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Elon's playing word games. When the average person talks about State Affiliated Media they're referring to editorial control. As far as I know NPR has always ha
by kodah 4y ago
Elon's playing word games. When the average person talks about State Affiliated Media they're referring to editorial control. As far as I know NPR has always had editorial control and goes to great lengths to maintain neutrality in their writing. They've certainly screwed up in major ways before, but compared to MSNBC, Fox, the NYT, NYP, and CNN I'd say NPR looks like a saint.
The irony I see here is that Twitter is on record as to being involved in suppression exercises around COVID, where they basically acted as the governments hands to suppress legitimate voices. Given that, Twitter needs to wear its own State Affiliated Media badge. Hell, what do you even call an entity that willfully suppresses valid and good information that is not favorable to the government? A state apologist?
- preseinger 4y ago[flagged]
- kodah 4y agoNormal? That's not what I was talking about in this specific instance of Twitter though. Maybe you can make your point more clear.
- lostlogin 4y agoThe parent comment isn’t referring to Twitter surely?
- kodah 4y agoI think they were trying to say because Twitter successfully suppressed conspiracy theories in the past that it gives them a pass when the information happened to not be a conspiracy theory. If that was the takeaway, I fully disagree. If you get into the suppression game, even for the right reasons, you deserve whatever comes your way when you're wrong even once. That's how we keep powerful entities honest.
- preseinger 4y agocovid misinformation is a conspiracy theory, suppressing idiocy is virtuous "oh but if you allow a platform to suppress stupid shit then how do you know that they won't suppress other blah blah blah" judgment my bro, it is ok if things are subjective
- adamrezich 4y agoit's a good thing that everyone who holds any amount of power is always purely, perfectly virtuous and altruistic in their judgement—if this wasn't the case, that sure would complicate things, wouldn't it?
- preseinger 4y agoyeah that is definitely a requisite assumption of my position for the same reason we don't allow governments to enact laws or provide any kind of justice system, because there is no way to guarantee they will be always perfectly correct yes sir
- dang 4y agoPlease don't take HN threads further into flamewar hell. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 4y agoPlease don't take HN threads further into flamewar hell. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We've had to ask you this before. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. That's not allowed here, regardless of what you're battling for or against. We ban accounts that cross this line (for more explanation see https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...), so please stop doing this.
- adastra22 4y agoConspiracy theories like (1) you should mask up, or (2) COVID is airborne? Both would have gotten you suspended from Twitter.
- preseinger 4y agono they would not have, be better than this
- adastra22 4y agoAccounts advocating for both positions were suspended back in 2020/2021. It really did happen.
- petsfed 4y agoI was going to mention Radio Free Europe as a really good example of egregious, western state-sponsored media, but then on a lark, I looked up how well regarded they are, bias-wise, and now I don't know what to think.
- Balgair 4y agoHey, just want to say thanks for saying that you changed your mind. It's hard to do on public forums and just in general. It's even harder to say that you don;t know something. Thanks for saying this.
- pphysch 4y agoWestern state-backed media is regarded highly by mainstream Western media watchdogs? You don't say.
- petsfed 4y agoThat was kind of my read on it, which is what sent me into a tailspin. I ended up questioning all the tools I had to evaluate a source without taking it on as another job. But it turns out that the difference in bias of RFE and any number of out-and-out propaganda mills is that if a story is inconvenient to RFE's agenda, they'll de-emphasize it. On the other hand, an out-and-out propaganda mill will just make shit up to fit their narrative. So where I landed was that RFE was ultimately reliable, but subject to the same little human biases as NPR or AP News or the Financial Times, or any number of other sources that I do trust. Their main source of bias is a bit more of an elephant in the room, but if anything, it makes them a bit harder on their masters.
- carefulreader 4y agoDon’t worry about the watchdogs. You can just read the content to see. It’s true they’re interested in human rights news, and authoritarian countries don’t look good on that subject. But the content is factual, and their reporters work at great risk.
- carefulreader 4y agoDon’t worry about the watchdogs. Just read the content. It’s true that RFE/RL focuses on human rights and democracy, and authoritarian countries don’t look very good in those categories. But the reporting is factual, and their reporters run great risks. Several are in jail in Belarus, Russia, etc.