7 ms·

Twitter labels NPR's account as 'state-affiliated media', which is untrue

61 points by dagenix 4y ago

g42gregory 4y ago
State affiliation is not just about funding. Per Twitter guidelines: "How state-affiliated media accounts are defined 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."
S33V 4y ago
Here's Twitter's documentation on how they identify state-affiliated media[1]. This excerpt makes the decision seem outside of the defined process: 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 for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy. [1] https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affilia...
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  If you look in the article, it links to an archived copy of the same document, which included NPR alongside the BBC.
- brucethemoose2 4y ago
  Could the British government influence BBC stories if they really went of the rails and attacked the govt? I am not British and don't have a good feel for the BBC, though I am fairly confident NPR can do government hit stories and such.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    Yes, both indirectly and directly. Indirectly, in that BBC editorial policy is a regular political football, especially with conservatives. Directly (and like all other media) though a 'D notice.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSMA-Notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSMA-Notice
  - plandis 4y ago
    Didn’t the BBC recently take a soccer announcer off the air after he was critical of the conservative government?
- ncr100 4y ago
  EDIT: Removed fluff. Q: At what point is Twitter itself a source of misinformation, or disinformation? Q: At what point Could this labeling trigger reasonable legal action, around Twitter's apparent conscientious selective moderation => making Twitter "responsible" for everyone's tweets, by NPR?
- rektide 4y ago
  Just one example, the NPR article on NPR laying a bunch of people off has this disclosure at the end: > Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Acting Chief Business Editor Emily Kopp. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly. https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158710498/npr-layoffs-2023 https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158710498/npr-layoffs-2023 This is a protocol specifically on "reporting on [themselves]" but it's a solid-ish example of the org not being a top-down controlled entity, and indeed, of making sure the org can report transparently on itself. NPR feels extremely not government controlled.
paulpauper 4y ago
I think there should be an appeal process. Hard to say either way. I have seen NPR publish negative stories about Biden too.
- firstlink 4y ago
  Pointing out that Biden is a geriatric fraud hardly runs against the interests of the state. He's not at the helm.
- pie420 4y ago
  You realize even Stalin's USSR allowed controlled opposition and occaisional articles critical of the government in order to give the illusion of freedom and dissent, right? Propaganda has evolved into a much more sophisticated beast since then.
  - dingosity 4y ago
    So... what's your point here? That NPR is controlled by Stalin? or the Soviet Union? or Lyndon Larouche?
brucethemoose2 4y ago
Seems like "Follow Musk's daily musings" is the #1 Twitter rule that supercedes their other policies.
xqcgrek2 4y ago
Youtube also labels NPR. Twitter is correct in labeling them state affiliated.
- dingosity 4y ago
  Yes. Youtube applies the label "NPR is an American Public Broadcasting service." It applies the label "VOA is funded in whole or in part by the American government" to the VOA channel. Note that the two labels are not the same. Interestingly, it does not label the @DeptOfDefense account at all. And it's not just US institutions, they label the Al Jazeera English channel with "Al Jazeera is funded in whole or in part by the Qatari government." I think what I'm saying is, if YouTube believed NPR got all of it's funding from the US Government, it would label it differently than it does. And YouTube's labeling seems to be incomplete (otherwise certainly the department of defense channel would have a label.) Which leads to my conclusion... maybe you shouldn't depend on YouTube as the arbiter of what is and what isn't funded by various governments.
moose_man 4y ago
The US government does not control NPR this is ridiculous. If they did, why are they laying people off over funding? They get most of their money from foundations and corporate sponsors. Who in the US government could control it? Congress, the President? the Top-Secret deep state? This is a bad look for Musk because it isn't even logical. Does Musk not remember the decade where all NPR programs were "sponsored by Audible" or "brought to by Audible"? I got so sick of hearing about audible.com and its great selection of audiobooks.
2022-11-07 4y ago
This is not a very convincing defense. Most foreign outlets Twitter and US media label state-affiliated are not directly controlled by the state. It's more like, hey, this institution gets a lot of its funding from, or has close ties to, the state, so just watch out for that which is 100% true here. NPR was literally created by an act of congress. You can't be honest and say in good faith it's not state affiliated.
- kevincrane 4y ago
  Except when you read the article, you saw a description from Twitter and link saying: > 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://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated-china https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affilia...
  - 2022-11-07 4y ago
    Even though that help page contradicts their decision to label it as state-affiliated media, it does not change the fact that NPR is state affiliated media. Maybe they just forgot to remove NPR as an example when they changed their designation?
    - pugworthy 4y ago
      So when does Voice of America get the designation? Or Stars and Stripes? Both of them are 100% state-affiliated media - no gray line at all. And tag every affiliate NPR station's Twitter account too?
