's member stations are PBS affiliated.
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| > Because the bulk of NPRs funding comes from the dues of
| member stations most of which are non-profits and receive
| funding from a myriad of sources.
|
| From wikipedia:
|
| _Although NPR receives less than 1% of its direct funding
| from the federal government, member stations (which pay dues
| amounting to approximately one third of NPR 's revenue), tend
| to receive far larger portions of their budgets from state
| governments, and also the US government through the
| Corporation for Public Broadcasting._
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-
| finance...
|
| 31% of their funding comes from member stations. 13% of
| member station funding comes from government sources. In
| total that would make about 31% * 13% = 4%.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| > 13% of member station funding comes from government
| sources
|
| What is the source of this number? Also is 4% as opposed
| to 1% a change that alters any of the underlying
| fundamentals ?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > A lot of folks confuse NPR With PBS which is publicly
| funded
|
| PBS gets a minority of its funding from government, and a
| minority of what it gets from government from the Federal
| government.
|
| But it gets a bigger minority of its funding from government
| than NPR does.
| fooblaster wrote:
| They usually emphasize listener funding in virtually all
| broadcasts I have ever seen.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| That would indicate many high-quality news outlets.
|
| Many European countries have state-funded but independent media.
| Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain, France, et al, all have
| state-funded and independent media.
|
| The idea is that state-funding makes them _less_ dependent since
| they do not have to only report what people want to read for ad-
| revenue but can focus on honest reporting (including reporting
| critical of the government).
|
| Whether you buy that argument or not is a different discussion.
| The point is that "state funded" has nothing to do with "state
| controlled" or even "state affiliated"; just another dumb move by
| Elon Musk.
|
| I quit Twitter a long time ago. Good riddance, I have not missed
| anything!
| hikawaii wrote:
| But he spoke the truth
| ceejayoz wrote:
| In the BBC's case, he's acknowledge it's not accurate. NPR's
| case is similar (and even less "state affiliated" than they
| are).
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65248196
|
| > Mr Musk said Twitter was adjusting the label for the BBC to
| "publicly-funded". "We're trying to be accurate," he said.
|
| If NPR is state affiliated because of 1% government funding,
| SpaceX should get the tag.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Including Elon's SpaceX spam tweets.
| slackfan wrote:
| Corporation for Public Broadcasting is entirely government
| funded, and it funds NPR.
| ajford wrote:
| CPB indirectly funds NPR. Direct funding from CPB is ~1%,
| the rest comes from member dues of local broadcast stations
| that get their own funding. NPR doesn't control where the
| member stations get their funding from, and the US Gov't
| doesn't have editorial control over NPR.
|
| Heck, Twitter itself used to make the distinction between
| state-funded without editorial control and state-affiliated
| (where the state has editorial control) on their own Help
| Center [1].
|
| They removed the distinction on 2023-04-07 [2], two days
| after it slapped the state-affiliated label on NPR. That
| distinction had been in place for over two years
|
| [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help
| .twitt...
|
| [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230407155944/https://hel
| p.twit...
| guywithahat wrote:
| To be fair they are, independent investigations have found around
| 20-40% of NPR's money comes from the US government in one form or
| another. I agree it's a bit ambiguous where the cutoff should lie
| though
| DrThunder wrote:
| Terms sound acceptable to me. They're constantly decrying how
| it's full of hate speech due to Elon anyway. Time to take a
| stance against "hate-speech" right?
|
| Just fyi, simultaneously saying your funds from the government
| are minuscule while also saying you shouldn't have them cut is
| just a whole lot of cognitive dissonance. Also, that in fact
| means you're state-affiliated and funded.
| DeepYogurt wrote:
| We should all be quitting twitter tbh
| jacquesm wrote:
| Did that the day the sale became final. There is no way I'm
| going to be associated with anything that Elon Musk does or
| holds sway over.
| BooneJS wrote:
| Can we go back to RSS with great apps to get our news?
| eestrada wrote:
| This is how I get my news. Not every news source has an Atom or
| RSS feed, but plenty of aggregating sites (like HN I might
| note) do have feeds. Nothing is stopping anyone from doing this
| now. But apparently, this is not how the masses want to consume
| media, including news media.
| hbarka wrote:
| By his logic, Tesla should be labeled as "Government-funded Car
| Company".
| coldtea wrote:
| Not sure NPR's track record of this, but other news outlets
| labelling anything they didn't approve as misinformation, and
| calling out any affiliations for outlets they don't approve with
| abandon, now go: "It's not OK when others do it to us".
|
| > _The decision by Twitter last week took the public radio
| network off guard. When queried by NPR tech reporter Bobby Allyn,
| Twitter owner Elon Musk asked how NPR functioned. Musk allowed
| that he might have gotten it wrong._
|
| Notice the BS reporting wording, because of course Musk did it,
| it couldn't be that Twitter employees did the labelling for
| thousands of outlets, including NPR.
|
| They even managed to write about how Musk "allowed that he might
| have gotten it wrong" in a negative light.
| balozi wrote:
| Distilled down to its most basic argument -the question becomes:
| can an institution that receives funding from a sponsor also
| claim that its output is independent of that sponsor's interests?
|
| My perception is that NPR serves specific class interests, not
| State interests per se. Unfortunately for them, the State also
| serves the same narrow class interests. Rage-quitting will not
| address the underlying tension.
| user3939382 wrote:
| I'd say no. All of these corporate media outlets have the same
| conflict of interest (Fox, MSNBC, etc) and the result is
| unsurprising.
| eunos wrote:
| Unlike Twitter that is still selective on labeling. YouTube
| pretty much label every public media, that includes DW, BBC, and
| also NPR. Why do the stake seems much higher on Twitter? I'm
| thinking that's because journos, blobs and think tankers
| personally hang out on Twitter unlike YouTube.
| sschueller wrote:
| Does this marking only apply to US media or media active in the
| US?
|
| Swiss public broadcasting such as @SRF is publicly funden but
| lack suck label. However you would have a very hard time finding
| someone in Switzerland that does not know this as there is
| constant debating about the fee which almost everyone has to pay
| separately from taxes.
|
| German public television is also not marked.
| badwolf wrote:
| I think Twitters' main criteria currently is "Has <@anyone>
| been saying mean things that Elon Musk doesn't like lately?"
| smotched wrote:
| They will look cool to a certain group of people momentary but it
| will hurt them in the long run.
|
| The average user won't even notice their tweets are missing from
| their feed.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| this is true for any account, especially since algorithmic
| sorting was introduced and then amplified with the introduction
| of 'For You'.
| 8organicbits wrote:
| Each of these announcements shifts the window of discourse[1].
| Not too long ago, the idea that a major news organization would
| leave Twitter was almost unthinkable. Now its just one of many
| departures and even more are on the fence.
|
| It's also a great opportunity for networks like Mastodon to
| pick up steam and mindshare.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
| Nicksil wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
| Avshalom wrote:
| Maybe, but like it didn't hurt Fox https://www.thewrap.com/fox-
| news-breaks-16-month-twitter-sil...
| JohnFen wrote:
| Since only about 25% of the US population pays any attention to
| Twitter, I think that you're correct -- the average person
| won't notice NPR's tweets are missing.
| hitpointdrew wrote:
| How on earth can anyone say "falsely labeled"? NPR does get money
| from the federal government, that is an undisputable fact. How
| are they not "state-affilated"? I don't care how small a % of the
| budget is money from the government. The fact they take any money
| at all from the gov makes them sate-affilated.
| [deleted]
| chatmasta wrote:
| In their rebuttal [0] to this, they cited a statement from the
| White House Press Secretary:
|
| > When asked about Twitter's decision during the White House's
| daily briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to
| address Twitter's content rules specifically. But she also
| defended NPR's journalism.
|
| > "There is no doubt of the independence of NPR journalists,"
| Jean-Pierre said. "If you've ever been on the receiving end of
| their questions, you know this."
|
| [0] https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/1168158549/twitter-npr-
| state-...
| starbase wrote:
| How ironic that NPR uses the state's talking points to argue
| they're not affiliated with the state.
| troyvit wrote:
| If you read more [1] you'll see that NPR used several
| sources' talking points in its story.
|
| So in this context who better? Also it's not like they
| received a real response from Twitter when they asked:
|
| "In response to an NPR email for this story seeking comment
| and requesting details about what in particular might have
| led to the new designation, the company's press account
| auto-replied with a poop emoji -- a message it has been
| sending to journalists for weeks."
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/1168158549/twitter-npr-
| state-...
| starkparker wrote:
| "yet you participate in society. curious!"
| mochomocha wrote:
| Since it's tax season... Did you ever benefit from a tax credit
| on your return? Should we consider you state-affiliated?
|
| Less than 1% of their funding is from the government.
|
| Tesla received billions in government subsidies... Is it state-
| affiliated?
| cortesoft wrote:
| So if you were, say, a restaurant where your local park rangers
| held their annual employee appreciation dinner, you are now
| state affiliated?
| fknorangesite wrote:
| > The fact they take any money at all from the gov makes them
| sate-affilated.
|
| All this demonstrates is that you don't know what "state
| affiliated" actually means.
| jonstewart wrote:
| One could say that Voice Of America is state-affiliated. One
| cannot say the same of NPR.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| By this logic, Tesla is also "state-affiliated". A huge amount
| of companies in this country receive government subsidies, are
| they all "state-affiliated" media? The NPR journalists act
| independently from any government oversight, they are not part
| of the government's media apparatus
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| Tesla's not exactly a media company, but in general, always
| "follow the money"
| clipsy wrote:
| Great, so you agree that Tesla and SpaceX must also be labeled
| as state-affiliated, right? And of course every single company
| that took PPP money, and...
| throwaway8582 wrote:
| And what purpose would that serve? Tesla is not a media
| company. It doesn't publish news and it doesn't claim to be
| objective. Nobody is interested in how their sources of
| funding might bias their coverage of events because that's
| completely irrelevant to a car company
| drooby wrote:
| Twitter's policy seems to specifically mention "media"
| accounts. Not just any business.
| acjohnson55 wrote:
| And it's the prerogative of any media company to take issue
| with that and stop using Twitter.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > The fact they take any money at all from the gov makes them
| sate-affilated.
|
| In that case, very nearly every business (including mom and pop
| shops) is "state affiliated" and one has to ask why NPR is
| being singled out for this.
| [deleted]
| hitpointdrew wrote:
| > In that case, very nearly every business (including mom and
| pop shops)
|
| How so? In what capacity are "most businesses" getting
| federal money? Tax credits/breaks don't count, that is the
| companies money that they don't have to pay, not the federal
| government directly funding the business.
| [deleted]
| asveikau wrote:
| The contrast is between NPR, PBS, BBC, etc., and, say, Russia
| Today.
|
| The difference between these is obvious.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I think folks who don't follow the media industry would be
| surprised how much federal money makes its way around. The U.S.
| military alone has an annual marketing budget over $400
| million, most of which goes to media companies.
|
| There is also the 2nd order effect of major government
| contractors who spend heavily on brand advertising, which is in
| turned funded by revenue from government contracts. NPR
| actually gets most of its "government funding" this way, as
| private membership dues from local radio stations (who
| themselves receive some federal grants).
|
| Personally what matters to me is editorial independence from
| the government, not where single digits of revenue come from.
| And NPR is undeniably as editorially self-directed as any other
| media company.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| By that logic, SpaceX gets most of its money from the federal
| government, therefore it is "state-affiliated."
|
| SpaceX actually gets significantly more money, in absolute and
| relative terms, of its budget from the federal government than
| NPR.
| NickM wrote:
| Twitter's own definition of "state-affiliated media" reads as
| follows:
|
| _State-affiliated media is defined as outlets where the state
| exercises control over editorial content through financial
| resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and /or
| control over production and distribution._
|
| By this definition, NPR is not state-affiliated.
| infamouscow wrote:
| If NPR was as upstanding as some think, and if this money
| isn't meaningful as claimed, then why is it so hard for NPR
| to give the money back and distance themselves in a way that
| leaves no room for question about being propaganda?
| hitpointdrew wrote:
| You expect me to believe that gov funding NPR receives is "no
| strings attached". LOL yeah right.
| nixnax wrote:
| [dead]
| dirtyid wrote:
| COMPETES act stuffed 500M for state sponsored anti-PRC
| propaganda. By that definition all US media should be default
| suspect of being state affliated. Or charitably state
| influenced / infiltrated.
| timid_tiger wrote:
| The name twitter was looking for is 'public broadcasting'
| which is crucially different to 'state media'
| greenie_beans wrote:
| with that logic, wouldn't corporations who take subsidies and
| tax credits be considered "state-affiliated"?
|
| just slap that label on every single food product.
| smolder wrote:
| Okay, so when big media corps get cut deals by government, are
| they now state-affiliated? Is Disney state-affiliated, with no
| editorial independence, because Florida had granted them their
| own little kingdom? Your post might as well say: "I don't care
| what the facts are, my minds made up that NPR is a mouthpiece
| for the state." It's just not at all true. Stations pay for NPR
| content, and stations are member driven, despite subsidy. The
| federal government has no more say in NPRs content than anyone
| else's.
| hitpointdrew wrote:
| > Is Disney state-affiliated
|
| Yes, clearly.
| smolder wrote:
| If every source was judged by that standard, and the
| accounts of media conglomerates such as Disney were also
| flagged as state affiliated, I could get on board with
| that, maybe. But it risks being a useless qualification at
| that point.
| newfonewhodis wrote:
| > The fact they take any money at all from the gov makes them
| sate-affilated.
|
| Let's leave out the Elno companies that take gov money hand
| over fist, why is this label not applied to every company that
| gets tax benefits, took out govt loans?
| jaredwiener wrote:
| Shameless plug here, but we're building a news feed for news at
| https://www.forth.news.
|
| It's not a social network. It's a way to follow reporters/news
| organizations/topics, and see what they post. No misinfo, no
| spam, no hate speech. Just news.
| kylecordes wrote:
| Imagine an upgraded version of Musk - making some of these
| changes in a less contentious way.
|
| I find the idea of labeling media outlets quite helpful. The
| initial state-affiliated label for NPR seemed like an unnecessary
| tarnishment. The updated "government-funded" label is better, but
| still not quite there. The idea elsewhere in this thread of
| labeling the approximate percentage of government funding is
| excellent and should not be offensive to anyone involved.
| blowski wrote:
| Musk does have the tendency to make "motherhood and apple pie"
| sound like nuclear war. It seems more about attention seeking
| than running a business.
| hermannj314 wrote:
| They were labeled as "state-affiliated media" and after a
| retraction, Twitter referred to them as "government-funded"
|
| On March 20th, NPR listed this retraction on their website "An
| earlier version of this story mistakenly said Musk bought Twitter
| for $44 million. In fact, he paid $44 billion." [1]
|
| Twitter can't make mistakes, but NPR makes dozens of them daily.
| Should we rage quit NPR everytime they issue a retraction to
| preserve our own independence and integrity?
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/corrections/
| ajford wrote:
| It sure doesn't seem like a mistake. Twitter itself used to
| make the distinction between state-funded (without editorial
| control) and state-affiliated (where the state has editorial
| control) on their own Help Center [1].
|
| They removed the distinction on 2023-04-07 [2], two days after
| they slapped the state-affiliated label on NPR. That timeline
| sure doesn't sound like Musk made a mistake and sought to
| correct it, but more like he swung his whiny authority around
| and then people had to scramble to retract/alter policies to
| fit with Musk's world view.
|
| If it was a mistake, Twitter would have owned up to it instead
| of altering their policies to match the mistake.
|
| [1]:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitt...
|
| [2]:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230407155944/https://help.twit...
| anoonmoose wrote:
| It wasn't a mistake, it was intentional. Musk verified this,
| and even if we disregard his ramblings, they intentionally
| removed NPR as an example of who wouldn't be marked as state-
| affiliated from their description of how the label is applied,
| which gives the game away.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitt...
| gkoberger wrote:
| Musk (and Trump) are really, really good at vocally saying things
| everyone agrees with to cover the fact they're doing the exact
| opposite. They're populist champions to such a degree that their
| supporters (and even the media / independents) can't fathom they
| don't actually care at all.
|
| Free speech, no wars, anti-corruption in DC, etc. These are all
| things most people agree with. If some of the stuff Trump/Elon
| did secretly leaked, people would be going crazy. But they've
| mastered the art of publicly being hypocrites, to the degree that
| the average person just genuinely can't wrap their heads around.
|
| Like, how can Elon publish "The Twitter Files" and then literally
| just do way worst stuff with way less accountability, and have
| people still believe he's a champion for free speech?
| mb9000 wrote:
| Maybe the average person just likes one brand of hypocrite over
| the other brand.
|
| And what sort of secret stuff has Trump or Elon done that
| hasn't been covered 100x by the media?
| gkoberger wrote:
| Like I said, they don't do secret stuff. People associate
| shame with having done something bad, and their in-the-open
| shamelessness is what breaks people's mental models of how to
| evaluate them.
|
| There's a difference. I have a hard time thinking of anyone
| (other than Bernie) on the left who has followers in the same
| way as Trump or Elon. It's a very new (yet not new at all)
| type of cult of personality.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's an intelligence test of sorts. Unfortunately lots of
| people fail that test.
| shagymoe wrote:
| >If some of the stuff Trump/Elon did secretly leaked, people
| could be going crazy
|
| Not their supporters, they very, very clearly don't care.
| jtode wrote:
| He... he really thought that he was buying _reality_ , I guess?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| I've seen government-funded ads on Twitter. Wouldn't it be ironic
| if Twitter's revenue share from government sources is larger than
| NPR's 1-2%?
| Arborealist wrote:
| [dead]
| jpmattia wrote:
| It's also interesting that we don't see the state affiliated
| label on SpaceX yet.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Or Tesla, for which government carbon credits makes up
| roughly the same percentage of revenue that NPR gets from
| government funding.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Those don't technically come from the government, they come
| from other car manufacturers. Those car manufacturers could
| choose to make lower emission vehicles, but instead have
| chosen to pay Tesla to have Tesla's vehicles count towards
| their fleet average.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| And NPR's funding doesn't technically come from the
| government, it comes from member stations licensing their
| content.
| drstewart wrote:
| It's also interesting that you think SpaceX is a media
| company
| gamblor956 wrote:
| SpaceX streams their launches. Using Musk's definitions,
| they are therefore a media company and must be labeled as
| "state affiliated media"
| dylan604 wrote:
| "whats good for me, is not good for thee" or some version
| should be tattooed on Musk's forehead.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| ? At the same time they removed the state-affiliated media, from
| a ton of global times and CCT affiliated content creators. Guess
| musk really needs that tesla market in china..
| nailer wrote:
| Do you have references? I'm surprised I haven't heard this
| previously.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _they removed the state-affiliated media, from a ton of
| global times and CCT affiliated content creators_
|
| Source? Global Times' Twitter accounts appears properly
| labelled [1].
|
| [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/globaltimesnews
| euix wrote:
| Is NPR state funded? (real question - I actually don't know).
| What is the definition of state funded? Here in Canada all the
| media take government subsidies especially the big ones - a lot
| of that I think is the economics, they simply don't generate
| enough revenue on their own to sustain themselves so in the
| process of being subsidized by the federal govt they take on the
| viewpoint that can be considered statist. You just can't bite the
| hand that feeds you. The step that comes before independence of
| thoughts has to be independence of economics.
| anoonmoose wrote:
| Here's Twitter's old definition of who is and isn't "state-
| affiliated". They have since changed it. Note that NPR was
| literally used as an example of someone who receives state
| funds but is not "state-affiliated".
|
| "State-financed media organizations with editorial
| independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for
| example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the
| purposes of this policy."
