4 ms·

Pretty clearly disingenuous on Twitter's part. Whether you agree with content on NPR or not, it doesn't change depending who is in power. It would have been non

by qgin 4y ago

Pretty clearly disingenuous on Twitter's part. Whether you agree with content on NPR or not, it doesn't change depending who is in power. It would have been nonsensical to apply this label during the last administration.

rchaud 4y ago
[flagged]
- dang 4y ago
  Maybe so, but please don't fulminate or call names or do flamewar on HN. I'm not saying you owe $billionaire better but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
gitfan86 4y ago
NPR is pretty anti Trump. If anything they are anti government when Republicans are in charge.
xienze 4y ago
> Whether you agree with content on NPR or not, it doesn't change depending who is in power. Well first, we don’t exactly have wholesale government purges at the federal level. Second, how is it inaccurate to say NPR is affiliated with the government? It is. Methinks the real reason behind the outrage is because the original use of the “state affiliated” label on Twitter was to give a subtle “watch out, these guys are probably spewing propaganda!” warning. Much the same way that the blue checkmarks are ostensibly “we’ve verified that this person is who they say they are” but over time it morphed into a “stamp of approval” for the person.
- qgin 4y ago
  Unless we're listing out all the sources of funding the various media organizations have, what would be the new use of this label if not to say "watch out"?
  - xienze 4y ago
    The use should have always been to simply note which sources are affiliated in some way with a state government, not to be a subtle attack on sources that Twitter doesn’t like. Affiliation doesn’t mean “controlled by”, it means there is a link between the two. NPR takes some amount of taxpayer money. Like it or not, they are affiliated with the US government. Same with the BBC and the UK. This wouldn’t have even been a big deal if Twitter had originally been direct with labeling, instead of trying to hide double meaning within labels that can act as dogwhistles. Should Twitter as it stands today, apply the label more universally? Sure. But the fact that it didn’t in the past ties back to the original point, that Twitter wanted to label certain outlets as being propaganda mouthpieces while at the same time being able to hide behind “hey, we didn’t say _propaganda_, we just said _state affiliated!_”
    - qgin 4y ago
      They never tried to hide any double meaning. It was pretty explicit when they launched the label: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2020/new-labels-for-government-and-state-affiliated-media-accounts https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2020/new-label... > Unlike independent media, state-affiliated media frequently use their news coverage as a means to advance a political agenda. We believe that people have the right to know when a media account is affiliated directly or indirectly with a state actor. State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, will not be labeled.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Second, how is it inaccurate to say NPR is affiliated with the government? It’s inaccurate given that the Twitter explicitly defines that label to refer to editorial control, not funding.
misssocrates 4y ago
Case in point: They went hard against the prior government. They are not technically state-affiliated as they don't take orders from the state, but are in effect state-aligned in all the ways that matter. It's ideological alignment. To be more precise you could say they are ideologically-affiliated with the establishment elite.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  Anyone with any political opinions at all is ideologically aligned in that sense, making them ideologically affiliated with anyone sharing that alignment. NPR, as it happens, has run many stories that seemed aligned with the right or the left, depending on the subject. They're generally pro-military and pro-wealth, while being against racism and censorship, so it's not as if they're either all left-wing or all right-wing.
yucky 4y ago
Someone else mentioned this, but there are a couple million government employees, a change in Administration doesn't really impact that in any meaningful way because the federal government is absolutely massive. NPR does have a bias towards the US-centric neoliberal order, regardless of which party is in power. In that sense, it is at least partially funded by government and parroting pro-US government messaging. It's nowhere on the level of some countries but it's not exactly an independent media outlet and we shouldn't pretend it is.
bitshiftfaced 4y ago
If NPR has such a problem being labeled a state-affiliated organization and they really aren't under the influence of the state or depend on state funds, then why not simply cut ties and become a private company?
- qgin 4y ago
  If NPR isn't really under the influence of MyPillow or depend on MyPillow funds, then why not simply cut ties? (Fox News gets about the same percentage of revenue from MyPillow and Balance of Nature as NPR does from grants) My joke here is way to seriously say that if simply receiving money from a source is enough to indict an organization, then we have a lot of work to do beyond NPR to be suspicious of everyone. But if the requirement is what it has traditionally been, showing actual evidence of influence or coercion, then to me that sounds like a more sensible way to do things.
  - aaomidi 4y ago
    Having the label doesn’t “indict” an organization. It’s a label for the sake of clarity. CNN, Fox, etc should all get it too. BBC should get it but for UK.
    - qgin 4y ago
      The label was created for organizations that are controlled or coerced by their governments so people could take what they say knowing it had potentially been crafted by that government. I don't think there would be anything wrong with a transparent listing of all funding sourced for every news organization, but this is something different from that.
      - antibasilisk 4y ago
        > The label was created for organizations that are controlled or coerced by their governments so people could take what they say knowing it had potentially been crafted by that government. how exactly do you think that sort of stuff happens in other countries?

