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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-

• smotched 4y ago
  "media"
  • binarymax 4y ago
    Twitter is a media company. EDIT: lots of discussion around this. Twitter is literally a social media company. You can split hairs on whether the “media” part of “social media” agrees with your bias here.
    • throwaway202303 4y ago
      With section 230 protection because they are not an editorial news organization under the defined meaning
    • AnthonyMouse 4y ago
      Media outlets: NY Times, Fox News, MSNBC, NPR. Tech companies: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter. Some companies are even both. But in the main, Twitter is the thing that employs developers and writes code and not the thing that employs reporters and writes stories.
      • point_blank 4y ago
        Google, Facebook, and Twitter have always been whatever they can aggressively monetize, as their primary piece of software hasn't financially scaled to where they need to be at quarter-after-quarter. These days, I'd say they're advertisement companies!
      • mbesto 4y ago
        > Tech companies: Here we go again...under this view, every company is a "tech" company. Does GE or John Deere write software for their hardware? Absolutely. Are they colloquially considered "tech" companies? No. Twitter is a media company (they distribute media). Tech is their operating model to deliver media. As is Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, etc. etc.
        • AnthonyMouse 4y ago
          > Does GE or John Deere write software for their hardware? Absolutely. Are they colloquially considered "tech" companies? No. Because tech is not their primary line of business. > Twitter is a media company (they distribute media). A media company is the thing that produces media, not the thing that distributes it. Cogent is not a media company.
          • yamtaddle 4y ago
            Tech isn't twitter's primary line of business, either. The company's value derives from the users and the content they generate. Their tech isn't unique or impressive, and nobody's there for the tech, they're there for the content. Meanwhile, some Deere buyers are there for the tech.
            • AnthonyMouse 4y ago
              > The company's value derives from the users and the content they generate. So you're conceding that Twitter isn't the entity generating the content. > Meanwhile, some Deere buyers are there for the tech. By your analogy, John Deere is a food company, because people aren't there for the tractors, they're there for the harvested crops. But that doesn't work because John Deere and Conagra are not the same kind of operation.
              • yamtaddle 4y ago
                > By your analogy, John Deere is a food company, because people aren't there for the tractors, they're there for the harvested crops. But that doesn't work because John Deere and Conagra are not the same kind of operation. Deere's customers are there for the tech. They're handing over money for it. Twitter's customers are there for the audience. The audience is there for... the rest of the audience. Their tech is entirely incidental to their value. Calling twitter a tech company is like calling Deere a factory company—one uses tech and one uses factories, but that's not what they are. [EDIT] To be clear, I'm not saying we should call John Deere a tech company—I don't think it's the best label, even as a very broad one, for what they do—but I do think Twitter is so not one that it'd make more sense to call Deere a tech company than Twitter.
  • anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    Various companies in China are on US embargo lists because they are state-affiliated. Parsing out "media" companies is just hyper-targeting of ire. All companies that post tweets are effectively media. So why only highlight "news media" on a publication app such as Twitter?
    • fortuna86 4y ago
      China controls their state media, NPR/BBC etc. have state funding but remain editorially independent.
      • anonymouskimmer 4y ago
        Yes, I know. Just pointing out that media isn't the only industry that's state funded to the person who's comment was just "media".
      • chapium 4y ago
        That seems like a contradiction.
        • anonymouskimmer 4y ago
          This is why you can't stop at "who funded it" as an indicator of bias and editorial control, but have to look at what is actually produced as well. Clair Cameron Patterson famously took money from the leaded gasoline industry to help fund his research demonstrating the harms of leaded gasoline.
        • fortuna86 4y ago
          If you build editorial independent into a legal charter, and have a government that isn't authoritarian and protects the rule of law, why is it a contradiction?
      • splistud 4y ago
        [dead]
      • 4y ago
• anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  > 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.
  • fundad 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • anonymouskimmer 4y ago
      I think he would be much more psychology healthy if he dropped social media. From what I guess about his personality, it's bad for him, and also probably doesn't address any of his psychological needs. Bad habits can be hard to break, but man does he go all in.
      • wpietri 4y ago
        You know the gaming term "whale"? They're the people who get so sucked into a pay-to-play game that they'll spend thousands of dollars trying to get those winning feelings. I have to suspect those people are not, psychologically speaking, perfectly well. If Twitter is the game, Musk is the whale with so much money that he bought the company. He spent $44 billion trying to win the game. And the wild thing to me is that he's still failing at it. Things like "let that sink in" [1] and re-labeling the building "Titter" [2] are just not very good jokes. For a mere one billion dollars, he could have hired every good comedy writer in the world. Instead he has lost at least $24 billion while generating enormous amounts of reputation-puncturing press and very plausibly putting a famously hard-to-wreck company on the path to irrelevancy. If it's not the most spectacular own-goal in business history, I'd certainly like to hear about the worse ones. [1] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/let-that-sink-in-elon-musk-struts-around-twitter-hq-with-washbasin-in-hand-ahead-of-44bn-buyout-deadline/articleshow/95114812.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/let-t... [2] https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-twitter-headquarters-sign-painted-w-titter-1850318181 https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-twitter-headquarters-sign-pain... [3] https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/26/23657182/elon-musk-twitter-employee-stock-grants-valuation https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/26/23657182/elon-musk-twitte...