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitt...
| kelipso wrote:
| 34% of their budget comes from CPB, which is federal funding
| for local radio stations, and which NPR gets the money through
| local stations. They downplay this funding source and only
| mention the 1-4% that they get directly from
| local/state/federal government sources but clearly NPR would be
| dead without federal funding.
|
| [1] https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/does-npr-receive-
| less-1-its...
| samschooler wrote:
| This is still wrong though. From your source:
|
| > NPR relies on the local stations' payments for 34% of its
| budget.
|
| Local stations are not 100% government funded.
|
| > CPB estimates its support provided 8.2% of the average
| station's budget in 2017, but it's more important to
| affiliates in smaller, rural markets.
|
| If I do the math. An average station's budget is 8.2% from
| CPB, and 34% of the funding for NPR comes from local
| stations, taking that 8.2% of government money, and saying
| 8.2% of the 34% funding from local station it is 2.7% of
| NPR's budget from local stations. And 0.6% directly, so from
| _your source_ NPR is funded by 3.1% from CPB.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > 34% of their budget comes from CPB
|
| No. 34% goes to affiliate stations. A portion of that 34%
| goes to NPR indirectly through the fees they charge the
| affiliates to carry the programming.
|
| The affiliates are not NPR.
| veec_cas_tant wrote:
| You are quoting that source incorrectly:
|
| >In its 2019 fiscal year, direct federal grants provided 0.6%
| of funding for National Public Radio... NPR does derive
| support indirectly, through payments from member stations
| that also get direct federal funding.
|
| > NPR relies on the local stations' payments for 34% of its
| budget. CPB estimates its support provided 8.2% of the
| average station's budget in 2017, but it's more important to
| affiliates in smaller, rural markets
| trasz3 wrote:
| It's not just that it's state-funded - NPR's CEO got there
| after years of heading the relevant US government propaganda
| agency, as evidenced in https://www.usagm.gov/who-we-
| are/management-team/john-lansin....
| pionar wrote:
| So is your argument that NPR is a mouthpiece for the US
| government? I think that requires some evidence, rather than
| flinging about flimsy associations like this.
| trasz3 wrote:
| No, my argument is that an institution managed by past
| government officials cannot be unironically called
| independent from said government.
| LastTrain wrote:
| So every institution employing former government
| officials are state affiliated? Or does this just apply
| to ones you don't like?
| anoonmoose wrote:
| either would be silly tbh
| trasz3 wrote:
| s/employing/led by/. Yeah, pretty much.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| [dead]
| stefantalpalaru wrote:
| > Is NPR state funded?
|
| Yes, in part.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR?useskin=vector#Funding :
|
| "According to CPB, in 2009 11.3% of the aggregate revenues of
| all public radio broadcasting stations were funded from federal
| sources, principally through CPB; in 2012 10.9% of the revenues
| for Public Radio came from federal sources."
|
| "about 50% of NPR revenues come from the fees it charges member
| stations"
|
| "In 2009, member stations derived 6% of their revenue from
| federal, state and local government funding, 10% of their
| revenue from CPB grants, and 14% of their revenue from
| universities."
| obeyandunthink wrote:
| "Silicon Valley is full of libertarians"
|
| HN has become so contrarian that it's now the establishment well
| rooted in postmodernism and authoritarian tendencies to ensure
| society agrees with them.
| kaeresten_dit wrote:
| Seems like a funny reaction to a label added as a subtitle to an
| organization with the name National Public Radio
|
| People get attached to words or phrases without thinking about
| what they actually mean, seems like definitions get modified to
| emotionally herd the [un]imaginative/initiated
|
| Wild that style of thinking goes that high up the chain at NPR
| the CEO sounds child-like with their response
| petrusnonius wrote:
| The BBC just had their label corrected..
| libraryatnight wrote:
| The label carries a lot of weight that drags down NPRs
| integrity. Musk knows that, NPR knows that - NPR is doing the
| right thing rejecting the label.
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| If it's such s small infraction then it should be easy for Musk
| to say they were wrong and correct it, right?
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Because words and definitions matter, and you're doing a lot of
| projection here
| harrelchris wrote:
| Twitter defines state-affiliated media as:
|
| > outlets where the state exercises control over editorial
| content through financial resources, direct or indirect
| political pressures, and/or control over production and
| distribution. [1]
|
| This isn't an accurate description of NPR. The government has
| no control over the content.
|
| > NPR receives less than 1% of its direct funding from the
| federal government [2]
|
| Even Twitter recognized this and walked back the labeling. [3]
|
| [1]: https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-
| affilia... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR [3]:
| https://nypost.com/2023/04/10/twitter-rebrands-nprs-account-...
| bropleaseread wrote:
| [flagged]
| rozal wrote:
| I can't stand NPR. It's always one sided and always the
| typical US propaganda. CSPAN is where it's at for raw
| politics.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| That's an odd reaction.
|
| Twitter is in a precarious state with both advertisers and
| media folks like reporters. Advertisers are concerned that Elon
| Musk has a tendency to hurt brands by taking unpredictable,
| rash action. Reporters are concerned that Twitter is becoming
| increasingly political.
|
| In a fit of conservative pique, Elon Musk took an umprompted
| pot shot at NPR by labeling it as "state-sponsored media,"
| which fed heavily into both stories in a completely predictable
| way. Then he changed his screen name to "Harry Ballz."
|
| And you accused the OTHER guy as "child-like."
| jckahn wrote:
| Good. A publicly-funded entity like NPR should be hosting its own
| Mastodon server anyways.
| DrThunder wrote:
| There's a reason they don't. Much harder to trick people into
| donating to you if the algorithm on a large private social
| media site isn't around to prop you up.
| StuPendisdick wrote:
| Well, Bye.
| trasz3 wrote:
| Yeah, it's not like their CEO came directly from the relevant
| government bureau, right?
|
| I'm not a fan of Elon (or most companies, for that matter), but
| this was the right thing to do. Previously the "government-
| sponsored" badge was nothing more than US propaganda.
| mindslight wrote:
| The mismatch is that it's disingenuous to apply the label in
| the US, while not applying it to NBC, ABC, Fox, NYT, WaPo,
| Sinclair, etc. The US has a microkernel government where most
| actual power resides with corporations, with the same investors
| and executives owning the major news sources and shaping their
| coverage. Ironically, "government funded" NPR and PBS are in
| many ways actually more independent of the governing power
| structure. There's a similar blindspot where US culture readily
| condemns foreign governments with singular dominant parties,
| while letting our own two party oligopoly (in alignment on most
| policies) go essentially uncritiqued.
|
| (full disclosure: I'm unable to listen to NPR without falling
| asleep. That's not meant to be some sort of knock, rather it's
| just what happens)
| [deleted]
| from wrote:
| He curiously missed Al Jazeera, RFE/RL, and the dozens of media
| organizations that the NED subsidizes. I don't think there's a
| conspiracy or anything, I just think he has a grudge against a
| handful of media companies.
| Laaas wrote:
| They likely just haven't gotten around to all of them yet.
| matthewmcg wrote:
| There's a bit of a "Pluto problem" [1] though with labeling NPR
| and not explicitly government supported media organizations
| like Voice of America. This suggests to me that the decision
| was based on some personal beef the owner has with NPR and not
| any kind of objective basis.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33462184
| (warning: BBC is explicitly supported by the British
| Government)
| justin66 wrote:
| Twitter have got the govenrment-funded label on VoA now. But
| not the BBC, curiously.
|
| > some personal beef the owner has with NPR
|
| NPR is a bogeyman of the American right-wing media, which
| Musk seems to be consuming an awful lot of in recent years.
| throwaway8582 wrote:
| > But not the BBC, curiously
|
| You should check these things before posting. It says
| "Government-funded Media" right at the top of the page
| here: https://twitter.com/BBC
| justin66 wrote:
| I shit you not: it did not an hour ago.
| Spivak wrote:
| https://archive.ph/VJhTR recorded on 12 Apr 2023 07:43:40
| UTC.
| [deleted]
| stickfigure wrote:
| ...and another hour later it says "Publicly funded
| media".
|
| Someone is winging it.
| drak0n1c wrote:
| It was there yesterday from what I recall. However, there
| are like 10 variant official accounts of BBC. Only one
| had the label at first. Similar to how NPR has multiple
| accounts but only the "main" one had the label. Twitter
| should be more consistent in labeling all accounts under
| a company if this is the new policy.
| jjulius wrote:
| >It says "Government-funded Media"...
|
| It currently says "Publicly funded media", not
| "Government-funded Media", and that muddies the waters a
| bit - publicly-funded doesn't necessarily mean
| government-funded.
|
| Not sure if it said "Gov-funded" an hour ago when you
| commented or not, as the other person who replied to you
| suggests that changes to these statements appear to be
| pretty fluid at the moment.
| mcguire wrote:
| That is Musk's renaming of the "state affiliated" label
| originally applied to NPR, PBS, and the BBC.
| justin66 wrote:
| "Publicly funded media" seems like a decent way of
| characterizing NPR. At some point one might question what
| Twitter and its users are getting out of all this
| labeling and relabeling, though. How many users are going
| to have an _I had no idea NPR was publicly funded media
| but now I know_ epiphany when encountering that label?
|
| > Not sure if it said "Gov-funded" an hour ago when you
| commented or not
|
| I am pretty sure all the observations made on labels in
| this thread were accurate at the moment they were made.
| empressplay wrote:
| The BBBC is funded by TV license fees so their funding is
| more arms length, also they make money through BBC
| Worldwide and collaborations with external media companies
| like HBO. As such they commonly shit on the government of
| the day, no matter who it is
| justin66 wrote:
| I don't know how you'd apply measurement using the length
| of arms and conclude that BBC receives less money than
| NPR from the government. In any case, editorial influence
| is a lot more important, and that's where the BBC is
| falling down lately.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/15/the
| -gu...
| trasz3 wrote:
| Oh, definitely; it could be based on literally anything, or
| just effectively random. But it doesn't change my view of
| whether the outcome is positive or not.
| eqvinox wrote:
| I wouldn't exactly call the USAGM the "relevant government
| bureau". Their purpose is to push US-biased news and media
| _outside of the US_. I see your point, and it 's a bit iffy,
| but I'd rather judge on actions than reputation.
| oefrha wrote:
| Interestingly, VOA, RFA etc. are not labeled state-affiliated
| media.
|
| Edit: Actually VOA does have it now; I swear I checked just two
| days ago... Their various foreign language accounts still
| aren't labeled though.
| dirtyid wrote:
| VOA is also labelled as "government funded", which implies
| less editorial control but personally sounds worse than
| affliated. The labelling is all over place.
| barbazoo wrote:
| As others have noted already, their actions don't match their
| own rules so this is, again, just Musk being an angry manbaby.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| It's always a bit strange when someone says they're not a fan
| of Elon and then proceed to give him an absurd level of benefit
| of the doubt by just eliding all the obvious facts that what
| he's doing is ridiculous and bad.
|
| Government-sponsored was _not_ a US propaganda badge, it was a
| response to a serious concern about adversarial governments
| influencing US debate through 3rd party cut outs. It 's a
| difficult problem to solve but the previous employees made a
| good faith effort to come up with a definition and then enforce
| it. Musk, however, didn't do that. He took an official label
| with a definition that Twitter publicly discloses and applied
| it to a news organization he personally doesn't like despite it
| being completely inaccurate.
|
| If what you're arguing, is that the label was bad, and badly or
| unevenly enforced what Musk has done is made it worse - not
| better. There's now no consistent definition, all the old
| organisations that were tagged are still tagged, and he's
| driven a bus through twitter's credibility.
|
| _Even if_ you accept that there was a genuine problem with the
| way the previous system was designed, there 's simply no way to
| argue that Musk has improved it. And to be clear - the previous
| system was exactly what Musk claimed he wanted for twitter - a
| clear open definition you could point to, and labelling
| accounts rather than banning them in order to maximize free
| speech, if this system weren't in place before it is almost
| certain Musk would've loved it if a right wing bigot twitter
| user suggested it.
|
| What you actually seem to be arguing is "Something should have
| been done, this was a thing, therefore this was the right thing
| to do".
| JohnFen wrote:
| Except, of course, that NPR is not government-sponsored to any
| meaningful degree.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| they should add a "government-sponsored" badge to the spacex
| twitter account. and maybe even starlink and telsa (assuming
| they have government subsidies or their consumers are using tax
| credits to buy EV or rural internet)
| kylecordes wrote:
| Would be slick if all the space-company accounts had a couple
| lines of detail identifying what % of their total sales comes
| from government, military, commercial customers, etc.
|
| Of course this would require people wanting to move away from
| "how can I tarnish this account with a label?" and toward
| "how can I improve transparency without aiming to insult?"
| afinlayson wrote:
| SpaceX and Telsa are government funded ... More so than NPR. I
| don't see that tag anywhere on Twitter. And I wouldn't be
| surprised if twitter is combing the tax code to find government
| subsidies. It's the slippery slope fallacy. Maybe we should
| start calling jaywalkers un-convicted criminals. It'd be a good
| way to differentiate rural and urban people for political gain.
| This is just another way to keep people heading to twitter for
| some extra clicks.
| somedude895 wrote:
| Every large corporation benefits or has in the past benefited
| from the government. What difference does it make? Business
| profiles do marketing and advertising. They're not expected
| to report neutrally and fairly about current goings-on in
| society and politics. This is a ridiculous argument that has
| absolutely nothing to do with anything.
| adamrezich wrote:
| it is very frustrating to see this openly disingenuous
| argument made repeatedly here in these comments.
|
| media corporations are different from other corporations in
| that their product is _information_ , as opposed to other
| types of services or physical goods. information is something
| that can be _biased_ , politically or otherwise. this does
| not apply to automobiles, spacecraft, or any other non-
| information-related product. the release of an electric
| automobile cannot influence anyone's view, opinion, or
| _emotions_ , with regards to anything except the existence of
| said electric automobile.
| DrThunder wrote:
| [flagged]
| QuizzicalCarbon wrote:
| Although, NPR was created by an act of Congress, along with
| the CPB.
| cguess wrote:
| and the AP was created by the Supreme Court, the AP is not
| a government entity.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Good. It's clear now that Twitter is just an information control
| mechanism for Musk, and journalists should quit their addiction
| to it. I think every major news outlet should have their own
| ActivityPub compatible service, essentially as a modern
| replacement for RSS.
| eastbound wrote:
| Strange that labelling medias with their true funding
| diminishes their credibility so much that they'd flee to any
| place where this information is not disclosed.
| travisd wrote:
| I suspect this is a bad-faith argument, but just to be clear,
| NPR get's a tiny fraction of its funding from the government
| *and* maintains editorial independence.
|
| > The news organization says that is inaccurate and
| misleading, given that NPR is a private, nonprofit company
| with editorial independence. It receives less than 1 percent
| of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded
| Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
| kskdodo wrote:
| [flagged]
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Being free of direct government funding does not make it
| free from editorial independence. You can listen and get an
| idea of their underwriting. They're clear to walk the line
| around a lot of topics to not upset their corporate and non
| profit overlords. We live in a corporatocracy and these
| companies and non profits are revolving doors for
| regulatory capture through lobbying and other methods.