- Dudelander 4y ago
  It does not get a lot of funding from the state. And every competent media outlet has contacts in government.
- dingosity 4y ago
  And it was defunded by an act of congress as well. So... your point is... congress once gave them a fair chunk of change and now they don't but that doesn't matter because they once gave them a lot of cash. That's like saying my parents still control me because they gave me an allowance in jr. high school.
nyerp 4y ago
The article states "More than 99% of NPR's funds do not come from federal sources" and yet elaborates "NPR ... gets the bulk of its direct financial support from two sources: sponsorships and fees paid by hundreds of member stations." How are those member stations funded? Through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives a $465 million federal appropration each year. So can the Federal Government exert pressure through "financial resources" or "indirect political pressure", per the Twitter policy? You bet. Does the NPR model naturally align itself to bigger government with more grant-making power? Definitely. I think Twitter could have come down on either side. It's a grey area. But how could the NPR story fail to mention the $465 million? See also https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance... where NPR makes the opposite argument, namely, that "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."
- vannevar 4y ago
  By this same logic, all television networks are "state-affiliated media", because they all depend on local stations that hold federally-granted broadcast licenses. So add Fox Broadcasting, NBC, CBS, etc., etc. to your list.
  - stusmall 4y ago
    Also with the same logic Tesla is "state-affiliated". Federal subsidies on sales have been a critical part of their business model. I think people are arguing that is label makes sense are really losing the thread of the point of the label. Is it possible for the Federal government to exert pressure on the organization? Honestly, that's true of any person or organization that has any financial dealings that touch the US. It's really hard to argue in good faith that NPR is a mouth piece of the state like RT or Xinhua.
  - krapp 4y ago
    The logic being applied here is the baseline of American conservative logic that all mainstream media, excepting Fox News of course, is controlled by an organized leftist cabal that takes their orders directly from the Democratic Party. They mistrust NPR and PBS in particular (and have for decades,) considering them nothing but organs for Marxist propaganda. As with the "Twitter Files" this is just an attempt to normalize right-wing conspiracy theory under the facade of neutrality.
fwlr 4y ago
NPR makes a good case that the “funded by the state” clause isn’t applicable to them. Directly is knockdown, they have that “less than 1%” statistic. Indirect funding clause seems like a wash - they are supported by member fees, which some members pay with state grants and others pay with revenue. Distribution is also clearly not controlled by the state, production is less clear but probably still not materially so. Which leaves “state editorial control” as the likely cause of this. Many people would say the state doesn’t have editorial control of NPR, many others would say it does. Editorial influence likewise.
- egberts1 4y ago
  Please ignore the $465M that NPR affiliated stations received from Federal government. See also https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance... where NPR makes the opposite argument, namely, that "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."
  - fwlr 4y ago
    That $465M number is how much government grant money goes to the group “stations who are paying NPR member fees”. The two obvious questions are 1. how much is that as a fraction of the total income of the group “stations who are paying NPR member fees”, and 2. how much of NPR’s revenue is from member fees. Searching around, the first is variously quoted as 6%, 11.4%, or 16%, while second seems to be consistently quoted as about 50%. So the loose bounds on indirect Federal funding for NPR are “more than 3% and less than 16%” - not a very compelling fraction, but not insignificant, so therefore it’s a wash. In any case, Federal funding is just one clause of the “state controlled media” qualification and the argument for or against NPR receiving this status largely rests on the other clause that is concerned with state editorial control. This is a more subjective question and one that Elon (and thus Twitter) appears to have answered in the affirmative.
tailspin2019 4y ago
> NPR ... initially assumed it was applied by mistake, NPR spokesperson Isabel Lara said. "We were not warned. It happened quite suddenly last night," Lara said. > 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... Sigh.
dzhiurgis 4y ago
Is there a list of similar media companies? NPR, BBC, RNZ, NHK, LRT are pretty much my goto’s, but would love to find more, esp. in English.
- oska 4y ago
  > but would love to find more, esp. in English RT, Press TV, the Global Times And I'm not trying to be cute here. If you're only looking at Western state media (all that you've listed) then you're getting a very one-sided view of the world.
monkaiju 4y ago
Idk why anyone wishing to be taken seriously is still on the bird site...
dingosity 4y ago
NPR gets a lower percentage of it's funding from the US government than Exxon gets from government petro subsidies. Should we label Exxon as state-affiliated media?
lowkey 4y ago
Quote from NPR’s own website[0]: “Public Radio and 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) 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. These station programming fees comprise a significant portion of NPR's largest source of revenue. The loss of federal funding would undermine the stations' ability to pay NPR for programming, thereby weakening the institution.” [0] https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...