by qgin 4y ago

rchaud 4y ago

[flagged]

dang 4y ago
Maybe so, but please don't fulminate or call names or do flamewar on HN. I'm not saying you owe $billionaire better but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

gitfan86 4y ago

NPR is pretty anti Trump. If anything they are anti government when Republicans are in charge.

xienze 4y ago

> Whether you agree with content on NPR or not, it doesn't change depending who is in power. Well first, we don’t exactly have wholesale government purges at the federal level. Second, how is it inaccurate to say NPR is affiliated with the government? It is. Methinks the real reason behind the outrage is because the original use of the “state affiliated” label on Twitter was to give a subtle “watch out, these guys are probably spewing propaganda!” warning. Much the same way that the blue checkmarks are ostensibly “we’ve verified that this person is who they say they are” but over time it morphed into a “stamp of approval” for the person.

qgin 4y ago
Unless we're listing out all the sources of funding the various media organizations have, what would be the new use of this label if not to say "watch out"?
- xienze 4y ago
  The use should have always been to simply note which sources are affiliated in some way with a state government, not to be a subtle attack on sources that Twitter doesn’t like. Affiliation doesn’t mean “controlled by”, it means there is a link between the two. NPR takes some amount of taxpayer money. Like it or not, they are affiliated with the US government. Same with the BBC and the UK. This wouldn’t have even been a big deal if Twitter had originally been direct with labeling, instead of trying to hide double meaning within labels that can act as dogwhistles. Should Twitter as it stands today, apply the label more universally? Sure. But the fact that it didn’t in the past ties back to the original point, that Twitter wanted to label certain outlets as being propaganda mouthpieces while at the same time being able to hide behind “hey, we didn’t say _propaganda_, we just said _state affiliated!_”
  - qgin 4y ago
    They never tried to hide any double meaning. It was pretty explicit when they launched the label: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2020/new-labels-for-government-and-state-affiliated-media-accounts https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2020/new-label... > Unlike independent media, state-affiliated media frequently use their news coverage as a means to advance a political agenda. We believe that people have the right to know when a media account is affiliated directly or indirectly with a state actor. State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, will not be labeled.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Second, how is it inaccurate to say NPR is affiliated with the government? It’s inaccurate given that the Twitter explicitly defines that label to refer to editorial control, not funding.

misssocrates 4y ago

Case in point: They went hard against the prior government. They are not technically state-affiliated as they don't take orders from the state, but are in effect state-aligned in all the ways that matter. It's ideological alignment. To be more precise you could say they are ideologically-affiliated with the establishment elite.

pwinnski 4y ago
Anyone with any political opinions at all is ideologically aligned in that sense, making them ideologically affiliated with anyone sharing that alignment. NPR, as it happens, has run many stories that seemed aligned with the right or the left, depending on the subject. They're generally pro-military and pro-wealth, while being against racism and censorship, so it's not as if they're either all left-wing or all right-wing.

yucky 4y ago

Someone else mentioned this, but there are a couple million government employees, a change in Administration doesn't really impact that in any meaningful way because the federal government is absolutely massive. NPR does have a bias towards the US-centric neoliberal order, regardless of which party is in power. In that sense, it is at least partially funded by government and parroting pro-US government messaging. It's nowhere on the level of some countries but it's not exactly an independent media outlet and we shouldn't pretend it is.

bitshiftfaced 4y ago

If NPR has such a problem being labeled a state-affiliated organization and they really aren't under the influence of the state or depend on state funds, then why not simply cut ties and become a private company?

qgin 4y ago
If NPR isn't really under the influence of MyPillow or depend on MyPillow funds, then why not simply cut ties? (Fox News gets about the same percentage of revenue from MyPillow and Balance of Nature as NPR does from grants) My joke here is way to seriously say that if simply receiving money from a source is enough to indict an organization, then we have a lot of work to do beyond NPR to be suspicious of everyone. But if the requirement is what it has traditionally been, showing actual evidence of influence or coercion, then to me that sounds like a more sensible way to do things.
- aaomidi 4y ago
  Having the label doesn’t “indict” an organization. It’s a label for the sake of clarity. CNN, Fox, etc should all get it too. BBC should get it but for UK.
  - qgin 4y ago
    The label was created for organizations that are controlled or coerced by their governments so people could take what they say knowing it had potentially been crafted by that government. I don't think there would be anything wrong with a transparent listing of all funding sourced for every news organization, but this is something different from that.
    - antibasilisk 4y ago
      > The label was created for organizations that are controlled or coerced by their governments so people could take what they say knowing it had potentially been crafted by that government. how exactly do you think that sort of stuff happens in other countries?