| connicpu wrote:
| A significant percentage of NPR member station funding is
| from individual donations, NPR is obviously also very
| conscious about producing the type of content its
| audience expects. No media outlet on planet earth is free
| from the influence of its audience.
| iamerroragent wrote:
| If you really want to delve into how, where, and whom
| makes the news I suggest start by looking at the
| Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, and Reuters:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_agency
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Press
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agence_France-Presse
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuters
| BeetleB wrote:
| > They're clear to walk the line around a lot of topics
| to not upset their corporate and non profit overlords.
|
| That's true for virtually all news organization - public
| or private. NPR is not an outlier in this regard.
| das-hinterland wrote:
| [flagged]
| obeyandunthink wrote:
| [flagged]
| thrashh wrote:
| The problem isn't that Twitter is labeling media with true
| funding. If it was, you'd be seeing under MSNBC or CNN or Fox
| News who their main sponsors are (which are probably bigger
| than NPR's government contribution).
|
| So by cherry picking only some funding sources to label with,
| that means that you are trying to present a narrative.
|
| (or if Twitter is not trying to present a narrative, instead
| it means that they're just being naive)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| xdavidliu wrote:
| what percentage of NPR's true funding was from the
| government?
| iamerroragent wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding
|
| I'm seeing about ~10% from the Corporation for Public
| Broadcasting (CPB) which if I'm reading correctly is itself
| primarily funded by Federal grants.
| khochesh_kushat wrote:
| As long as Twitter lists itself as a Qatari/Saudi backed
| social media company I suppose fair is fair and at least they
| are being consistent in how they apply the rules. I wonder if
| they will do so.
| guelo wrote:
| The label was "State Affiliated" not "publicly funded".
| fundad wrote:
| Yeah I'm sure it has nothing to do with months of the CEO
| putting out right wing agitprop and promoting QAnon
| conspiracies. He openly promoted GOP candidates on his media
| site.
| corndoge wrote:
| Not that rss really needs replacing - in fact using both is a
| great experience
| riffic wrote:
| with ActivityPub you can have specific actors like
| @breaking@npr.org, @sports@npr.org, @finance@npr.org,
| @waitwaitdonttellme@npr.org, @reporter@npr.org, et cetera.
| mavhc wrote:
| what's the reason for the initial @ symbol, seems superfluous
| snickerbockers wrote:
| So it doesn't get mistaken for an email address.
| mavhc wrote:
| It's on Mastodon though, the automatic linking wouldn't
| add mailto: at the front, think it's worth the cost of a
| few people not being able to post their email address
| without a mailto:
| evilduck wrote:
| Referencing one of these username handles in external CMS
| systems (news sites, blogs, etc) might automatically
| convert them in Rich Text editors, or just Word
| processors, or even operating system toolings. Seems
| worth not re-using the same URI format.
| connicpu wrote:
| I would guess so that people don't confuse it with an email
| address
| aendruk wrote:
| It originated organically on Twitter as early users wrote
| "at" each other. Following that Twitter formally adopted
| it, and Mastodon imitated Twitter.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mention_(blogging)#@_(at_sign
| )
|
| Within Mastodon's UI usernames are typically displayed as
| just e.g. @breaking, avoiding the visual noise of multiple
| at signs.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| for some reason I'm annoyed by all the @ symbols in these new
| things
| Steltek wrote:
| I like the Matrix format, "@user:domain.tld"
| riffic wrote:
| it was annoying to me to type it too! There are also
| webfinger URLs that serve the same purpose like
| https://mastodon.social/@gargron ==
| @gargron@mastodon.social
| nkcmr wrote:
| Yah, the one thing that I like about bluesky is their name-
| spacing: "sports.npr.org"
| soulofmischief wrote:
| We are coming full circle back to Usenet.
| [deleted]
| h2odragon wrote:
| > Twitter is just an information control mechanism for Musk,
| and journalists should quit
|
| agreed. That was the case long before Musk.
|
| Would you have felt comfortable articulating that opinion, two
| years ago? When anything _but_ Twitter was "an extremist echo
| chamber"? When the only censorship they were indulging in was
| the censorship we _still_ can 't talk about?
| scythe wrote:
| >Would you have felt comfortable articulating that opinion,
| two years ago?
|
| I posted rather often about how awful Twitter was long before
| there was a whiff of Musk buying it. (It's still awful.) I
| didn't really talk about "information control", but I don't
| care about that now, either; Twitter's audience was never
| _that_ big.
| ModernMech wrote:
| Twitter was _also_ an extremist echo chamber. It 's how the
| January 6th insurrection happened, a violent attack on the US
| Capitol that was organized, launched, and coordinated in
| real-time on Twitter. You can't do that if voices of sanity
| are seeping in. It's just that Twitter as many echo chambers,
| some bigger and more dangerous than others.
| preseinger wrote:
| bro if twitter was "censoring" you in 2021 then you need to
| take a big step back and re-evaluate your situation
| smoldesu wrote:
| They're right, though. Somewhere between the "Matt Tabbi
| truther" and "Dorsey supremacist" mindset, we can all
| acknowledge that Twitter is not an unbiased news source.
| It's a bunch of people competing for attention in a
| sinkhole that rewards the worst contributors most
| consistently. Even as a liberal progressive, the caliber of
| extremist 140 character takes Twitter has promoted drives
| me crazy. It precludes meaningful discussion and forces
| interactions into the outskirts, which (as the parent is
| joking about) ironically happens _less_ on federated
| platforms.
| alltwittersux wrote:
| [dead]
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Opens up a mastodon account: 5k followers after a few months
| thefilmore wrote:
| It's labeled "Government-funded Media".
| jacquesm wrote:
| Ninja editing this stuff is par for the course at Twitter, as
| are impromptu decisions, reversals of those decisions and
| reversals of the reversals. If you want to keep track of stuff
| you need to screenshot and timestamp it.
| badwolf wrote:
| This will surely bring advertisers rushing through the doors!
| ceejayoz wrote:
| As with many recent Musk impulsive changes, it's being rapidly
| revised, and looks to be changing again soon.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65248196
|
| > And he confirmed Twitter will change its newly added label
| for the BBC's account from "government funded media" to say it
| is "publicly funded" instead.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/1168158549/twitter-npr-state-...
| has a screenshot of the "state-affiliated" tag that was
| recently present.
| zajio1am wrote:
| According to https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-
| policies/state-affilia... 'state-affiliated media' and
| 'government-funded media' are two distinct labels on Twitter.
| ck2 wrote:
| Someone is missing a massive opportunity that won't present
| itself again.
|
| As every big entity and celebrity quits twitter, have an exact
| clone ready, it almost doesn't matter what the name is.
|
| They don't need to be exclusive on it, just have all those
| entities cross-post and slowly over the next few years it will
| build to critical mass.
| kgwxd wrote:
| Any accounts suspected of cross-posting would be banned.
| devjab wrote:
| I'm Danish and I may have a different take on this than many
| Americans, but I'm frankly a little appalled that our democratic
| institutions are still renting their digital homes on the turf of
| tech giants. The EU set a good example when Elon musk bought
| Twitter and the EU created their first Mastodon servers, both for
| it's organizations and it's elected officials, and everyone
| should frankly follow suit. We shouldn't accept that a
| billionaire gets to dictate the online content of our democratic
| institutions, and, especially not when there are easily available
| alternatives where you can take back the governance. At least
| that is my opinion on the matter and I hope Elon manages to make
| this happen by getting people to quit Twitter.
|
| I'm not sure how it is around the world, because I mostly follow
| our local news on these topics, but it's been sort of silly to
| watch the Danish debate about TikTok. We've banned public
| officials from having it on their phones, but we've not banned
| Twitter, Facebook or any of the other Social Medias that do the
| exact same things TikTok does. Yes, we're allied with the US, but
| it's still sort of silly isn't it?. If the NPR is a state
| affiliated media because it gets public funding, then our primary
| media institution Danmarks Radio should frankly get the same
| label since it gets all of it's funding from the public. But why
| on earth wouldn't our primary media institution not run their own
| Mastodon server, so they can govern and moderate their own public
| image instead of being on Twitter? Sure they might lose
| followers, but we don't pay them public money to be popular on an
| American Social Media, do we?
|
| Heh. I personally think that what I've said here applies to
| everyone, every institution and organisation but I can see why
| it's different for American organisations to be on an American
| Social Network, but really, isn't it time we took ownership of
| our online lives back?
| tr1ggerwarn wrote:
| [flagged]
| devjab wrote:
| I think you misunderstand. You can't join the EU servers
| unless you're an elected official. You can make your own
| server, or join another one, but not the ones run by the EU.
| The beauty of the decentralized platform is that neither
| Brussels bureaucrats or billionaires get to decide what you
| do. I want the government of Denmark to run a similar server
| for our elected officials. That way Danish politicians get to
| decide how Danish politicians are moderated, which isn't the
| case today.
| tr1ggerwarn wrote:
| [flagged]
| tr1ggerwarn wrote:
| [flagged]
| JasserInicide wrote:
| _I 'm Danish and I may have a different take on this than many
| Americans, but I'm frankly a little appalled that our
| democratic institutions are still renting their digital homes
| on the turf of tech giants_
|
| They do this because our federal government is absolutely
| incapable of doing it themselves. Any tech project (hell, any
| massive project in general) they undertake goes massively over-
| budget/over-schedule and is loaded with subcontractor after
| subcontractor circling overhead like vultures trying to get
| their piece of the pie. It's why no government at any level is
| capable of delivering a public works project anymore. It's why
| so many have so little faith in our governments. No one cares
| about the end results, they just want to know how they can
| benefit personally from it and then fuck off
| jensgk wrote:
| I am also Danish, and I agree.
| thordenmark wrote:
| But NPR is state-affiliated media. It was founded by the LBJ
| administration. And has always towed the government line with
| very little deviation from state-approved positions. Even the
| calls are heavily screened to not let anything remotely out of
| the box in.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| It's too bad we don't get a real experiment in trying to run a
| social network like Twitter on a skeleton crew. It would have
| been interesting to see the impact of sane moderation rules, but
| on 75% staff reduction.
| xibo9 wrote:
| Who gets to say what is sane moderation? Sane is not something
| I would ascribe to Musk.
| pphysch wrote:
| The current CEO of NPR was the former global propaganda chief for
| the US government. This is a fact.
|
| If you think that is a coincidence, and NPR is totally not de
| facto state-media, I have a bridge to sell you.
|
| Props to Twitter's new leadership for doing what is ostensibly
| right, though who knows what their motivation is.
| nafizh wrote:
| NPR is indeed a propaganda machine. But only for one party, and
| its woke ideology. It doesn't even have to receive federal
| funding to acknowledge that. Now the technical question is what
| label do you put on a media platform that's captured by an
| ideology favorable to a single party which comes to power every
| few years?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Now the technical question is what label do you put on a
| media platform that's captured by an ideology favorable to a
| single party which comes to power every few years?
|
| Without agreeing that that is actually _true_ of NPR, the most
| accurate label would be "typical private media", virtually all
| of which has an ideological viewpoint shaped by the interests
| (commercial and /or otherwise) of its principals (and, often by
| way of those commercial interests, those of its sponsors.)
| kgwxd wrote:
| > what label do you put on a media platform that's captured by
| an ideology favorable to a single party which comes to power
| every few years?
|
| a dog logo
| KingLancelot wrote:
| [dead]
| labrador wrote:
| I've long thought that a service like Twitter is a public utility
| and should be run in a democratic way with government funding.
| The tragedy of Twitter only confirms that. I hope that a
| billionaire creates a Twitter clone and grants oversight to it to
| a democratically elected government body. I don't think it should
| have ads, because that would give advertisers influence. I think
| we should all fund it so we the public and have a public square
| for discussion that is neutral. We can all debate what kind of
| speech that we allow and vote on that
| clsec wrote:
| It should be labeled as such considering it has received
| massive tax breaks and free rent from the City and County of
| San Francisco.
| labrador wrote:
| I'd support the Federal Government nationalizing Twitter. We
| live in a time of war after all, mostly cold fought on a
| cyber and informational front, but just as serious just the
| same. Musk has suppressed support of Ukraine on Twitter and
| boosted Russia supporting accounts. I think that's just
| wrong. I think it's obvious by now Musk can't be trusted.
| reso wrote:
| This seems perfectly fair to me and I don't understand the
| controversy. Maybe in the US people see "State Affiliated" as
| some kind of an insult? Public broadcasters like the BBC and Al
| Jazeera have done extraordinary work at times.
|
| That being said it would only be fair to also include a badge for
| private media corporations that says who their parent corporation
| is.
| stusmall wrote:
| >This seems perfectly fair to me and I don't understand the
| controversy. Maybe in the US people see "State Affiliated" as
| some kind of an insult?
|
| From Twitter's definition
|
| > State-affiliated media is defined as outlets where the state
| exercises control over editorial content through financial
| resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or
| control over production and distribution.
|
| Yes. That is an insult.
| shagie wrote:
| From their definition from a week ago: https://web.archive.or
| g/web/20230404115255/https://help.twit...
|
| > State-affiliated media is defined as outlets where the
| state exercises control over editorial content through
| financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures,
| and/or control over production and distribution. Accounts
| belonging to state-affiliated media entities, their editors-
| in-chief, and/or their prominent staff may be labeled.
|
| > State-financed media organizations with editorial
| independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for
| example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the
| purposes of this policy.
|
| Note that that copy is currently still live on the China
| specific version of the page:
| https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-
| affilia...
| stusmall wrote:
| I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt and
| using only the most current one. Policies get updated over
| time and that's okay. It's a good thing for organizations
| to change their mind, update and improve policies.
|
| The thing is here it's dumb no matter what version of the
| policy you look at lmao
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Typically the State Affiliated badge is only applied to
| accounts where editorial control is in the hands of the state -
| think Chinese and Russian media companies.
|
| Also interesting- after the change, NPR's badge says
| "Government-funded media" while the BBC's badge says "Publicly
| funded media," at least in the US. Al Jazeera does not have any
| such badge, other than the gold "Official Organization" badge.
| [deleted]
| corbulo wrote:
| US Politics revolves around being the underdog. If you're state
| affiliated you can't pitch yourself as the plucky underdog
| trying to change the world.
|
| Thats why NPR would rather leave twitter than live with the
| label.
| justin66 wrote:
| Twitter will probably, eventually find a more appropriate label
| for high-quality public media sources, and NPR will probably find
| their way back, since it doesn't cost them anything. On the other
| hand, the current kerfuffle just scratches the surface of their
| current labeling approach's weirdness.
|
| Propublica's twitter page is labelled "Media and News Company,"
| but that's a label they applied to themselves, not something
| Twitter applies. Okay, fair enough. Some other for-profit or
| nonprofit news organizations don't have any labels at all, so
| clearly it's not mandatory. The distinction between something
| like Propublica and something like The Washington Post is
| significant to someone who cares about news, but maybe not to
| Twitter's censors.
|
| Voice of America is still on there and is, reasonably, labelled
| "government-funded media." But BBC is not not labelled at all,
| with any label, because... Elon Musk liked their reporter? Or
| something?
| datadata wrote:
| It is a sad state of affairs that being "state-affiliated" is a
| negative thing.
| stametseater wrote:
| This was the implication of the label from the start, when
| twitter created it years ago.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Thats not necessarily true if its the weather service, post
| office or whatever. I am no Twitter fan/user, but its a decent
| format for circulating government announcements that people
| will actually see.
| troyvit wrote:
| Interestingly NOAA isn't listed as state media:
|
| https://twitter.com/NOAA
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Yeah, that is the hypocrisy.
|
| The argument is that its fair to label NPR as govt funded,
| because they technically are, but Twitter is not exactly in
| a hurry to apply this rule anywhere else.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| That depends a great deal on _which_ state it 's affiliated
| with. How much do you trust that state?
| DrThunder wrote:
| What's sad is that people just automatically assume every
| government is altruistic when history has proven that to be
| unequivocally false. There is not ONE government in history
| that hasn't committed disgusting atrocities against its people.
|
| When you realize that, it becomes clearly easy to see that you
| ought not put full trust media that is backed by government
| when every government has used media like this to push evil
| propaganda on to its citizens.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| This was pretty much the aim; occupy the territory and drive
| others out. The goal isn't for Twitter (or X) to make money, as
| such, but to have a monopoly on real-time mass communication and
| leverage that monopoly to pick which content 'wins'. All the
| complaints about Twitter and other big tech companies are
| essentially a to-do list of what will happen following their
| capture or neutralization.
| tristanb wrote:
| For a smart man, this guy is a complete idiot.
| tric wrote:
| It would be more noteworthy if their reporters left Twitter.
| shagie wrote:
| It's an active and current discussion.
|
| https://twitter.com/NPRinskeep/status/1646154796905136128
|
| > Steve Inskeep (NPR): John Lansing, NPR CEO, at the [?]
| @MorningEdition meeting.
|
| > NPR says it will de-emphasize Twitter. Aside from the
| misleading label, NPR says Twitter isn't used by most
| Americans; drives little traffic to NPR; and "no longer has the
| public service relevance that it once had."
|
| https://twitter.com/NPRinskeep/status/1646155432124137474
|
| > Steve Inskeep (NPR): NPR employees with personal accounts are
| told they may make their own decisions. I'll take it day by
| day.
|
| https://twitter.com/abbydphillip/status/1646166679032938501
|
| > Abby D. Phillip (CNN) replying to morning edition meeting: At
| the news org level, this makes sense. And even at the reporter
| level, we'd all be better served spending less time on here,
| because the conversations happening here are increasingly
| divorced from what's happening in the real world.
|
| https://twitter.com/NPRinskeep/status/1646202479988686855
|
| > Steve Inskeep (NPR) replying to Abby: This captures something
| real. While I am not stepping away at this time (I read all
| sorts of sources!), Twitter always encouraged groupthink; has
| never captured the full range of what's going on; and is a less
| valuable resource than a year ago. I've been on here less.
| dustedcodes wrote:
| I think after COVID and all the revelations since then it is
| pretty clear that funding aside, every big media outlet bends
| over to their own government when they are being asked to push a
| certain narrative to the population in order to make us belief or
| behave in certain ways.
|
| COVID made this extremely blatantly obvious but it was already
| apparent before COVID. For instance, when the US and its allies
| wanted to invade Iraq all big media corporations were peddling
| misinformation and propaganda to get people swayed in favour of
| an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation over false claims of
| weapons of mass destruction.
| carapace wrote:
| You might like "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of
| the Mass Media", a 1988 book by Edward S. Herman and Noam
| Chomsky.
|
| > It argues that the mass communication media of the U.S. "are
| effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out
| a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market
| forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and
| without overt coercion", by means of the propaganda model of
| communication.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
| colpabar wrote:
| I know it's cliche to say but I started reading this recently
| and it is _amazing_ how well it applies to the media today. I
| can 't wait for it to be designated a conspiracy theory!
| segasaturn wrote:
| This comment doesn't hold up when you consider the person in
| charge of running the US government in 2020 was adamantly
| against any kind of COVID-19 prevention measures.