61 points by dagenix 4y ago

State affiliation is not just about funding. Per Twitter guidelines: "How state-affiliated media accounts are defined 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."

S33V 4y ago

Here's Twitter's documentation on how they identify state-affiliated media[1]. This excerpt makes the decision seem outside of the defined process: 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 for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy. [1] https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affilia...

anigbrowl 4y ago
If you look in the article, it links to an archived copy of the same document, which included NPR alongside the BBC.
brucethemoose2 4y ago
Could the British government influence BBC stories if they really went of the rails and attacked the govt? I am not British and don't have a good feel for the BBC, though I am fairly confident NPR can do government hit stories and such.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  Yes, both indirectly and directly. Indirectly, in that BBC editorial policy is a regular political football, especially with conservatives. Directly (and like all other media) though a 'D notice.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSMA-Notice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSMA-Notice
- plandis 4y ago
  Didn’t the BBC recently take a soccer announcer off the air after he was critical of the conservative government?
ncr100 4y ago
EDIT: Removed fluff. Q: At what point is Twitter itself a source of misinformation, or disinformation? Q: At what point Could this labeling trigger reasonable legal action, around Twitter's apparent conscientious selective moderation => making Twitter "responsible" for everyone's tweets, by NPR?
rektide 4y ago
Just one example, the NPR article on NPR laying a bunch of people off has this disclosure at the end: > Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Acting Chief Business Editor Emily Kopp. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly. https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158710498/npr-layoffs-2023 https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158710498/npr-layoffs-2023 This is a protocol specifically on "reporting on [themselves]" but it's a solid-ish example of the org not being a top-down controlled entity, and indeed, of making sure the org can report transparently on itself. NPR feels extremely not government controlled.

paulpauper 4y ago

I think there should be an appeal process. Hard to say either way. I have seen NPR publish negative stories about Biden too.

firstlink 4y ago
Pointing out that Biden is a geriatric fraud hardly runs against the interests of the state. He's not at the helm.
pie420 4y ago
You realize even Stalin's USSR allowed controlled opposition and occaisional articles critical of the government in order to give the illusion of freedom and dissent, right? Propaganda has evolved into a much more sophisticated beast since then.
- dingosity 4y ago
  So... what's your point here? That NPR is controlled by Stalin? or the Soviet Union? or Lyndon Larouche?

brucethemoose2 4y ago

Seems like "Follow Musk's daily musings" is the #1 Twitter rule that supercedes their other policies.

xqcgrek2 4y ago

Youtube also labels NPR. Twitter is correct in labeling them state affiliated.

dingosity 4y ago
Yes. Youtube applies the label "NPR is an American Public Broadcasting service." It applies the label "VOA is funded in whole or in part by the American government" to the VOA channel. Note that the two labels are not the same. Interestingly, it does not label the @DeptOfDefense account at all. And it's not just US institutions, they label the Al Jazeera English channel with "Al Jazeera is funded in whole or in part by the Qatari government." I think what I'm saying is, if YouTube believed NPR got all of it's funding from the US Government, it would label it differently than it does. And YouTube's labeling seems to be incomplete (otherwise certainly the department of defense channel would have a label.) Which leads to my conclusion... maybe you shouldn't depend on YouTube as the arbiter of what is and what isn't funded by various governments.

moose_man 4y ago

The US government does not control NPR this is ridiculous. If they did, why are they laying people off over funding? They get most of their money from foundations and corporate sponsors. Who in the US government could control it? Congress, the President? the Top-Secret deep state? This is a bad look for Musk because it isn't even logical. Does Musk not remember the decade where all NPR programs were "sponsored by Audible" or "brought to by Audible"? I got so sick of hearing about audible.com and its great selection of audiobooks.

2022-11-07 4y ago

This is not a very convincing defense. Most foreign outlets Twitter and US media label state-affiliated are not directly controlled by the state. It's more like, hey, this institution gets a lot of its funding from, or has close ties to, the state, so just watch out for that which is 100% true here. NPR was literally created by an act of congress. You can't be honest and say in good faith it's not state affiliated.

kevincrane 4y ago
Except when you read the article, you saw a description from Twitter and link saying: > 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://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated-china https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affilia...
- 2022-11-07 4y ago
  Even though that help page contradicts their decision to label it as state-affiliated media, it does not change the fact that NPR is state affiliated media. Maybe they just forgot to remove NPR as an example when they changed their designation?
  - pugworthy 4y ago
    So when does Voice of America get the designation? Or Stars and Stripes? Both of them are 100% state-affiliated media - no gray line at all. And tag every affiliate NPR station's Twitter account too?
Dudelander 4y ago
It does not get a lot of funding from the state. And every competent media outlet has contacts in government.
dingosity 4y ago
And it was defunded by an act of congress as well. So... your point is... congress once gave them a fair chunk of change and now they don't but that doesn't matter because they once gave them a lot of cash. That's like saying my parents still control me because they gave me an allowance in jr. high school.

