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NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

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Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#721

Post by 1123581321 »

icehawk wrote: post #532
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The internet blew its moment. But onboarding—specifically, choosing an ISP—was too tedious for non-niche adoption.

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.

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#722

Post by d23 »

scarface74 wrote: post #551
yossarian1408 wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And Fox News had a direct line to the White House and was influenced heavily by it. Was it not just as biased?

As biased as Fox News is, it would be completely ridiculous to call it state-affiliated media.

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#723

Post by AnthonyMouse »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #524
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 report…

> 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

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.

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#725

Post by gnramires »

tppiotrowski wrote: post #321
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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).

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#726

Post by xibo9 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #241

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.

Who gets to say what is sane moderation? Sane is not something I would ascribe to Musk.

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#727

Post by daemoens »

rjzzleep wrote: post #602
lostlogin wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

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.

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#728

Post by Diesel555 »

rbanffy wrote: post #634
yossarian1408 wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Twitter and its curation and targeting mechanisms make it very much a publisher.

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.

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#729

Post by Georgelemental »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #337
bagels wrote: post #317

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.

> 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.

[flagged]

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#730

Post by meerita »

bagels wrote: post #317

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.

I didn't realized Twitter was a media company and not a social network.
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