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| That person was also a disorganized, ineffective baffoon on a
| good day with a staff more interested in court intrigues than
| governing. That massive government institutions operated
| outside of his will shouldn't be surprising.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| So, "state-affiliated" is a bad thing, unlike those "by
| appointment to HM the Queen" that used to grace the
| advertisements of British (and other) brands?
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| I listen to NPR station in the car. Anecdotally, very little of
| the content is true journalism; much of it is effectively op-ed.
| That's not necessarily a bad thing, provived you understand what
| you're consuming.
|
| The state-funded tag is a bit much. But to claim NPR is a pure
| journalism play isn't accurate either.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| What's your definition of journalism?
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| This is handy for me:
|
| https://www.openculture.com/2020/01/jim-lehrers-16-rules-
| for...
|
| https://www.mixdexhq.com/tv-news/here-are-jim-
| lehrers-10-rul...
| derstander wrote:
| > very little of the content is true journalism; much of it is
| effectively op-ed
|
| What is your alternative for a true journalism / non op-ed
| radio news station?
|
| Other than some tech sites and link aggregators / discussion
| forums (hello hackernews), I limit my news-reading to the AP
| and Reuters sites. But I'd be interested in learning about
| radio-based news sources, provided that they're either
| accessible in my area or online.
| rayiner wrote:
| My dad used to listen to NPR all the time growing up (WAMU). It
| was always liberal, but now it's become this highly processed
| and refined sort of white sugar liberal that's hard to stomach
| even for him.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| NPR and The NYT have both jumped the shark. Sad really. Tho
| sadder is the fact that they're in denial about it.
| ToDougie wrote:
| Happy music and happy words when "preferred" people/ideas are
| the focus of the story. Sad music and choice words when
| "bad"/ideas people are the focus of the story.
|
| It's maddening. Artisan hand-crafted propaganda.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| The problem with NPR right now is that good content and content
| creators get snatched up immediately by bigger organizations
| once they gain any traction at NPR.
|
| Joshua Johnson and his show 1A was the main case of this for
| me. The guy was running a top-notch show before NBC yoinked him
| up to the big leagues.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Makes ya wonder if they're acquiring the person for the
| person, or to gain control of the ideas that person is able
| to promote, or not.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| By definition they're state funded, but not state ran. The
| implications from the optics though may result in extreme
| takes. Though we could assume there's at least some influence
| the funding has.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| Exxon gets a larger percentage of its income from the federal
| government in subsidies, yet we seldom (if ever) apply
| "government funded" to that organization.
|
| What's your definition of "state funded"?
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Not being snarky but...maybe we should label them as such.
| If it's accurate then so be it.
|
| The irony? We'd have to rely on the media and "modern
| journalism" to apply the proper labels.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| I'm saying that technically, yes, they are receiving state
| funds, regardless of amount, and if the label is going to
| be applied then it should be applied to all company
| accounts receiving government subsidies, Exxon and others
| included.
|
| My stance is that if twitter, youtube, and the likes are
| going to be using these labels on accounts, then they
| should apply them to all organizations universally without
| bias/singling out of individual industries. Either apply
| across the board going by a technical definition, or don't
| apply them at all.
| JohnFen wrote:
| NPR is not meaningfully state funded. They get less than 1%
| of their funding directly from the government. Local NPR
| affiliates get more, through the Corporation for Public
| Broadcasting. On average about 1/3 of their funding comes
| from the government, and a portion of that goes to NPR in the
| form of licensing fees for their programming.
|
| In the end, erring on the side of overestimating the amount
| of government money going to NPR, it appears to be less than
| 10%. That is substantially less than a whole lot of other
| companies get, and those companies aren't considered
| "government sponsored".
| throwaway743 wrote:
| > By definition
|
| I was going by technicality, but am aware of those numbers
| and agree. Also, it's my belief that it should be applied
| to all companies receiving government funds, or shouldn't
| be applied at all.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| If they were truly state run, they would have been supportive
| of the past president... which they definitely weren't.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| My comment clearly states "by definition". I'm going by the
| technicality, though I do agree with you that if there was
| any sway at all due to this funding, it's been minimal and
| did not reflect in the previous presidency.
| ProAm wrote:
| I dont think they claim to be pure journalism:
|
| "NPR is an independent, nonprofit media organization that was
| founded on a mission to create a more informed public. Every
| day, NPR connects with millions of Americans on the air,
| online, and in person to explore the news, ideas, and what it
| means to be human. Through its network of member stations, NPR
| makes local stories national, national stories local, and
| global stories personal."
|
| [A] https://www.npr.org/about/ [B] https://www.npr.org/ethics/
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| I think in their statement about leaving Twitter he mentioned
| journalism. I was pointing out that - imho - it's mostly op-
| ed. Nothing wrong with op-ed but it should never be confused
| with journalism.
| bagels wrote:
| Should Twitter itself get a state sponsored label for getting
| concessions from San Francisco on their headquarters?
|
| https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-controller-hails-...
|
| Should Elon's account (or SpaceX or Telsa) have the same label
| because of their significant government funding?
|
| It's hard to see this as anything but silly politics games.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| I'd say its more like serious politics games. Yes, anyone who
| is interested in material reality knows that all media
| institutions are controlled by wealthy people, governments, and
| so on. No, that doesn't mean there isn't real benefit to some
| groups in projecting the illusion of their independence while
| simultaneously sewing doubt about the independence of other
| media. Material reality is a fringe idea pursued by a small
| minority (and shrinking all the time).
| maaand wrote:
| Do you also get your news from SpaceX and Tesla?
| bagels wrote:
| No, but why not label them as "state affiliated space
| company" and "state affiliated automobile manufacturer"
| adamrezich wrote:
| because their product is not information, so any
| personal/political bias they may have is not reflected in
| their products, which are apolitical.
| yossarian1408 wrote:
| Twitter, SpaceX and Tesla are not newspapers/publishers. The
| reason for labelling news organisations' government
| affiliations is for the viewer/reader to understand that there
| may or may not be bias, and where the funding is coming from.
|
| If NPR's government contributions are embarrassing for the
| organisation, it might be best for them to forgo that funding.
| Additionally, if there's no influence/bias, then why does it
| matter that their funding is disclosed to the reader?
| d23 wrote:
| NPR is not nor has it ever been state-affiliated media in any
| reasonable sense of the word. Is it a full stop, bald-face
| lie.
| codeddesign wrote:
| Based on what criteria? NPR is specifically in the
| congressional budget by law..yes, we have a law to keep
| them funded by the US govt.
|
| Is the criteria money? coercion? backdoor-deals? bias?
|
| As per Twitter's criteria, it's money.
| detaro wrote:
| Is it? "State-affiliated media is defined as outlets
| where the state exercises control over editorial content
| through financial resources, direct or indirect political
| pressures, and/or control over production and
| distribution."
|
| Control/Coercion seem more important, especially since
| Twitter has a separate category for media with government
| funding. (cf https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-
| policies/state-affilia... for both)
| lowkey wrote:
| Correction: Twitter lists NPR as government-funded media,
| not state affiliated media [0]
|
| [0] https://mobile.twitter.com/NPR
| codeddesign wrote:
| I was asking your criteria.
|
| Twitter: "Financial Resource" Considering we do have a
| law around funding NPR and the company would be impacted
| of that funding went away, personally I see it as
| appropriate.
|
| However, I also see it appropriate that Fox News and
| Washington Post get the same tag. (party political
| pressures)
| detaro wrote:
| I was responding to the "As per Twitter's criteria, it's
| money." part. Fox and WP as state-affiliated seems weird
| to me: being close to a party line is not necessarily the
| same as state-affiliation. (Given we're talking a
| democracy and not a one-party state - I don't think you
| could make that distinction in e.g. China due to how
| interconnected it is there)
| lowkey wrote:
| NPR is listed as government-funded media, not state-
| affiliated media [0]
|
| A large part of their funding comes from congress ->
| corporation for public broadcasting -> local NPR affiliates
| -> NPR.
|
| It is indirect funding, yes, but they are very much funded
| by the US government.
|
| [0] https://mobile.twitter.com/NPR
| AlbertCory wrote:
| [flagged]
| relaxing wrote:
| Here you go:
| https://www.npr.org/2021/11/25/1059262052/a-u-s-weapons-
| sale...
|
| Criticism of the DNC specifically (and Biden):
| https://www.npr.org/2022/12/08/1141499760/concerns-arise-
| ove...
| AlbertCory wrote:
| That's really the best you can do? One story that
| amplifies NPR's dislike of Saudi Arabia ("Yemen" is
| hardly the centerpiece of Biden foreign policy), and
| another claiming there's dislike of the Democratic
| primary calendar?
| relaxing wrote:
| They're clearly not afraid to be critical of the party or
| administration.
|
| "Centerpiece of foreign policy" is not a well defined
| term, but we can try to evaluate their coverage anyway- h
| ttps://www.google.com/search?q=biden+centerpiece+of+forei
| gn...
|
| Out of the first 9 articles, 4 have would I would call a
| critical slant. And Bob's your uncle.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| People can agree with each other politically _without_
| consulting with each other.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| and yet the Twitter Files show they do, in fact, consult.
| detaro wrote:
| Happen to have a link to relevant parts about NPR from
| them?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| [flagged]
| detaro wrote:
| How is "I'd not seen that part, details please" a
| delaying tactic? You'd really help your argument if you,
| you know, supported it instead of trying to divert with
| questions. Sorry that I don't take "The twitter files
| prove that the government controls NPR" at face value.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > How is "I'd not seen that part, details please" a
| delaying tactic?
|
| because there are things that everyone who follows the
| news knows, and pretending ignorance and demanding a
| citation is just "go do some homework."
| detaro wrote:
| And then lets run the same statistics for administrations
| from the other side. After all, state-controlled media
| would have to follow switching government lines on this,
| so it'll show Republicans loving NPR and Democrats hating
| it during the previous administration, correct?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| So you're agreeing on their political affiliation? Let's
| just get that out of the way first.
| detaro wrote:
| I'm not making a claim on political affiliation (and
| don't have a detailed opinion on it, being not from the
| US I don't read NPR stuff very much and have never heard
| any of their radio programmes). It's not necessary for my
| argument. (People desperately trying to turn everything
| they dislike into government-led propaganda is sadly an
| international pattern)
| cauch wrote:
| To get that out of the way, you can follow the smart
| process proposed by the person you answer to: If indeed
| the organization is biased because government funded, it
| means that they will never publish stories that the
| government is not happy with. So, under Biden, they will
| not publish stories that Democrats don't like, and under
| Trump, they will not publish stories that Republicans
| don't like.
|
| If it is not the case, then they are not biased because
| government funded. They may be politically biased for
| other reason, but it does not matter if they are
| government funded or not, and it is stupid to give them a
| label "government funded" to warn about bias if
| "government funded" has nothing to do with this bias.
| Especially because it means that non-government-funded
| organization can be as biased but not have any label.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Your arguments seem to hinge on some hypothetical world
| where Republicans are in charge AND the executive
| agencies are all on board with their agenda. Then, to be
| "government funded" NPR would have to hew to the
| Republican line. Q.E.D.
|
| Maybe the first part of that will happen someday. It
| hasn't yet. In fact, large parts of the civil service are
| permanently one party and do not change when the other
| party takes charge (as, indeed, the Civil Service reforms
| of the 19th Century set out to insure). Only about 4,000
| jobs are politically appointed, according to Wikipedia.
|
| So, no, you haven't gotten that out of the way.
| cauch wrote:
| If the executive agencies are imposing their agenda
| rather than the "government agenda", then, they are not
| biased for being "government funded", they are being
| biased for being "funded". If the government has no
| power, they could be "government funded", or "privately
| funded", or whatever, they are not manipulated by the
| government, they are manipulated by a lobby.
|
| What you are saying is that there is a group of interest
| that are independent of the government, and that has an
| influence because they are giving money. Why should we
| had a label when this group of interest is "the executive
| agencies", but not when it is "the investors of Wall
| Street", the "mass media conservative groups", the
| "christian lobby", ...?
|
| (I don't pretend it's the case. I think people who really
| believe that the evil executive agencies impose their
| agenda are idiot who are not able to mentally comprehend
| that maybe NPR news are biased because their redaction is
| politically biased, with or without the existence of
| executive agencies)
|
| (also, the reasoning on 4'000 jobs politically appointed
| is very weak: while there are way more than 4'000 jobs in
| the executive agencies, the very very very majority of
| these jobs have ZERO decision power, and the position of
| power in these agencies are the one politically
| appointed. If these executive agencies are sending memos
| to bias the media, or even renegotiating the contracts or
| the refunding based on what the media have published, it
| is with the support of the politically appointed board of
| directors)
| d23 wrote:
| The point is it is irrelevant for this discussion.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| [flagged]
| d23 wrote:
| I'm not even the person you asked. What exactly is your
| goal? Get a random person on the internet to disagree
| with you about something that's not even on topic for the
| discussion at hand?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| @detaro and @d23 46 are "random persons on the Internet"?
|
| Call it "irrelevant" - always a good tactic.
| d23 wrote:
| You've supported my point: there's no consistent forced
| state narrative. Bias for or against a political party is
| orthogonal to whether the state itself is executing
| editorial control.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| No, I'm certainly not supporting your point.
|
| The Twitter Files show government agencies directly
| pressuring Twitter to cover or suppress stories. They did
| this despite a Republican president being in power.
|
| So yes, that is "the state itself [is] executing
| editorial control." You are just spinning words if you
| say, "ok, yeah, they do it, but it's not _consistent_. "
| orblivion wrote:
| I agree and wasn't fond of the "state-affiliated" label but
| they switched to "government funded" which I agree with.
| soerxpso wrote:
| How is receiving funding from someone not a form of
| affiliation with them?
| skrowl wrote:
| NPR was, quite-literally created by an act of the United
| States congress.
|
| It receives DIRECT funding from the United States
| government.
|
| Twitter was generous in changing the label from "State-
| affiliated" media (given that it was literally created by
| the US Government) to "Government-funded media".
|
| There is no possible argument against the "Government-
| funded media" label that makes sense. They're government
| funded. NPR's parent company, Corporation for Public
| Broadcasting, is also government funded. Neither of these
| funding points are debatable (aka Full stop).
| lamontcg wrote:
| Corporations and institutions/foundations make up more
| than half of NPR's funding. And that exceeds the pledge
| drive funding, which collectively vastly exceeds the
| government funds they receive.
|
| When NPR runs their "ADM Supermarket to the World" spots,
| that is telling you who is really funding them and who to
| worry about exerting editorial control.
| just-ok wrote:
| Has NPR evolved since its inception? Sure. But "nor has it
| ever been" is... misleading at best:
|
| > Funding for NPR comes from [...other sources...] and
| annual grants from the publicly-funded Corporation for
| Public Broadcasting.
|
| Hmm, let's look into said Corporation:
|
| > On February 26, 1970, the CPB formed National Public
| Radio (NPR)
|
| > The CPB's annual budget is composed almost entirely of an
| annual appropriation from Congress plus interest on those
| funds.
|
| > The CPB is governed by a nine-member board of directors
| selected by the president of the United States and
| confirmed by the Senate
|
| I mean... If this wasn't "state-affiliated media" at its
| inception, I'm not entirely sure what is.
| sigmar wrote:
| Not sure if you realize that "State-affiliated" has a
| very different meaning than "received government funds"
| just-ok wrote:
| Of course, but NPR's origins are from a government-
| controlled organization.
| jprd wrote:
| Fair enough, but without doing linguistic gymnastics,
| "State-affiliated" should also be seen by any reasonably
| educated adult to indicate "State-edited". "State-funded"
| is an appropriate tag! I'd recommend this, actually.
|
| NPR show Frontline is a great place to start this
| education.
|
| Attempting to place NPR and that kind of sentiment in the
| same conversation as anything other than a great example
| of how Gov't funds can be provided without such _control_
| is disingenuous at best.