nyerp 4y ago

The article states "More than 99% of NPR's funds do not come from federal sources" and yet elaborates "NPR ... gets the bulk of its direct financial support from two sources: sponsorships and fees paid by hundreds of member stations." How are those member stations funded? Through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives a $465 million federal appropration each year. So can the Federal Government exert pressure through "financial resources" or "indirect political pressure", per the Twitter policy? You bet. Does the NPR model naturally align itself to bigger government with more grant-making power? Definitely. I think Twitter could have come down on either side. It's a grey area. But how could the NPR story fail to mention the $465 million? See also https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance... where NPR makes the opposite argument, namely, that "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."

vannevar 4y ago
By this same logic, all television networks are "state-affiliated media", because they all depend on local stations that hold federally-granted broadcast licenses. So add Fox Broadcasting, NBC, CBS, etc., etc. to your list.
- stusmall 4y ago
  Also with the same logic Tesla is "state-affiliated". Federal subsidies on sales have been a critical part of their business model. I think people are arguing that is label makes sense are really losing the thread of the point of the label. Is it possible for the Federal government to exert pressure on the organization? Honestly, that's true of any person or organization that has any financial dealings that touch the US. It's really hard to argue in good faith that NPR is a mouth piece of the state like RT or Xinhua.
- krapp 4y ago
  The logic being applied here is the baseline of American conservative logic that all mainstream media, excepting Fox News of course, is controlled by an organized leftist cabal that takes their orders directly from the Democratic Party. They mistrust NPR and PBS in particular (and have for decades,) considering them nothing but organs for Marxist propaganda. As with the "Twitter Files" this is just an attempt to normalize right-wing conspiracy theory under the facade of neutrality.

fwlr 4y ago

NPR makes a good case that the “funded by the state” clause isn’t applicable to them. Directly is knockdown, they have that “less than 1%” statistic. Indirect funding clause seems like a wash - they are supported by member fees, which some members pay with state grants and others pay with revenue. Distribution is also clearly not controlled by the state, production is less clear but probably still not materially so. Which leaves “state editorial control” as the likely cause of this. Many people would say the state doesn’t have editorial control of NPR, many others would say it does. Editorial influence likewise.

egberts1 4y ago
Please ignore the $465M that NPR affiliated stations received from Federal government. See also https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance... where NPR makes the opposite argument, namely, that "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."
- fwlr 4y ago
  That $465M number is how much government grant money goes to the group “stations who are paying NPR member fees”. The two obvious questions are 1. how much is that as a fraction of the total income of the group “stations who are paying NPR member fees”, and 2. how much of NPR’s revenue is from member fees. Searching around, the first is variously quoted as 6%, 11.4%, or 16%, while second seems to be consistently quoted as about 50%. So the loose bounds on indirect Federal funding for NPR are “more than 3% and less than 16%” - not a very compelling fraction, but not insignificant, so therefore it’s a wash. In any case, Federal funding is just one clause of the “state controlled media” qualification and the argument for or against NPR receiving this status largely rests on the other clause that is concerned with state editorial control. This is a more subjective question and one that Elon (and thus Twitter) appears to have answered in the affirmative.

tailspin2019 4y ago

> NPR ... initially assumed it was applied by mistake, NPR spokesperson Isabel Lara said. "We were not warned. It happened quite suddenly last night," Lara said. > 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... Sigh.

dzhiurgis 4y ago

Is there a list of similar media companies? NPR, BBC, RNZ, NHK, LRT are pretty much my goto’s, but would love to find more, esp. in English.

oska 4y ago
> but would love to find more, esp. in English RT, Press TV, the Global Times And I'm not trying to be cute here. If you're only looking at Western state media (all that you've listed) then you're getting a very one-sided view of the world.

monkaiju 4y ago

Idk why anyone wishing to be taken seriously is still on the bird site...

dingosity 4y ago

NPR gets a lower percentage of it's funding from the US government than Exxon gets from government petro subsidies. Should we label Exxon as state-affiliated media?

lowkey 4y ago

Quote from NPR’s own website[0]: “Public Radio and 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) 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. These station programming fees comprise a significant portion of NPR's largest source of revenue. The loss of federal funding would undermine the stations' ability to pay NPR for programming, thereby weakening the institution.” [0] https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...