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%?
It's also interesting that we don't see the state affiliated label on SpaceX yet.
NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'
151–160 of 1001 posts
Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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.
Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'
#153They 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.
this is true for any account, especially since algorithmic sorting was introduced and then amplified with the introduction of 'For You'.
Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'
#154Well, 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 suppo…
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...see…
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.
Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
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.
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...
Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
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... .
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.
No, my argument is that an institution managed by past government officials cannot be unironically called independent from said government.
Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If NPR doesn’t wish to accept the label it should refuse government funding.
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'.
Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'
#158They 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.
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.
Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'
#159I 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/20…
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.
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.
Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'
#160Yeah, 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.
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)