|
| NPR != RT
|
| Musk is in way over his head.
| [deleted]
| guelo wrote:
| The label was "State Affiliated media" not "publicly funded".
| jmye wrote:
| > If NPR's government contributions are embarrassing for the
| organisation, it might be best for them to forgo that
| funding.
|
| Ah, yes, the old "if I misrepresent the issue and assign a
| negative emotion to it, other people will see it as bad"
| trope. That's fun.
|
| Do you have any evidence they find the contributions
| "embarrassing" as opposed to finding the label an
| intentionally-misleading dog whistle? Or is that not
| something that occurred to you?
| bagels wrote:
| Twitter is a publisher. Just like newspapers publish AP
| stories, Twitter publishes the latest memes from users.
| olivermarks wrote:
| [flagged]
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| So? The government isn't the arbiter of what words mean.
| jachee wrote:
| > globalists
|
| Oh look, a racist dog whistle.
| vuln wrote:
| Which race might that be?
| khochesh_kushat wrote:
| Globalist is at least in some circles a code word for
| Jewish.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Not in the circles I move in.Sounds like paranoia to
| me...
| yellowapple wrote:
| "Bill Gates and other globalists"
|
| Unless Bill Gates is Jewish (is he?), the context doesn't
| support this being a dogwhistle in this case.
| khochesh_kushat wrote:
| The label doesn't say anything about publishing or printing a
| newspaper, it says media. Social media is surely media?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Twitter, SpaceX and Tesla are not newspapers/publishers.
|
| Twitter is a publisher, though (because of Section 230) they
| are not _liable_ as a publisher for most of what they publish
| under US law.
| kyralis wrote:
| Because the label has a connotation that is not accurate.
|
| Connotation is just as important as denotation when
| evaluating meaning and accuracy of statements. Engineers love
| to pretend otherwise - that's probably part of why we're
| engineers - but that doesn't make them right.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| The connotation is a product of how the label was
| inconsistently applied in the past. Consistent application
| of the label will solve this problem pretty soon, without
| requiring Twitter to make judgment calls that should be
| beyond its purview
| fundad wrote:
| SpaceX and Tesla are not newspapers/publishers.
|
| Twitter is a media company, a publisher with an editorial
| voice that we have to assume is independent from the Saudi
| government or any government funding the owner's other
| businesses.
| nailer wrote:
| I'd be fairly happy for Twitter to declare their own
| potential conflicts of interest.
|
| That doesn't mean Twitter shouldn't correctly label state
| funded media.
| sonotathrowaway wrote:
| Irrelevant and misleading. By Twitter's own guidelines it's
| not a state owned publisher.
| lostlogin wrote:
| When Chinese and Russian state propaganda channels are
| getting the same label for a different situation, it's a bit
| off.
|
| Your (and Elons) argument has shades of the famous 'with us
| or against us' line. Details matter.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| [flagged]
| daemoens wrote:
| Because the NPR receives almost no money from the federal
| government. Read the article. It receives less than 1
| percent of its $300 million annual budget from the
| federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
| PathOfEclipse wrote:
| From Wikipedia:
|
| Although NPR receives less than 1% of its direct funding
| from the federal government, member stations (which pay
| dues amounting to approximately one third of NPR's
| revenue), tend to receive far larger portions of their
| budgets from state governments, and also the US
| government through the Corporation for Public
| Broadcasting.
|
| 1/3 isn't 100%, but it's also far from insignificant.
| relaxing wrote:
| Hold on, 1/3 of what? What funding paid the dues back to
| CPB?
|
| My local affiliate breaks their funding down as 50%
| member support, 40% corporate/charitable underwriting,
| 10% state/local govt funding. Maybe other NPR affiliates
| also get federal grants, but this one doesn't.
|
| Seems like we're back to a pretty small fraction of
| funding for the US State to exert hard control over the
| content produced.
| PathOfEclipse wrote:
| According to these links, in 2021 it ended up being 70
| million of taxpayer money out of a total revenue of 300
| million:
|
| https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3551625-the-time-
| has-co...
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/706290/npr-revenue/
|
| So, as a correction it's closer to ~22.5%. Still a not
| insignificant amount.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > 1/3 isn't 100%, but it's also far from insignificant.
|
| It gets 1/3 from member stations, which get "far more"
| than 1% from various levels of government.
|
| "Far more than 1%" of 1/3 does not mean "1/3". It's
| actually, IIRC, about another 4% of NPRs funding that
| indirectly comes from government this way, bringing NPR
| to about 5% government funding, including indirect
| government funding through its members stations.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| [flagged]
| eppsilon wrote:
| Then Twitter could label them "non-profit" instead of
| "government-funded" or "state-affiliated", both of which
| imply government influence or control.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| So I guess you haven't seen the Twitter Files, where the
| government did exactly that.
| [deleted]
| rbanffy wrote:
| Twitter and its curation and targeting mechanisms make it
| very much a publisher.
| Diesel555 wrote:
| They are not categorized as a publisher. They receive legal
| protections as such. This will quickly evolve into a
| section 230 debate.
|
| I do agree social media companies should be categorized as
| a publisher - or content providers, but they are not. I
| think changing section 230 would solve a lot of problems by
| removing very specific legal protections, which news
| companies do not receive, and help prevent clear issues
| such as knowingly promoting false information.
|
| There are those that disagree with me. Problems exist with
| any solution such as who should judge what should not be
| allowed and would the counter devolve into an organization
| that could control information dissemination? A valid
| point. I think the answer is already out there - a very low
| standard (or to say another way the high burden of proof
| required) current news organizations are held to by law,
| which most seem not to debate is too restrictive, or some
| line between nothing and that.
|
| There is a lot of academic discourse on this topic and I
| recommend researching 230 more. It's a fascinating policy
| debate with pros and cons on both sides. It was written in
| 1996, the year the palm pilot and the Pentium 166MHz
| processor was introduced.
| scarface74 wrote:
| And Fox News had a direct line to the White House and was
| influenced heavily by it. Was it not just as biased?
| hgsgm wrote:
| That's in reverse. Trump was Fox sponsored. Fox wasn't
| Trump sponsored. Fox doesn't need a "Fox affiliated media"
| label.
|
| Maybe it needs a "NewsCorp/Murdoch affiliated" label.
| d23 wrote:
| As biased as Fox News is, it would be completely ridiculous
| to call it state-affiliated media.
| scarface74 wrote:
| How much more "state affiliated" can you get than when
| Trump was in office he spent most of his day watching
| FoxNews and called it when he didn't like the coverage
| and they acquiesced?
|
| This is not some conspiracy theory. It was very much out
| in the open.
|
| Even more recently, the house speaker gave Fox preferred
| access to the Jan 6th video.
| vuln wrote:
| > This is not some conspiracy theory. It was very much
| out in the open.
|
| Do you have any evidence of this?
| d23 wrote:
| I don't even doubt you, I just don't think it's the same
| thing as consistently-affiliated state media. If anything
| it's party biased, but it's not because they're afraid
| the party will jail them, kill them, or forcibly take
| over their business.
| ramses0 wrote:
| "Sea Lion" comment/question. It's a distraction.
|
| http://wondermark.com/1k62/
| nailer wrote:
| > > Why does it matter that their funding is disclosed to
| the reader?
|
| > It's a distraction.
|
| Categorizing an argument doesn't provide justification for
| that categorization.
| alfor wrote:
| strawman.
| smotched wrote:
| "media"
| binarymax wrote:
| Twitter is a media company.
|
| EDIT: lots of discussion around this. Twitter is literally a
| social media company. You can split hairs on whether the
| "media" part of "social media" agrees with your bias here.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Media outlets: NY Times, Fox News, MSNBC, NPR.
|
| Tech companies: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter.
|
| Some companies are even both. But in the main, Twitter is
| the thing that employs developers and writes code and not
| the thing that employs reporters and writes stories.
| point_blank wrote:
| Google, Facebook, and Twitter have always been whatever
| they can aggressively monetize, as their primary piece of
| software hasn't financially scaled to where they need to
| be at quarter-after-quarter. These days, I'd say they're
| advertisement companies!
| mbesto wrote:
| > Tech companies:
|
| Here we go again...under this view, every company is a
| "tech" company. Does GE or John Deere write software for
| their hardware? Absolutely. Are they colloquially
| considered "tech" companies? No.
|
| Twitter is a media company (they distribute media). Tech
| is their operating model to deliver media. As is
| Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, etc. etc.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Does GE or John Deere write software for their
| hardware? Absolutely. Are they colloquially considered
| "tech" companies? No.
|
| Because tech is not their primary line of business.
|
| > Twitter is a media company (they distribute media).
|
| A media company is the thing that _produces_ media, not
| the thing that distributes it. Cogent is not a media
| company.
| mbesto wrote:
| > tech is not their primary line of business.
|
| Because "tech" isn't a business. You don't sell "tech".
| Microsoft as an example is heavily diversified and as a
| software publisher they sell ERP software, operating
| system software, business productivity software, etc.
| Technology is what allows them to produce and run that
| software.
|
| > A media company is the thing that produces media
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media#Internet
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Because "tech" isn't a business. You don't sell "tech".
|
| "Tech" is a fairly broad category that includes both
| computer hardware and computer software, but these are
| definitely things that companies produce and sell for
| money, or produce and offer as services.
|
| But why are we talking about what counts as a tech
| company when the issue is what counts as a media company?
| If Microsoft was a "Cloud Services" instead of a "tech"
| company, Azure still wouldn't be a media entity.
|
| > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media#Internet
|
| The internet, like broadcast television and cable, is a
| medium of transmission. But when people talk about media
| companies, they're talking about NBC, not Panasonic.
| mbesto wrote:
| > "Tech" is a fairly broad category that includes both
| computer hardware and computer software
|
| No it doesn't. That's my point. Tech isn't an industry or
| a category. It's an operating model. The delineation of
| it being an industry adds nothing of value to any
| discussion because its so ill-defined.
|
| > But when people talk about media companies, they're
| talking about NBC
|
| Guess what...NBC merged with Comcast and Comcast is a
| telecomm company, which guess what...distributes media.
|
| > Panasonic.
|
| Panasonic is a hardware manufacturer...
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Guess what...NBC merged with Comcast and Comcast is a
| telecomm company, which guess what...distributes media.
|
| Alice is a lawyer and Bob is a doctor _and_ a lawyer. Why
| would that imply that Alice is a doctor?
|
| > Panasonic is a hardware manufacturer...
|
| And Twitter is a communications service.
|
| They're not in the same line of business as the entities
| that employ reporters.
| mbesto wrote:
| > Twitter is a communications service.
|
| Ok so they're not a tech company. Glad we solved that.
| /handshake-emoji/
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| A communications service that operates using internet
| servers to run code they wrote... is a tech company.
| mbesto wrote:
| So any company that uses internet servers to run code
| they wrote is a tech company? John Deere wrote the
| firmware on the machinery they sold to farmers that
| connects to a server on software they wrote. Are they a
| tech company?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Tech isn't twitter's primary line of business, either.
| The company's value derives from the users and the
| content they generate. Their tech isn't unique or
| impressive, and nobody's there for the tech, they're
| there for the _content_.
|
| Meanwhile, some Deere buyers _are_ there for the tech.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > The company's value derives from the users and the
| content they generate.
|
| So you're conceding that Twitter isn't the entity
| generating the content.
|
| > Meanwhile, some Deere buyers _are_ there for the tech.
|
| By your analogy, John Deere is a _food_ company, because
| people aren 't there for the tractors, they're there for
| the harvested crops. But that doesn't work because John
| Deere and Conagra are not the same kind of operation.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > By your analogy, John Deere is a food company, because
| people aren't there for the tractors, they're there for
| the harvested crops. But that doesn't work because John
| Deere and Conagra are not the same kind of operation.
|
| Deere's _customers_ are there for the tech. They 're
| handing over money for it.
|
| Twitter's _customers_ are there for the audience. The
| _audience_ is there for... the rest of the audience.
| Their tech is entirely incidental to their value. Calling
| twitter a tech company is like calling Deere a factory
| company--one uses tech and one uses factories, but that
| 's not _what they are_.
|
| [EDIT] To be clear, I'm not saying we should call John
| Deere a tech company--I don't think it's the best label,
| even as a very broad one, for what they do--but I do
| think Twitter is so _not_ one that it 'd make more sense
| to call Deere a tech company than Twitter.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Twitter's _customers_ are there for the audience. The
| _audience_ is there for... the rest of the audience.
| Their tech is entirely incidental to their value. Calling
| twitter a tech company is like calling Deere a factory
| company--one uses tech and one uses factories, but that
| 's not _what_ they are.
|
| John Deere designs their own tractors. Their customers
| want tractors. They could outsource the manufacturing and
| still sell to the same customers.
|
| Foxconn is a factory company. The thing people want from
| them is manufacturing. Their customers are the likes of
| Dell and Apple. If they had no factories they would have
| no business.
|
| Twitter operates servers and writes code. That's who they
| employ and how their business operates. Their users want
| to talk to each other, in the same way as John Deere's
| customers want harvested crops. But the way Twitter
| provides that service is through computers and software.
|
| Notably, the way they provide that service is _not_
| through employing reporters to write stories.
| mbesto wrote:
| > They could outsource the manufacturing and still sell
| to the same customers.
|
| Twitter could completely outsource their software
| development and still sell advertising to its customers.
|
| > Foxconn is a factory company.
|
| Wtf does this even mean? Foxconn is a semiconductor
| manufacturer...
|
| > Their customers are the likes of Dell and Apple.
|
| Oh great, so Apple isn't a tech company anymore? Don't
| they write code that powers the back-end of virtually
| every iPhone in existence (backup, iCloud, iMessage, App
| Store, etc. etc.).
|
| > Twitter operates servers and writes code. That's who
| they employ and how their business operates.
|
| So how do you explain all of the sales people? Or the
| content regulation? Or the support? fun fact - when it
| was publicly traded Twitter spent nearly equally on R&D
| as it did S&M.
|
| > Notably, the way they provide that service is not
| through employing reporters to write stories.
|
| Because this is OUTSOURCED. It's user generated content.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Do you think technology is a notable differentiator for
| Twitter?
|
| Are new users (or actual customers--advertisers, blue-
| checks these days, which, LOL) signing up because they
| want access to the _technology_?
|
| If another company cloned 100% of Twitter's proprietary
| technology, perfectly, how would investors react to that
| company, if that's all they've got?
|
| If that company offered that tech for sale, outright,
| straight-up IP transfer, a single bidder owns the whole
| thing, what percentage of Twitter's value would that tech
| command on the market?
|
| I'd go with:
|
| 1) No,
|
| 2) No,
|
| 3) They'd practically ignore it,
|
| and 4) probably not even 1%
| hardlianotion wrote:
| I think you broke the analogy with the John Deere food
| thing.
| GoofballJones wrote:
| They are absolutely "tech". Either automotive tech or
| agricultural tech. I mean, if you want to be totally
| pedantic about it, go for it. Doesn't make it accurate
| though.
| mbesto wrote:
| > I mean, if you want to be totally pedantic about it, go
| for it.
|
| I do, because the definition is so loose that it gets
| manipulated by investors / the overall market. Great
| example:
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ben-cogan-8627b955_dtc-
| stockm...
| throwaway202303 wrote:
| With section 230 protection because they are not an
| editorial news organization under the defined meaning
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Various companies in China are on US embargo lists because
| they are state-affiliated. Parsing out "media" companies is
| just hyper-targeting of ire. All companies that post tweets
| are effectively media. So why only highlight "news media" on
| a publication app such as Twitter?
| fortuna86 wrote:
| China controls their state media, NPR/BBC etc. have state
| funding but remain editorially independent.
| klooney wrote:
| [flagged]
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| I know China requires Communist party committees within
| most large businesses. It would surprise me if this is
| not also the case for their news media. Note that these
| aren't affiliations, but actual political organizations
| within the businesses.
|
| The Republicans control the house. The US is not a land
| of political "rulers", at least not at the moment
| (arguments can be made for FDR's presidency).
| splistud wrote:
| [dead]
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Yes, I know. Just pointing out that media isn't the only
| industry that's state funded to the person who's comment
| was just "media".
| chapium wrote:
| That seems like a contradiction.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| This is why you can't stop at "who funded it" as an
| indicator of bias and editorial control, but have to look
| at what is actually produced as well.
|
| Clair Cameron Patterson famously took money from the
| leaded gasoline industry to help fund his research
| demonstrating the harms of leaded gasoline.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| If you build editorial independent into a legal charter,
| and have a government that isn't authoritarian and
| protects the rule of law, why is it a contradiction?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The label is "state-affiliated media" so it makes sense
| that the label isn't applied to Twitter or SpaceX, not
| because they aren't state-affiliated, but because they
| aren't media.
|
| And it makes sense for the label to be applied specifically
| to media entities because journalists are _supposed_ to be
| unbiased, as opposed to e.g. Raytheon which is objectively
| state-affiliated but nobody expects to be doing objective
| reporting.
|
| If a media outlet is being funded by the government then
| readers should know that because it could affect their
| coverage if they fear losing that funding as a result of
| critical reporting. This directly applies to NPR because
| Republicans regularly threaten to remove its public funding
| in response to their coverage.
|
| The better criticism is, why is the label applied to NPR
| but not e.g. MSNBC? Pretty sure at least Comcast (MSNBC's
| parent company) receives a significant amount of government
| funding.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > And it makes sense for the label to be applied
| specifically to media entities because journalists are
| supposed to be unbiased
|
| This has never been the case. Never. While some
| journalism sources operate in a facts-only manner, all
| journalistic sources have bias as to which stories they
| research. And historically, the press has been about
| propaganda, editorials, and selling papers at least as
| much as about reporting.
|
| Labeling news organization as "government-funded" is less
| informative than labeling them as "propaganda" or
| "editorializing". The major reason to so label them is,
| itself, propaganda. With the second reason being a
| warning to the reader to practice even more diligence
| than normal.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Labeling news organization as "government-funded" is
| less informative than labeling them as "propaganda" or
| "editorializing".
|
| By your own reasoning, those other labels would be
| redundant. Whereas "government-affiliated" makes the
| reader aware of a specific _kind_ of bias that not all
| media entities are subject to.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| It's less helpful when those are the only news
| organizations that get a label. At least in the past
| newspapers would helpfully label themselves as the
| political party they supported. There's even still a
| Herald-Whig :) .