• KZerda 4y ago
  Or more to the point, with how much of twitter is owned by the Saudi government? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/28/saudis-kingdom-holding-company-to-maintain-twitter-stake https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/28/saudis-kingdom-hol...
  • rjzzleep 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • Teever 4y ago
      People did care, and probably tried to tell you, but you probably weren't paying attention.
  • Jenepas 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • passwordoops 4y ago
      Ok, so to amend OP's original point: Should Twitter come with a label as "state-owned" considering both the Qatari and Saudi governments hold a significant stake in the company?
      • Jenepas 4y ago
        Personally yes, when i hear everyone clamour for transparency, I want brutal honest transparency, so yes twitter handle and twitter docs should clearly mention that they are owned by Saudia and terrorist Qatar. Same with DW News, Al Jazeera, Middle East eye and Gulf news. I've always wondered, without pure transparency, who will guard the guards?
        • rys 4y ago
          Isn’t DW state-owned by Germany?
        • 4y ago
• 908B64B197 4y ago
  > Should Elon's account (or SpaceX or Telsa) have the same label because of their significant government funding? They aren't trying to hide it. The NASA contracts are very much public.
  • iamerroragent 4y ago
    Here is how NPR is funded: https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding
    • geraldwhen 4y ago
      Member stations are federally funded. Member stations pay NPR. To say that NPR doesn’t receive a significant portion of its budget from the federal government is a lie. This same argument is made whenever a politico mentions cutting funding to NPR. There is a large push to claim that NPR receives very little funding and it’s irrelevant to the network. But you can’t have it both ways. The lady doth protest too mightily.
      • electrondood 4y ago
        From the article: > It receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
        • albertop 4y ago
          If this is true why NYT published the following: “Public Broadcasters Fear ‘Collapse’ if U.S. Drops Support,” announced a New York Times headline in March of 2017. Michael Grynbaum and Ben Sisario reported for the Times: Public radio and television broadcasters are girding for battle after the Trump administration proposed a drastic cutback that they have long dreaded: the defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The potential elimination of about $445 million in annual funding, which helps local TV and radio stations subscribe to NPR and Public Broadcasting Service programming, could be devastating for affiliates in smaller markets that already operate on a shoestring budget.
• nimbius 4y ago
  more ontopic, I think its indicative of a general exodus of brands in general as well. nobody wants to pay for the checkmark, nobody wants to have their brand identity or message challenged or negated by fly-by-night impostors, and most people have lost tolerance for the abdication of moderation and safe space for a modern brand in general. The time to close your account was arguably last November when leadership fired all the employees and locked themselves out of the headquarters. thats not to say theyre evacuating to another platform, just that 'no platform' is a safer option than twitter platform.
  • wpietri 4y ago
    Yeah, agreed. I was one of the people who quit Twitter in November. It has been a real loss for me, going from 7k followers on Twitter to 0.1k on Mastodon. Especially now that I'll be soon starting a job hunt, I miss that. But when I review my reasons for leaving Twitter [1], I'm not regretting it. I would rather have no platform than that platform. And the calculation for brands is surely much more fraught. I expect NPR will be the beginning of a fair bit of large orgs quitting Twitter, either loudly or just tailing off. [1] https://twitter.com/williampietri/status/1593662348568326151 https://twitter.com/williampietri/status/1593662348568326151
    • JieJie 4y ago
      I miss the opportunity to have my posts seen by people on Twitter, but I never had that many get seen in actuality. Your "rather have no platform than that platform" resonates with me. It would better if we had some way to follow the large number of valid sources of information from diverse variety of online sources within one application. Whether that ends up being Twitter, or some Federated system, I would prefer that it does not come under or remain under the control of a capricious overlord. I absolutely understand the frustration of people who are on Twitter just to do the business of journalism, cause it does not seem like a place that is all that conducive to the market for journalism or other writing. It seems more like a public-access text-based cable-news-outrage outlet these days. Whatever happens, someone please let me know where all the people working on AI end up, cause that's something I would like to follow without all the wailing and gnashing of teeth that happens on Twitter.
• throwaway202303 4y ago
  They don’t produce news so maybe no?
• akira2501 4y ago
  > Should Elon's account (or SpaceX or Telsa) have the same label because of their significant government funding? Are they a "media" company primarily dedicated to the practice of journalism?
  • ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
    the account is media, and it's as state affiliated as NPR, if not moreso as for whether it's a media company, that's irrelevant and seems to be an attempt to move the goalposts
    • NoZebra120vClip 4y ago
      It's not irrelevant. I think it's a useful distinction. All companies have PR departments (except, of course, Twitter, which only responds with poop emoji.) Company PR departments generally report on the company and things which directly affect the company. They issue press releases and they comment on litigation and they celebrate anniversaries. Journalism organizations and public information outlets don't merely report on themselves, they report on the world, or topics of interest to their advertisers or donors or governments or supporters. Therefore there's a wider range and there's a third-party nature to it. Journalists may be investigative, or sometimes they may just regurgitate press releases from various companies. From wide ranges of different types of various companies. Even if a news outlet reports only on dentistry, there's still a wide range of dental topics that are covered, not just Colgate and their toothpaste. So I agree; NPR should be properly labeled according to the government which supports them. So should PBS, right? There's no shame in that. Why don't Facebook and Google do it too? YouTube regularly slaps a label on government mouthpieces that I tune into there. It's important to be even-handed and label the Chinese and Russians the same as the Venezuelans and Germans and Irish and Catholics and Orthodox the same as the United States.
      • ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
        I actually don't think it's a useful distinction, since the topic is media, not media companies. SpaceX's and Tesla's social media accounts are media, and they're both as state-affiliated, if not moreso, than NPR folks reading posts by Tesla and SpaceX should know that aside from elmu's history of disingenuousness and outright lying, such posts are even more likely to be pro-government biased than NPR so I agree: SpaceX and Tesla should be labeled according to the government which supports them, there's no shame in that.
• fghsqwads 4y ago
  [flagged]
• yossarian1408 4y ago
  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 matter that their funding is disclosed to the reader?
  • kyralis 4y ago
    Because the label has a connotation that is not accurate. Connotation is just as important as denotation when evaluating meaning and accuracy of statements. Engineers love to pretend otherwise - that's probably part of why we're engineers - but that doesn't make them right.
    • Georgelemental 4y ago
      The connotation is a product of how the label was inconsistently applied in the past. Consistent application of the label will solve this problem pretty soon, without requiring Twitter to make judgment calls that should be beyond its purview
    • raxxorraxor 4y ago
      A connotation is subjective and should not matter. Public funding however is. In my country there are more or less trustworthy government funded news stations that are also flagged. At least on youtube. But I believe the label is more important than what some people fear other people would maybe perceive.
      • dpkonofa 4y ago
        It would simply be a connotation if Twitter's own documentation on what that tag means didn't explicitly state that the tag means that the source's editorial process may be influenced by the government organizations funding them. That's not the case for any of the current organizations that have gotten that tag.
• philipov 4y ago
  Whether or not it's applied consistently doesn't even help the situation. The goal is clearly to muddy the waters on what we mean by state-sponsored media. Even if he labels everything consistently as state-sponsored, it nonetheless serves to mask organizations without editorial independence by creating confusion within the discourse.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• oatmeal1 4y ago
  > Should Elon's account (or SpaceX or Telsa) have the same label because of their significant government funding? Are SpaceX or Tesla news organizations?
  • lostlogin 4y ago
    They can post on Twitter in the same way as others can. If the objective is to show potential bias, why only apply it to some accounts?
    • worthless-trash 4y ago
      Can't wait to see the same logic applied to twitter posters on welfare.
• alfor 4y ago
  strawman.
• matrix_overload 4y ago
  [flagged]
  • dnissley 4y ago
    > "hey, middle class: here are \infty reasons to reduce your life quality expectations and for hating yourself if you don't want to play along" Can you give an example of stories with this message?
    • gringe435162 4y ago
      [dead]
• ElevenLathe 4y ago
  I'd say its more like serious politics games. Yes, anyone who is interested in material reality knows that all media institutions are controlled by wealthy people, governments, and so on. No, that doesn't mean there isn't real benefit to some groups in projecting the illusion of their independence while simultaneously sewing doubt about the independence of other media. Material reality is a fringe idea pursued by a small minority (and shrinking all the time).
• maaand 4y ago
  Do you also get your news from SpaceX and Tesla?
  • bagels 4y ago
    No, but why not label them as "state affiliated space company" and "state affiliated automobile manufacturer"
    • adamrezich 4y ago
      because their product is not information, so any personal/political bias they may have is not reflected in their products, which are apolitical.
• meerita 4y ago
  I didn't realized Twitter was a media company and not a social network.
  • khochesh_kushat 4y ago
    It's right there in the name, social media.
    • meerita 4y ago
      Twitter is a social network. It may have media features, but its not a media company like NYT, NPR; etc. They don't create or practice journalism. They're a platform.
      • mcv 4y ago
        There's more to media than journalism. Twitter is not merely a platform, it's a platform for communication. A medium. I'd say that makes it a media company.
• IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
  That seems like moving goalposts. An org that primarily sells media (PBS or Twitter) should live by what its primary revenue source is for that media, because it colors the media that goes out the door. Further, are the bulk of twitter's profits derived from concessions on a lease ? I don't think so, but I'm open minded. An org that does not sell media, but physical goods (i.e. Tesla) is arguably selling cars, not media.
• v0idzer0 4y ago
  The labels are for media publishers. They are to make readers aware of the motivations of the writers. This was Twitter practice long before Musk. He just removed the bias toward not labeling US media companies. Why would SpaceX need a label? “Warning: this rocket fuel is affiliated with the US government so maybe don’t trust it’s opinion on open flames”