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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'

#821

Post by jfengel »

bdhe wrote: post #581
jrussino wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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).

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.

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

#822

Post by dragonwriter »

PathOfEclipse wrote: post #774
daemoens wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

> 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.

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

#823

Post by stiltzkin »

vicktour wrote: post #482
poisonarena wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

There is a following accounts tab, and you can make lists to improve your your timeline.

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

#824

Post by CodeWriter23 »

well_actulily wrote: post #488
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #371

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”.

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 'gove…

There’s plenty of skullduggery going on around this situation. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1646228065071292416?s=46...

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

#825

Post by photochemsyn »

JohnFen wrote: post #252
photochemsyn wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> '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".

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'.

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

#826

Post by cauch »

flavius29663 wrote: post #698
pclmulqdq wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think about Al Jazeera's funding and level of control?

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 laughabl…

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.

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

#827

Post by jprd »

just-ok wrote: post #811
sigmar wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you realize that "State-affiliated" has a very different meaning than "received government funds"

Of course, but NPR's origins are from a government-controlled organization.

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.

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

#828

Post by 1123581321 »

smoldesu wrote: post #807
1123581321 wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

#829

Post by bagels »

maaand wrote: post #718
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.

Do you also get your news from SpaceX and Tesla?

No, but why not label them as "state affiliated space company" and "state affiliated automobile manufacturer"

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

#830

Post by hklgny »

Kye wrote: post #632
brewdad wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

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.

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