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| > _If a media outlet is being funded by the government
| then readers should know that because it could affect
| their coverage_
|
| close, if there is evidence their coverage is actually
| being affected, readers should know that because that is
| what should inform their decision
|
| in some cases, where the funding constitutes a large
| portion of total funding, it may be appropriate to add a
| disclaimer
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| What kind of evidence are you looking for here? The
| effect of financial incentives on human behavior is well-
| established.
|
| Meanwhile case-specific evidence is largely unavailable.
| Reporters would be loathe to admit to being cowed, but
| are also aware that corporate executives make decisions
| on things like promotions and timeslots based on the
| bottom line, or in less well-funded entities that a loss
| of funding can directly lead to a loss of employment.
|
| How about statistical evidence? Well, if Republicans are
| threatening NPR with the loss of funding, they could
| slant their coverage to placate the legislators
| criticizing them, or they could slant it the other way to
| bolster their support from the other party. In either
| case it compromises their neutrality, but now you can
| find "evidence" of this in any divergence from neutrality
| in either direction. Since they couldn't reasonably be
| expected to be infallible in the alternative, that
| doesn't prove anything.
|
| So you make people aware of the incentive, because that's
| all you're really going to know about in practice.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| frankly, any evidence besides zero would be good, but
| ideally any evidence which is convincing. It's up to the
| conspiracy theorist, not the audience, to come up with
| such evidence, whatever it may be.
|
| an example of evidence of such a conspiracy theory would
| be internal emails telling a reporter to go easy on the
| US government because a small portion of funding comes
| from it, or to attack X because the US government wants
| them to
|
| statistical evidence would work too if it proves the
| claims of bias somehow, I leave it to you to figure out
| some examples
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > So you make people aware of the incentive, because
| that's all you're really going to know about in practice.
|
| Ad Fontes tries to rate news media on the type of
| reporting it does and the general political skew. This
| doesn't capture everything, but it can be done. Except
| for specific topics I think it's slightly better than
| incentives in general, though incentives are important
| too.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Twitter isn't media? They call themselves 'social media'
| in their AppStore description.
|
| https://apps.apple.com/nz/app/twitter/id333903271
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| A social media company is a media company in the same way
| that a cyberspace company is a space company.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Social media companies are media distribution companies.
| They're analogous to the street-corner newspaper and
| magazine shop, except they only occasionally pay their
| content producers. They're more related to media than
| cyberspace is to space.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Tell that to Starlink.
|
| And social media companies are more like convenience
| stores that also carry newspapers. The large majority of
| tweets are not by media outlets.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > Should Elon's account (or SpaceX or Telsa) have the same
| label because of their significant government funding?
|
| My first thought. How much in easy loans have his companies
| received from the government?
|
| This is just rich people hating on the industry that publicly
| critiques them.
| hkt wrote:
| [flagged]
| Georgelemental wrote:
| [flagged]
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > 56% of political contributions directly to candidates
| from private donors who gave over $100,000, went to
| Democrats.
|
| > NPR is an ally of the preferred political party of the
| rich.
|
| In order to infer the second statement from the first,
| first you have to demonstrate that >50% of political
| _donors_ (not donations) of greater than $100,000 were from
| Democrats. Perhaps Democract-leaning donors were merely
| motivated to make a bunch of donations over $100k, while
| Republican-leaning donors made fewer donations per donor.
|
| It would be even better if you demonstrated that >50% of
| political donors above a certain wealth threshold gave to
| Democrats over Republicans
| Georgelemental wrote:
| The website I linked bins per-donor, not per-donation. Of
| donations from donors who gave over $100,000 total, more
| went to Democrats than to Republicans.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > Of donors giving more than $100,000 to a candidate or
| party, 19.09% favored Democrats and 15.02% gave to
| Republicans.
|
| The really interesting thing in that website is that big
| spenders favor PACs over _either_ party.
|
| And Democrats win out with donations over Republicans in
| all monetary categories, not just the $100k+.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| PACs favor Democrats too:
| https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/donor-
| demogra...
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| That is irrelevant. If there was a Nazi party, you'd want
| NPR to favor the other parties. You haven't considered the
| possibility that they are biased towards truth. Guaranteed
| funding from the government is like academic tenure, it
| lets you focus on what matters rather than chasing
| hype/click-bait, and lets you stand up to the powers that
| be.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Wasn't spaceX partly funded by the CIA's investment capital
| arm?
| toss1 wrote:
| Went searching, could find a lot of In-Q-Tel investments,
| but nothing about an investment in SpaceX.
|
| What I did find is that Mike Griffin, the aerospace
| engineer who became the top NASA administrator in 2005, had
| a previous job as president of In-Q-Tel, the CIA's in-house
| venture-capital fund for national security tech.
|
| He invested $500 million in commercial space, eventually
| $396 million eventually going to SpaceX, along with $454
| million of outside capital and $100 million of Musk's own
| money in 2006. [0]
|
| So, if there is in In-Q-Tel investment, it is logged behind
| the Crunchbase paywall. That said, In-Q-Tel is an excellent
| idea to produce better home-grown security technology, and
| I have no problem with it (not even with their publicized
| investment in Facebook, and I consider FB a plague on
| humanity -- that's more of a slur on In-Q-Tel than In-Q-Tel
| is on FB).
|
| [0] https://qz.com/281619/what-it-took-for-elon-musks-
| spacex-to-...
| yossarian1408 wrote:
| 1. SpaceX and Tesla do not publish news
|
| 2. If by "easy loans" you mean competing for contracts with
| the likes of BlueOrigin, Raytheon and Boeing, you ought to
| drop the word 'easy'
|
| 3. If the goal is getting back at the industry, one questions
| whether Elon Musk wouldn't have had an easier time just
| buying up a bunch of the papers like Bezos and Murdoch
|
| 4. Unlike the previous Twitter regime, Musk allows
| organisations free reign to critique anyone and anything they
| like. They just have to disclose who's paying for the
| criticism is all :)
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Can we please drop the Twitter free speech facade? We all
| know it's not true. He's banned activists at the behest of
| right wing influencers. He's banned parody accounts. He
| banned the account posting public flight log data of his
| plane. He banned people for posting links to Mastodon, then
| unbanned (some of?) them, _then_ prevented people from
| interacting with tweets linking to Substack. If you search
| Twitter for "substack", it searches for "newsletter"
| instead!
|
| It's so tiring having to rehash this in every conversation
| about Twitter, so... please, let's just acknowledge that
| Elon doesn't care about free speech and move on with our
| lives.
| [deleted]
| eat_veggies wrote:
| > Musk allows organisations free reign to critique anyone
| and anything they like
|
| That's why you were not allowed to like or retweet posts
| that linked to substack, right?
| keneda7 wrote:
| Also take a look at what goes on in India. If I remember
| correctly it took under 5 days before the whole "its
| going to be a free speech platform" came crashing down. I
| honestly like Musk overall as I believe he started
| companies to better humanity but to claim Musk allows
| organizations or people free reign on twitter is crazy at
| this point.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| 1) They both blog, they just don't charge subscribers for
| the blog articles. The bias is very evident though, as they
| talk about themselves.
|
| 2) No, this is not what I meant. I meant easy loan terms,
| otherwise they would have just gone after less competitive
| loans in the open market.
|
| 3) Ask Elon? He gets to kill multiple birds with one
| Twitter purchase. Something Bezos can't do.
|
| 4) There's a distinction between "paying for something" and
| "paying someone who does something", and that distinction
| is editorial control. Ask artists and writers who sell
| works for hire by specification. And tell it to those who
| have had their accounts locked, even under Musk's
| ownership.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > This is just rich people hating on the industry that
| publicly critiques them.
|
| This has to be it. Elon is petty and vindictive. Looking at
| stories NOR has written about him it would seem the sort of
| thing that would fire up his sensitivities.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| I could somewhat see him trying to be fair after first
| acting out of spite. But why isn't the PBS NewsHour account
| labeled as government-funded media?
| fundad wrote:
| [flagged]
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| I think he would be much more psychology healthy if he
| dropped social media. From what I guess about his
| personality, it's bad for him, and also probably doesn't
| address any of his psychological needs. Bad habits can be
| hard to break, but man does he go all in.
| wpietri wrote:
| You know the gaming term "whale"? They're the people who
| get so sucked into a pay-to-play game that they'll spend
| thousands of dollars trying to get those winning
| feelings. I have to suspect those people are not,
| psychologically speaking, perfectly well.
|
| If Twitter is the game, Musk is the whale with so much
| money that he bought the company. He spent $44 billion
| trying to win the game. And the wild thing to me is that
| he's still failing at it. Things like "let that sink in"
| [1] and re-labeling the building "Titter" [2] are just
| not very good jokes. For a mere one billion dollars, he
| could have hired every good comedy writer in the world.
| Instead he has lost at least $24 billion while generating
| enormous amounts of reputation-puncturing press and very
| plausibly putting a famously hard-to-wreck company on the
| path to irrelevancy. If it's not the most spectacular
| own-goal in business history, I'd certainly like to hear
| about the worse ones.
|
| [1] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panach
| e/let-t...
|
| [2] https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-twitter-headquarters-
| sign-pain...
|
| [3] https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/26/23657182/elon-
| musk-twitte...
| dang wrote:
| This comment breaks the site guidelines. Please make your
| substantive points thoughtfully.
|
| You may not owe $billionaire or $celebrity better but you
| owe this community better if you're participating in it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| KZerda wrote:
| Or more to the point, with how much of twitter is owned by the
| Saudi government?
|
| https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/28/saudis-kingdom-hol...
| rjzzleep wrote:
| I don't really understand. If that's a bad thing, why did
| nobody care about that while Yoel Roth was in charge of
| censorship?
|
| EDIT: lol at the comment below. I was one of the people
| complaining about it. But the reality is it hardly made a
| dent in coverage until after these guys were about to get
| kicked out. For a moment everyone was cheering the Saudis on
| for blocking the twitter sale to Elon. What's with the
| revisionism?
| Teever wrote:
| People did care, and probably tried to tell you, but you
| probably weren't paying attention.
| Jenepas wrote:
| Please don't use the Qatari terrorist funded propaganda of Al
| Jazeera to make your point. Incidentally Qatar (an anti
| sentitic extemist right wing terrorist government) also has
| significant stake in twitter
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-01/musk-s-
| tw...
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| Just because someone makes a claim as part of their
| narrative _does not_ mean the claim itself _exclusively
| belongs to_ that narrative!
|
| If that were the case, none of us should say anything at
| all.
| [deleted]
| Takennickname wrote:
| Any sources about Qatar being a funder of terrorism? Other
| than Trump.
| passwordoops wrote:
| Ok, so to amend OP's original point:
|
| Should Twitter come with a label as "state-owned"
| considering both the Qatari and Saudi governments hold a
| significant stake in the company?
| Jenepas wrote:
| Personally yes, when i hear everyone clamour for
| transparency, I want brutal honest transparency, so yes
| twitter handle and twitter docs should clearly mention
| that they are owned by Saudia and terrorist Qatar.
|
| Same with DW News, Al Jazeera, Middle East eye and Gulf
| news.
|
| I've always wondered, without pure transparency, who will
| guard the guards?
| rys wrote:
| Isn't DW state-owned by Germany?
| Andrex wrote:
| Twitter doesn't exist anymore (as of yesterday[1]), so the
| Saudis' ownership shares likely transferred to X Corp.
|
| How much of X is now owned by Saudi Arabia is the real
| question.
|
| 1. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/twitter-no-
| longe...
| codeddesign wrote:
| Large shareholders were moved to equity upon purchase.
|
| In other words..the Saudi you are referencing was a large
| shareholder of the "Old Twitter".
|
| That's along the lines of "how much did Russia fund
| Facebook"
|
| VTB (sanctioned bank) funded Facebook in the tune of $1bn.
| It also funded Twitter in 2011 for $191m.
| [deleted]
| philipov wrote:
| Whether or not it's applied consistently doesn't even help the
| situation. The goal is clearly to muddy the waters on what we
| mean by state-sponsored media. Even if he labels everything
| consistently as state-sponsored, it nonetheless serves to mask
| organizations without editorial independence by creating
| confusion within the discourse.
| meerita wrote:
| I didn't realized Twitter was a media company and not a social
| network.
| khochesh_kushat wrote:
| It's right there in the name, social media.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > Should Elon's account (or SpaceX or Telsa) have the same
| label because of their significant government funding?
|
| Are they a "media" company primarily dedicated to the practice
| of journalism?
| ta321099 wrote:
| The problem is that Elon Musk's Twitter is being extremely
| selective in its labeling.
|
| If you can think of a reason for this strange selective,
| seemingly targeting only certain English language sources,
| I'd love to hear it. Other than the "obvious" look that it
| seems that he's reacting petty against certain English
| language sources that have been critical of him, of course,
| because this would be my conclusion.
|
| Example:
|
| France24 (media state-owned by France):
| https://twitter.com/France24_en -- no label
|
| Al Jazeera (media essentially owned by Qatar):
| https://twitter.com/AJEnglish -- no label
|
| All India Radio News (India state owned media):
| https://twitter.com/airnewsalerts -- no label
|
| NHK (Japan, funding model is very similar to the BBC
| licensing fee approach): https://twitter.com/NHKWORLD_News --
| no label, unlike the BBC
|
| ABC (Australia government-funded):
| https://twitter.com/ABCaustralia - no label, and no language
| barrier excuse here
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| the account is media, and it's as state affiliated as NPR, if
| not moreso
|
| as for whether it's a media _company_ , that's irrelevant and
| seems to be an attempt to move the goalposts
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| It's not irrelevant. I think it's a useful distinction.
|
| All companies have PR departments (except, of course,
| Twitter, which only responds with poop emoji.)
|
| Company PR departments generally report on the company and
| things which directly affect the company. They issue press
| releases and they comment on litigation and they celebrate
| anniversaries.
|
| Journalism organizations and public information outlets
| don't merely report on themselves, they report on the
| world, or topics of interest to their advertisers or donors
| or governments or supporters. Therefore there's a wider
| range and there's a third-party nature to it. Journalists
| may be investigative, or sometimes they may just
| regurgitate press releases from various companies. From
| wide ranges of different types of various companies. Even
| if a news outlet reports only on dentistry, there's still a
| wide range of dental topics that are covered, not just
| Colgate and their toothpaste.
|
| So I agree; NPR should be properly labeled according to the
| government which supports them. So should PBS, right?
| There's no shame in that. Why don't Facebook and Google do
| it too? YouTube regularly slaps a label on government
| mouthpieces that I tune into there. It's important to be
| even-handed and label the Chinese and Russians the same as
| the Venezuelans and Germans and Irish and Catholics and
| Orthodox the same as the United States.
| bagels wrote:
| Okay, by the same label, I mean "state affiliated"
|
| I think the "state affiliated media" could be applied to
| Twitter by the same standards, but for Tesla & SpaceX, just
| "state affiliated"
| nimbius wrote:
| more ontopic, I think its indicative of a general exodus of
| brands in general as well. nobody wants to pay for the
| checkmark, nobody wants to have their brand identity or message
| challenged or negated by fly-by-night impostors, and most
| people have lost tolerance for the abdication of moderation and
| safe space for a modern brand in general. The time to close
| your account was arguably last November when leadership fired
| all the employees and locked themselves out of the
| headquarters.
|
| thats not to say theyre evacuating to another platform, just
| that 'no platform' is a safer option than twitter platform.
| wpietri wrote:
| Yeah, agreed. I was one of the people who quit Twitter in
| November. It has been a real loss for me, going from 7k
| followers on Twitter to 0.1k on Mastodon. Especially now that
| I'll be soon starting a job hunt, I miss that. But when I
| review my reasons for leaving Twitter [1], I'm not regretting
| it. I would rather have no platform than that platform. And
| the calculation for brands is surely much more fraught. I
| expect NPR will be the beginning of a fair bit of large orgs
| quitting Twitter, either loudly or just tailing off.
|
| [1]
| https://twitter.com/williampietri/status/1593662348568326151
| hgsgm wrote:
| Do people hire for (non-PR) jobs based on tweets?
| wpietri wrote:
| I doubt it. But it's a great way to find out about
| opportunities. I've had 3 jobs that I only heard about
| because somebody mentioned it on some social medium. One
| was on Twitter, one Facebook, and one in a specialist
| Slack.
| macintux wrote:
| I found a tech evangelist job via an informational
| account I ran for a language community, and was hired in
| part because of it.
|
| I suppose that's PR, although I eventually switched to
| engineering.
| wpietribs wrote:
| [dead]
| JieJie wrote:
| I miss the opportunity to have my posts seen by people on
| Twitter, but I never had that many get seen in actuality.
|
| Your "rather have no platform than that platform" resonates
| with me.
|
| It would better if we had some way to follow the large
| number of valid sources of information from diverse variety
| of online sources within one application. Whether that ends
| up being Twitter, or some Federated system, I would prefer
| that it does not come under or remain under the control of
| a capricious overlord.
|
| I absolutely understand the frustration of people who are
| on Twitter just to do the business of journalism, cause it
| does not seem like a place that is all that conducive to
| the market for journalism or other writing. It seems more
| like a public-access text-based cable-news-outrage outlet
| these days.
|
| Whatever happens, someone please let me know where all the
| people working on AI end up, cause that's something I would
| like to follow without all the wailing and gnashing of
| teeth that happens on Twitter.
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| > Should Elon's account (or SpaceX or Telsa) have the same
| label because of their significant government funding?
|
| Are SpaceX or Tesla news organizations?
| lostlogin wrote:
| They can post on Twitter in the same way as others can. If
| the objective is to show potential bias, why only apply it to
| some accounts?
| throwaway202303 wrote:
| They don't produce news so maybe no?
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| That seems like moving goalposts.
|
| An org that primarily sells media (PBS or Twitter) should live
| by what its primary revenue source is for that media, because
| it colors the media that goes out the door.
|
| Further, are the bulk of twitter's profits derived from
| concessions on a lease ? I don't think so, but I'm open minded.
|
| An org that does not sell media, but physical goods (i.e.
| Tesla) is arguably selling cars, not media.
| fghsqwads wrote:
| [flagged]
| matrix_overload wrote:
| [flagged]
| dnissley wrote:
| > _" hey, middle class: here are \infty reasons to reduce
| your life quality expectations and for hating yourself if you
| don't want to play along"_
|
| Can you give an example of stories with this message?
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Should Elon's account (or SpaceX or Telsa) have the same
| label because of their significant government funding?
|
| They aren't trying to hide it.
|
| The NASA contracts are very much public.
| iamerroragent wrote:
| Here is how NPR is funded:
|
| https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-
| finance...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Member stations are federally funded. Member stations pay
| NPR.
|
| To say that NPR doesn't receive a significant portion of
| its budget from the federal government is a lie. This same
| argument is made whenever a politico mentions cutting
| funding to NPR. There is a large push to claim that NPR
| receives very little funding and it's irrelevant to the
| network.
|
| But you can't have it both ways. The lady doth protest too
| mightily.
| electrondood wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > It receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million
| annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for
| Public Broadcasting.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Federally funded != State Affiliated. There is no one
| from the Biden Administration telling them what to say.
| By labeling them as such, Elon/Twitter are implying that
| NPR has a Goebbels-like figure running it, which is
| mendacious at best.
| themgt wrote:
| NPR was founded by the CPB, which was created with an act
| of Congress and is governed by a board of directors
| selected by the President. If it's "mendacious" to claim
| NPR is state affiliated, presumably it would be
| completely accurate and correct to state NPR, an entity
| that was founded and continues to be funded by a federal
| government body run by presidential appointees is "not
| state-affiliated"?
| iamerroragent wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_media
|
| "There is no undisputed definition of state media or
| government media. The most common definition of state
| media or government media refers to any media
| organization that is either directly or indirectly owned
| or operated by the state.[4]"
|
| "...State or government media can range from media
| outlets that are completely under state control to
| editorially independent public service media outlets.[1]
| The term "public media" can be used to refer to state or
| government media and public service broadcasting (PBS).
| Although there are differences between them. According to
| the ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, state and government
| media are directly controlled by the state or government;
| and PBS are not.[7] According to Facebook, state-
| controlled media are "partially or wholly under the
| editorial control of a government".[8]"
|
| Interestingly:
|
| "Twitter uses the term "state-affiliated media" and
| defines it as "outlets where the state exercises control
| over editorial content through financial resources,
| direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control
| over production and distribution." At the same time,
| "state-financed" editorially independent media are not
| considered "state-affiliated".[9][10]"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACE_Electoral_Knowledge_Net
| wor...
|
| "The goal of the ACE network is to provide knowledge to
| people working in the field elections, with the intention
| of supporting credible and transparent electoral
| processes with emphasis on sustainability,
| professionalism and trust. "
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Yes that's how words work, NPR is not State Affiliated
| media. No one from the government is there dictating what
| they report on or what projects they pursue. When a lab
| at a private college takes NIH funding to do research,
| that does not make the private research institution state
| affiliated. When oil and gas companies accept government
| subsidies, they are not labeled as state affiliated (and
| in this case oil and gas are far more deeply intertwined
| with the levers of government). Elon Musk is a
| reactionary polemic and these choices are obviously
| intended to further those goals.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Perhaps more relevantly, by expanding the use of labels
| indicative of state association beyond the original use
| of "state-affiliated media" for those orgs which are
| editorially controlled by governments, Musk decreases the
| impact and clear distinction of that label, further
| normalizing and empowering the actual editorially-
| controlled state propaganda outlets operating on Twitter.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Have you ever seen money being given without any strings
| attached?
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Yes, for Public Broadcasting!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy7ljRr0AA
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > To say that NPR doesn't receive a significant portion
| of its budget from the federal government is a lie.
|
| Since you failed to keeps scrolling down, here's the link
| to the "local station revenues" section
|
| https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-
| finance...
|
| 5% from Federal _and_ state _and_ local governments.
|
| Another 8% comes from CPB, which is a federally funded,
| private non-profit. The vast majority of CPB's funding
| goes towards public television, not public radio: https:/
| /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_for_Public_Broadca...
|
| So yes, _actually_.
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| >To say that NPR doesn't receive a significant portion of
| its budget from the federal government is a lie
|
| Do you have any evidence of this? Less than 1% of NPR's
| funding comes from federal sources, according to
| wikipedia.
| politician wrote:
| Reread the comment.
| hkt wrote:
| From the Wiki link:
|
| > In 2009, member stations derived 6% of their revenue
| from federal, state and local government funding, 10% of
| their revenue from CPB grants, and 14% of their revenue
| from universities.[34][63] While NPR does not receive any
| direct federal funding, it does receive a small number of
| competitive grants from CPB and federal agencies like the
| Department of Education and the Department of
| Commerce.[34] This funding amounts amounted to less than
| 0.1% of revenues, according to its 2020 public filings.
|
| I'm not from the US so don't know the politics of this
| discussion, but it seems like NPR is funded more by the
| public directly, as well as the public sphere
| (foundations, universities, etc) than by the public
| sector. Do you have a source to the contrary?
| iamerroragent wrote:
| The Federal Government prints the dollar. If you buy
| something with that dollar, did the Federal Government
| fund your expense?
|
| It's just as disingenuous to say NPR is directly funded
| by the Federal government as it is to say NPR receives
| little money from the Federal Government since it gets a
| lot of money from CPB which actually gets money from
| Congress.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_for_Public_Broa
| dca...
| kome wrote:
| > citing the social media platform's decision to label NPR
| "state-affiliated media," the same term it uses for propaganda
| outlets in Russia, China and other autocratic countries.
|
| it's indeed a shame they do it for chinese and russian companies,
| but not the BBC or western european broadcasters...
|
| hell, not even Radio Free Europe is marked as "state-affiliated
| media". If not them, who?
| anoonmoose wrote:
| Twitter themselves had a guide that explained why NPR and BBC
| were not labelled as such, which has been revised since, but is
| still archived.
|
| "State-financed media organizations with editorial
| independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for
| example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the
| purposes of this policy."
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitt...
| kome wrote:
| but this opens the can of worm of defining "editorial
| independence". and I think that speaking of State-financed or
| Publicly-financed is a better.
| ajford wrote:
| Sure. But then can we label SpaceX and Tesla as State-
| Financed? They are both sucking down way more money from
| the US Gov't than NPR is.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-
| su...
|
| https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/tesla-inc
|
| https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/space-
| explor...
| kome wrote:
| omg yes, between banks bailouts, law mandated insurances,
| private-pensions plans and companies with a huge public
| contribution (such as SpaceX); it would finally open the
| eyes to the public how much of "capitalism" is in fact
| politically created and directed.
|
| So yes, I really would like to see this.
| ajford wrote:
| Agreed! I also would love to see the flip-side and have
| congressional reps wear logos like in NASCAR. Let's be
| real fucking clear how many are solidly in the pocket of
| their corporate "donors".
| trasz3 wrote:
| Editorial independence in action: https://www.usagm.gov/who-
| we-are/management-team/john-lansin...
| anoonmoose wrote:
| you are asserting that having ever worked with the
| government necessarily means that you are silently,
| privately doing their editorial bidding on their behalf and
| I do not think that is reasonable or appropriate
| trasz3 wrote:
| There's a subtle difference between "working with" and
| being the CEO.
| stametseater wrote:
| > _Twitter themselves had a guide that explained why NPR and
| BBC were not labelled as such_
|
| > _" State-financed media organizations with editorial
| independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for
| example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the
| purposes of this policy."_
|
| That explains the _what_ , not the _why_. It says they aren
| 't going to consider BBC and NPR as state-affiliated, but not
| _why_ they aren 't going to consider them as state-
| affiliated. "Editorial independence" is a meaningless
| superlative that cannot be empirically measured through any
| means available to twitter.
|
| The "why" is because the "state affiliated" label was meant
| to be innuendo for "untrustworthy" and twitter, under
| previous management, did not consider NPR and BBC
| untrustworthy.
| anoonmoose wrote:
| I think it explains the why quite clearly- editorial
| independence. It's a big deal. NPR is allowed to be
| critical of the US government in a way that RT is not.
| trasz3 wrote:
| Have you ever considered the possible difference between
| what's officially allowed and what's actually happening?
|
| Nowadays, when information is abundant, individual
| stories don't matter all that much; what does matter is
| building the overall narrative. Allowing critical stories
| doesn't affect that.
| anoonmoose wrote:
| Dear guy who brags about ban evasion in his profile on
| his 3-month old account: thanks for getting me to check
| if HN had a block button.
| trasz3 wrote:
| So, does it? xD
| anoonmoose wrote:
| I think you should toss this link in your bio so people
| can see why dang banned you twice.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34018795
| [deleted]
| almost_usual wrote:
| https://twitter.com/logout
| hnburnsy wrote:
| It has the words National and Public right in its name. I'd bet
| many already assume NPR is somehow state related.
|
| On a different note it's last news post on its main account had
| almost a million views. That is a lot of eyeballs to give up, but
| they don't really have advertisers to please.
| retrocryptid wrote:
| Does anyone still use Twitter? I tried to delete my account a
| couple years ago (well before people complained of post-musk
| problems) and couldn't do it.
|
| Not tweeting gives me time to make the award-winning comments [*]
| I'm known for on this platform.
|
| But seriously, what are people using after leaving Twitter? I
| just quit social media sites, didn't go anywhere else.
|
| * yes, this is sarcasm.
| shaunxcode wrote:
| Mass tow dawn.
| r721 wrote:
| Twitter is #5 website by global traffic, according to
| SimilarWeb (6.6B visits/user sessions in Mar 2023):
|
| https://www.similarweb.com/website/twitter.com/#overview
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Headline is incorrect. NPR's label at the time of their departure
| was "government-funded media". Changed after Musk conceded he got
| it wrong with the first label "State affiliated media".
| well_actulily wrote:
| I strongly disagree with the notion that Elon Musk's labeling
| of NPR as 'state-affiliated' was an innocent mistake. In my
| opinion, Musk was well aware of the implications of lumping NPR
| together with propaganda outlets like RT and Xinhua. By doing
| so, he deliberately misrepresented NPR's journalistic integrity
| and reputation as a non-partisan news source. It's clear that
| NPR's objection was not to being labeled 'government-funded,'
| but rather to being unfairly associated with disreputable media
| organizations. This was a calculated move by Musk to undermine
| NPR's credibility and independence.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| There's plenty of skullduggery going on around this
| situation. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/16462280650712
| 92416?s=46...
| fdschoeneman wrote:
| I'm sure NPR does some good work, and while I believe it is
| biased, I've found it to be less biased than CNN or MSNBC. I
| don't understand why NPR objects to being labeled as either state
| funded or state affiliated. It was established by an act of
| Congress, for one thing, and according to its own website, and
| its own disclosures, it does depend on federal funding. And that
| figure is substantially more than the claimed 1%. The 1% funding
| figure is misleading because it implies that the only kind of
| state funding is that coming directly from the federal
| government. The figure is much higher when you consider indirect
| state funding, the fact of NPR taking in dues from affiliates
| that are substantially dependent on federal grants or state and
| local grants or money that comes from public schools and public
| universities, all of which are funded by or subsidized by
| government.
|
| In addition to the 1% figure being a lie, the writer of this
| piece failed to disclose that he is literally an employee of NPR.
| I guess it wasn't difficult to find out, but still...
| lgdskhglsa wrote:
| WBUR is an NPR station, not only is it not difficult to find
| out the writer is an employee of NPR, it's out in the open and
| advertised as such. Do writers need to disclose on every
| article that they're employees of the organization they're
| writing for?
|
| https://www.wbur.org/about
| fdschoeneman wrote:
| I think they should make it clear in the first paragraph when
| they are, in effect, writing about themselves or their
| employer. That's what I would have done.
| kenjackson wrote:
| It does disclose it... this is at the end of the article:
|
| Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media
| Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Acting Chief
| Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Vickie Walton-
| James. NPR's Bobby Allyn and Mary Yang contributed to this
| story. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no
| corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before
| it was posted publicly.
|
| What more do you want?
| fdschoeneman wrote:
| You're right. I either missed it or the disclaimer was added
| after I first read the piece.
|
| I think I'd have preferred it be up front in the first
| paragraph, and that the writer used language making it clear
| he was talking about his own company and not NPR as an entity
| he was able to be objective about. That's what I'd have done.
| kenjackson wrote:
| I'm not sure what you meant about the language to use --
| but I do agree that I'd prefer to see disclosures upfront.
| I know that most NPR podcasts, for example, state the
| disclosure at the start of the podcast. Because honestly, I
| probably only finish about half of the articles I start --
| I know, that's my fault.
| zerocrates wrote:
| The "state affiliated" label on Twitter was originally applied
| to sources that are not editorially independent from their
| states. Twitter put this label on NPR, then removed an explicit
| mention of NPR as non-state-affiliated from their public policy
| related to the label, then removed the mention of editorial
| independence from the policy entirely, then changed the label
| to "state funded."
|
| I think it's easy to see why NPR objected to the initial
| "affiliated" labeling, and that they see the new one as just a
| quick wording change to try to bat back some criticism, but
| that it carries the same stigma.
|
| In terms of the affiliation of the author, this is a story
| written _by_ NPR itself:
| https://www.npr.org/2023/04/12/1169269161/npr-leaves-twitter...
|
| The poster here on HN just happened to post the version from
| WBUR's website. Also, I don't know if it was edited later or
| not, but the piece both on NPR's site and WBUR's site has a
| disclosure at the end explicitly stating that it's NPR
| reporting on itself.
| gloghmalogh wrote:
| maybe it was added in the 12 minutes since you wrote your
| comment but there is a disclaimer at the end stating the writer
| is an NPR correspondent.
| gaoshan wrote:
| State affiliated media indicates state run media... i.e.
| propaganda for the State. NPR is in no way propaganda for the
| State. It's probably the furthest a media outlet could be from
| such a thing. This as an example of people putting their own
| political ideologies above all else and labeling the things that
| don't necessarily support them as propaganda. It's wrong and
| short sighted.
| user3939382 wrote:
| Do you have any examples of them bucking the DNC establishment?
| I've never seen one. AFAICT state propaganda is exactly what
| they are.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| State propaganda and party propaganda are the same thing in
| some countries, but fortunately not in the US.
| LynxInLA wrote:
| Take it as you will, but the example they give is:
|
| > For example, NPR joined with other media organizations to
| press the Obama administration for access to closed hearings
| involving detainees held by U.S. authorities at Guantanamo
| Bay
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| Are you genuinely asking for examples, or are you just
| declaring your opinion in bad faith?
|
| NPR reports on DNC mishaps and criminals all the time:
|
| - https://www.npr.org/2017/11/16/564593737/sen-al-franken-
| accu...
|
| - https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2016/12/12/505309059...
|
| - https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2017/05/19/529119721...
|
| - https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2017/12/04/568336597...
|
| - https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2013/02/20/172480780...
| ghiculescu wrote:
| I don't have a strong view on this yet, but I think some
| links that are less than 5 years old would make your
| argument more compelling.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| NPR are totally propaganda for the State, 100%, without
| reservation. (I used to be a regular listener, back when they
| were tolerable)
| detaro wrote:
| One would've expected a much larger shift in reporting with
| changing governments if that were true.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Why "falsely"? I've been an NPR fan my whole life, but there is
| no denying at all that their coverage of american politics is
| nowhere near impartial. So as long as current party in power is
| aligned with them, they are de-factor state-aligned.
| mikestew wrote:
| _Why "falsely"?_
|
| Because "nowhere near impartial" != "state-affiliated". And
| your attempt to tie the two is a bit lacking.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I think "falsely" because they're primarily viewer supported
| and less than 1% of their budget comes from the government. So
| it's odd for them to get the label when other news outlets like
| BBC and Voice of America (which is literally a state owned
| propaganda outlet) don't
| JohnFen wrote:
| Because it's not state-affiliated or state-sponsored media.
| Saying it is is factually incorrect.
|
| Whether or not it's impartial is a completely different
| conversation.
| theknocker wrote:
| [dead]
| hintymad wrote:
| A criticism of NPR that I often see online is that NPR is
| leftists' propaganda machine (not government's, mind you, but
| democrat's). However, is this criticism true, though? To me, a
| propaganda machine would lie or weave facts to paint false
| pictures. I think it's perfectly okay if a media is either left
| leaning or right leaning. Heck, it's even okay if a media is
| extreme left biased or right biased, as long as the media reports
| facts (I assume opinions are their own rights). The only example
| I saw recently was that NPR blatantly rejected the legitimacy of
| the Hunter Biden's laptop story. I don't agree with NPR's
| decision, but I can definitely give them the benefit of doubt
| that they truly believed that the story was a distraction. So,
| are there any additional data points that show NPR is a
| propaganda machine to some extent?
| luckylion wrote:
| > a propaganda machine would lie or weave facts to paint false
| pictures
|
| A simple propaganda machine would. A sophisticated propaganda
| machine wouldn't want to be seen as a propaganda machine and
| wouldn't go off the rails, but just significantly lean on all
| topics and reports and massage the truth enough to make an
| impact, but not so much to derail the train.
|
| No clue whether that's true for NPR, I think I've only ever
| seen something from them when I randomly discovered Kishi Bashi
| because he did an NPR concert that I enjoyed. But I don't think
| it's useful to say "you've either completely left reality
| whenever it comes to topics concerning your agenda or you're
| not a propaganda machine". Like, if I have a pair of dices that
| I can control, I won't just hit the best throw each time,
| because it won't last. I'll make much more money if I just make
| sure I win 60% of the time.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| https://allthingsreconsidered.buzzsprout.com/
|
| Episode 3 (trans dinosaurs) and the follow up are one good
| example.
|
| But honestly, just turn on your station and listen. Unless
| you're so far left you can't tell the difference, it should be
| pretty obvious - although it was even worse when Trump was
| president.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| In the BBC interview, Musk says they are thinking about changing
| the label to "publicly funded".
|
| Seems like a good compromise.
| poisonarena wrote:
| It is, since 2015-2016 its just awful. I used to love NPR,
| listening to is everyday in the 2000s and first half of 2010s,
| love the podcasts. SOMETHING happened, and it took a whole year
| or so for almost everything to be focused on politics and race
| and trump and I just completely lost interest.
| kgwxd wrote:
| A fascist took office, and now more fascists are taking office.
| When the fascists go, the news can be boring again.
| poisonarena wrote:
| anyone who says 'fascist' that many times in one line wont be
| able to convince me of anything
| hexage1814 wrote:
| Only state-affiliated media from countries we don't like, such as
| China and Russia, should be considered state-affiliated media.
| BBC and NPR get a pass. [/irony]
| LispSporks22 wrote:
| Don't they know when they're being trolled?
| wayeq wrote:
| "At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at
| Twitter," he says. I would need some time to understand whether
| Twitter can be trusted again."
|
| Welcome to the club.
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| Talk about rage quitting. They'll be back.
|
| And whether it's unpopular or not, CPB gets federal and state
| grants for part of their operating budgets . Technically state
| funded or affiliated in the same way auto makers get government
| contracts.
|
| I don't know why they are mad about the designation. Whether it
| implies bias or not, it's true they get state funds, ergo they
| are state funded media.
| orwin wrote:
| The issue is that they are marked as state affiliated, not
| state funded.
|
| And i support every company that receive state funds, directly
| or via tax breaks to be called 'state funded company'. That
| would have interesting repercussions.
| bfeynman wrote:
| Wait wasn't the whole debacle that Twitter had special access
| to govt and received money for them regarding postings? Isn't
| twitter then also state affiliated media?
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| Wahwahwhatabout! We're talking about NPR, not Twitter. And
| the designation doesn't matter.
| colpabar wrote:
| Do you mean the twitter files conspiracy theory? That didn't
| happen, and if it did, it was totally normal, and if it
| wasn't, it was justified.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| [flagged]
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Is "National Car Rental" state-affiliated? "National
| Geographic"?
|
| Do you think the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a
| democracy, too?
| Quillbert182 wrote:
| Keyword is "Public", not "National"
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Public Enemy would like a word.
| chowchowchow wrote:
| Someone better tell Public Storage about this!
| ceejayoz wrote:
| So https://www.publicstorage.com/ is government controlled?
| Quillbert182 wrote:
| Hmm, I see your point. Names can indeed be misleading.
| chowchowchow wrote:
| Another point is it's facile to try to make arguments
| based on semantics. "Their name has public in it" is not
| a serious rebuttal to "It's not government media."
| Entinel wrote:
| The National Rifle Association is probably more government
| affiliated than NPR
| ajford wrote:
| Given how many congressman NRA owns, it's more like the
| government is NRA-affiliated...
|
| NRA gets to run the show while the public pays the price.
| md_ wrote:
| Many countries have publicly funded/editorially independent
| broadcasters. Of the below, none seem to be listed as "state
| affiliated":
|
| https://twitter.com/bbc https://twitter.com/deutschewelle
| https://twitter.com/srf https://twitter.com/radiofrance
| https://twitter.com/CBCNews
| kome wrote:
| They put it for BBC now. And that's good.
| md_ wrote:
| Hah, funny. This is how policy changes happen in the Musk
| era: a juvenile troll, followed by an embarrassingly
| transparent attempt to cover it up.
|
| The joke is on all of us for giving this silly man our
| attention. I regret that I even know about this "news
| story."
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Musk disagrees.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65248196
|
| > Mr Musk said Twitter was adjusting the label for the BBC
| to "publicly-funded". "We're trying to be accurate," he
| said.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > "We're trying to be accurate," he said.
|
| This is hilarious. Musk is trying to be a lot of things,
| but "accurate" is clearly not one one of them.
| shmatt wrote:
| as others have mentioned Twitter and Tesla get more government
| funds than NPR. The US governments budget is pretty big and
| handouts are plenty
| piva00 wrote:
| You should consider the context of using that label on Twitter,
| not just the label name itself. State-affiliated label on
| Twitter means something as "biased", it's not used on its pure
| definition in a vacuum. That's the problem.
| yonaguska wrote:
| NPR is biased though. Extremely so.
| Spivak wrote:
| Not in any way that doesn't label literally everything
| anyone says as biased. When was the last time you actually
| listened to one of their news broadcasts? They are
| annoyingly neutral both sidesing issues where one side is
| clearly insane and doesn't represent anyone's real views
| except the one guy who found a megaphone. If there's a bill
| in the statehouse recognizing puppies as cute they'll find
| the one guy who's anti-dog and willing to die on that hill.
|
| Extremely biased is Jon Stewart, a person who does a news
| broadcast with the express purpose to take a stance and say
| something.
| geoffeg wrote:
| Isn't every news organization to some extent?
| https://my.lwv.org/california/torrance-area/article/how-
| reli...
| fknorangesite wrote:
| Yes, everything and everyone is, because they are humans.
|
| But _it doesn 't matter_; the government does not have any
| editorial control over NPR. That's what "state affiliated"
| means.
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| You say this but the subject matter of their journalists
| implies certain preferences that are aligned with the
| government's.
|
| Until NPR starts including journalistoc voices that are
| critical of ESG, abortion access, and other pet projects
| the current administration is fond of then the
| designation is apt.
|
| NPR used to be a great news source in the 90s and 2000s.
| That hasn't been the case since about 2012.
| piva00 wrote:
| > Until NPR starts including journalistoc voices that are
| critical of ESG, abortion access, and other pet projects
| the current administration is fond of then the
| designation is apt.
|
| I don't understand, the NPR bias was there when those
| were not pet projects of whatever government under Trump,
| correct? So why does a change in government then changes
| the stance of NPR if that stance was there before the
| current government took power?
|
| Also, being critical of abortion access is simply stupid
| in 2023, it's founded on religious grounds and I don't
| think religion should be part of any social policy
| discussion... Requiring a journalistic institution to
| cater to "both sides" is either naive or absurdly stupid.
| fknorangesite wrote:
| Being biased or having a specific political stance is not
| the same thing as state affiliation; it's just ...
| (dis)agreeing with policies. Were they "state affiliated"
| during the Trump admin?
|
| The harping on their bias in this thread is ridiculous,
| because unless the government is telling them what to
| write, it's entirely irrelevant.
|
| > NPR used to be a great news source in the 90s and
| 2000s. That hasn't been the case since about 2012.
|
| SO FUCKING WHAT. Maybe they're useless garbage now, maybe
| not, but either way that still doesn't make them a
| government mouthpiece.
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| > SO FUCKING WHAT. Maybe they're useless garbage now,
| maybe not, but either way that still doesn't make them a
| government mouthpiece.
|
| Like I said, until they're critical of the administration
| like they were with Bush Jr, then they are nothing more
| than a mouthpiece of the current administration.
| fknorangesite wrote:
| They may _choose_ to say things in favor of the
| government (or not), but that is still fundamentally
| different than the government _telling_ them what to say,
| which is what "state affiliated" means.
|
| Don't pretend you don't know the difference.
| zackees wrote:
| [dead]
| JohnFen wrote:
| Because it's not accurate.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| If thats the threshold, then a whole bunch of other entities
| should get the "state funded" label, and get it soon.
| stametseater wrote:
| When Twitter originally created the "state-affiliated" label,
| the implied meaning was _" propaganda rag that you shouldn't
| trust."_ It wasn't meant to be applied to any media
| organization that receives state funding, only those that go
| against the American mainstream zeitgeist, e.g. the narratives
| you'll read in the NYTimes _or NPR_. This label was never meant
| to mean precisely what it says at face value.
| [deleted]
| LastTrain wrote:
| Because it isn't, and it has negative connotations? You know
| and understand this. We know you know and understand it - you
| aren't fooling anyone.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| It was an even bigger joke that the BBC rejected the label. The
| government literally imposes a radio tax to fund the Service,
| and pays more out of general funds for global coverage.
| anoonmoose wrote:
| It disregards editorial control, which was part of how Twitter
| used to decide this.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitt...
|
| "State-financed media organizations with editorial
| independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for
| example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the
| purposes of this policy."
| trasz3 wrote:
| Except this is a pure marketing talk, ie this phrase
| literally doesn't mean anything quantifiable. Unless you're
| trying to argue that NPR's CEO, which came directly from US
| government propaganda agency, maintains "editorial
| independence" in some magic, American-specific way.
| md_ wrote:
| I think it's funny that all the Americans/Russians
| commenting here seem to believe there are only two public
| broadcasters in the world: RT, and NPR. And that Twitter
| was merely being unfair by not labeling NPR as "state
| affiliated." ;)
|
| In fact, as I noted elsewhere in this thread, there are
| many (dozens?) of other public broadcasters around the
| world, most of which are not labeled as "state affiliated"
| --apparently in keeping with Twitter's (IMO reasonable)
| distinction between "state controlled" and "state
| funded/editorially independent."
|
| Musk's eye of Sauron fell upon NPR--and only NPR, not
| Deutsche Welle or Radio France or CBC or BBC or any of the
| other respected independent public broadcasters--because he
| is, in the American sense, a right-wing nutjob with an ax
| to grind.
|
| That Twitter would bend their principles--in either
| direction--to American domestic politics in such a
| transparent way should give users, especially those who are
| not interested in American culture wars, pause.
| trasz3 wrote:
| >Musk's eye of Sauron fell upon NPR--and only NPR, not
| Deutsche Welle or Radio France or CBC or BBC
|
| Well, sure, but you gotta start somewhere. At least this
| is a move in the right direction; let's hope for similar
| labelling for other media that deserve it.
| md_ wrote:
| I assume Musk will get distracted by something else--a
| bathroom-humor pun off the name of one of his companies,
| say, or realizing that 4/20 is just around the corner
| again, or the implacable, unconquerable, immutable
| existential sadness of realizing that he's truly alone in
| this world with nobody, despite all his wealth and power,
| whom he can trust truly loves him--before he realizes
| there are public broadcasters in other countries.
|
| C'est la vie. It's hard being at the top (depending on
| the stock price on a given day).
| bink wrote:
| It's sad to see that so far much of the conversation here
| is going exactly how Twitter would prefer it goes...
| focused on whether 1% of funding qualifies as "state
| affiliated". When the real story is that Musk decided to
| arbitrarily target an organization based on his
| presumptions about its political beliefs.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > When the real story is that Musk decided to arbitrarily
| target an organization based on his presumptions about
| its political beliefs.
|
| I'm assuming that people aren't dwelling on that because
| everyone already agrees that's the case.
| retrac wrote:
| Whether CBC is actually neutral and non-partisan is something
| of a perennial political issue in Canada. I personally would
| say it is. A lot of the country disagrees. The opposition
| party wishes to cancel it. Opinion polls indicate the public
| believes it to be the most partisan major broadcaster in
| Canada.
|
| Twitter will be wading into some very turbulent waters if
| they're going to start deciding which public broadcasters are
| "editorially independent" and which are not. Especially since
| there's no real consensus on the question in some of the
| countries which run them.
| anoonmoose wrote:
| The policy I linked isn't new, just recently updated- they
| started wading into those waters a long time ago.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Even if there's no official interference, one must ask
| themselves: could people working at the public broadcaster
| have their careers on hold if they don't push the correct
| narrative?
|
| When the media landscape is disproportionally dominated by
| one state-backed entity (so it really doesn't have to
| compete with anyone else), you can't just jump to your
| competitor...
|
| Also, could pushing the correct narrative land them a cushy
| non-elected government job?
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's like saying Federal Express is state affiliated.
| dahwolf wrote:
| Whilst I admit that Musk is needlessly erratic, unpredictable and
| troll-like in these matters, part of me enjoys the pushback
| against legacy media on Twitter.
|
| They've come into power by riding the Twitter hate train,
| maximally exploiting the algorithm that rewards rage and
| division. Lowering standards for journalism to a mere shadow of
| its former self. And yet they always have clean hands and are
| perfectly neutral, according to themselves.
|
| Regardless of where you stand on this, it's interesting to watch.
| Journalists don't really have anywhere else to go. Their status
| and reach is exclusive to Twitter and cannot easily be replicated
| elsewhere.
| zenlf wrote:
| I'm surprised that NPR is still held with high regards after they
| just ignored Hunter Biden's story and justify it with "not really
| stories".
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| NPR lost the influence that it once had on Twitter, controlling
| narrative that suited their political ideology. So, it quit.
| That's great new for Twitter.
|
| NPR is far worse than a state-affiliated media. Its coverage
| during the riots and protests following the accidental murder of
| George Floyd focused on "racially disproportionate policing". It
| wasn't journalism. It was BLM protest using NPR as a microphone.
| There wasn't a single show that discussed crime statistics.
| Policing methods were discussed to the extent that it suited the
| narrative that cops in America are a racist militant group.
| stametseater wrote:
| > _It wasn 't journalism. It was BLM protest using NPR as a
| microphone._
|
| Sounds like journalism to me. Journalism has never meant nor
| implied 'impartial reporting.'
| pionar wrote:
| > that it suited the narrative that cops in America are a
| racist militant group.
|
| I mean, they are, so where's the lie?
| annexrichmond wrote:
| So much of this article reads like an op-ed that I can't take it
| seriously.
|
| Edit: for the downvoters, some excerpts:
|
| > The BBC exchange showed Musk as alternately conciliatory and
| erratic.
|
| According to whom?
|
| > He also said that he's sleeping on a couch at work, that he
| followed through on his promise to purchase Twitter only because
| a judge forced him to, and that he should stop tweeting after 3
| a.m.
|
| this is a lot to say without any specific quotes
|
| > Like so many policy decisions at the social network of late,
| Musk applied the label to NPR's Twitter account abruptly. It's
| still not clear why he became so animated about the issue.
|
| Heavy use of adverbs and adjectives is like injecting opinion.
|
| > For years, many journalists considered Twitter critical to
| monitoring news developments, to connect with people at major
| events and with authoritative sources, and to share their
| coverage. Musk's often hastily announced policy changes have
| undermined that.
|
| Again, according to who??
| newfonewhodis wrote:
| If you want "objective" just watch the BBC interview?
| [deleted]
| tptacek wrote:
| My general take on this is that people can make whatever
| arguments they want about whether NPR is According-To-Hoyle state
| media (I don't think it is, by the spirit of the term, but it's a
| gnarly enough question that I wouldn't want to burn a whole
| thread trying to hash it out).
|
| The real issue here is: if Twitter is going to continue to be ad-
| sponsored for commercial viability, running a social media
| platform that chases National Public Radio off is very bad for
| business. You already have major national brands hesitant to re-
| engage there (whether you like their reasons or not). Playing
| chicken with NPR and losing is an awfully powerful arrow to put
| in the anti-Twitter quiver at those companies.
|
| I wouldn't want to look at this through the lens of politics, so
| much as just plain mismanagement. It's part of a broader theme of
| Twitter, which depends utterly on user-generated content, doing
| things to deliberately antagonize the minority of their user base
| that actually produces content people want to see.
| andsoitis wrote:
| _" At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at
| Twitter," he says. "I would need some time to understand whether
| Twitter can be trusted again."_
| aeternum wrote:
| Translation: We saw a great opportunity to generate some
| profitable controversy but will likely be back on twitter in a
| few months.
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