4 ms·

Twitter scraps ‘government-funded media’ tag on public broadcasters

3 points by djkivi 4y ago

smt88 4y ago
At this point, Musk is like someone who keeps getting up from the dinner table, stabbing a guest, and then trying to take it back once he realizes they're leaving. Eventually there either won't be any guests left or no one will want to eat dinner with him because they heard about what happened last time.
jerojero 4y ago
You know, it's probably not that difficult for them to actually ask some of the organisations/people that will be affected by big changes how they would feel about it before they implement them. Ideally you'd want to validate that the features you're implementing are features that people (or organisations) are going to like. Right? Is that crazy?
- faefox 4y ago
  Is anyone else old enough to remember when he promised to put future policy changes to a vote?
  - burkaman 4y ago
    Also promised to step down as CEO
rektide 4y ago
Hard for me to find a charitable interpretation. Twitter had a longstanding feature to help identify government mouthpieces that was working fine. Musk either under pressure from those powers or just to score own-the-lob points started adding the tag to loved cherished public institutions like NPR and The Guardian, which have longstanding & sifndicisnt editorial freedom protections & don't make sense for this label. Rather than do the right thing, Musk just cancels the safeguard entirely. Takes his ball & bat, tells everyone to go home.
- negidius 4y ago
  I don't think it was working fine. The previous system treated state media from different countries very differently, even when they were identical according to any objective criteria. Ideally, they would have made a rule saying that if more than N% of funding came from government sources and/or government officials have the power to appoint or remove board members or employees, it's labeled as state-affiliated media.
  - rektide 4y ago
    It feels like fishing for problems. For a system that was accurate & working well. The test isn't about funding. That's poor spirited. The test is about journalistic independence. NPR and the Guardian ought be hallmark leaders by any metric one could make worth a salt.
    - negidius 4y ago
      It was not accurate and did not work well at all. It was completely arbitrary. I think the ability to withhold funding can be a powerful tool for governments to influence the journalism they fund. I think that's why governments fund journalism. It's at least a risk factor, and it makes the organization state-affiliated by definition. I don't think it's unreasonable to worry about NPR thinking about how their editorial decisions will affect the government's continued willingness to give them money. I'm not saying that NPR is actually thinking about that, but it's a risk that people should keep in mind when they consume the content. Leaving funding aside, my comment was mainly referring to state media such as CBC and BBC. I fail to see why they should not get the same label as their non-western equivalents. The BBC is not even really pretending to be independent anymore, and while I don't know anything about CBC's journalism, the fact that their board is appointed (and can be removed) by the Canadian government means that they are not independent of the Canadian government. I don't know what you refer to regarding the Guardian. As far as I know, no one labeled them state media.

3 points by djkivi 4y ago

At this point, Musk is like someone who keeps getting up from the dinner table, stabbing a guest, and then trying to take it back once he realizes they're leaving. Eventually there either won't be any guests left or no one will want to eat dinner with him because they heard about what happened last time.

jerojero 4y ago

You know, it's probably not that difficult for them to actually ask some of the organisations/people that will be affected by big changes how they would feel about it before they implement them. Ideally you'd want to validate that the features you're implementing are features that people (or organisations) are going to like. Right? Is that crazy?

faefox 4y ago
Is anyone else old enough to remember when he promised to put future policy changes to a vote?
- burkaman 4y ago
  Also promised to step down as CEO

rektide 4y ago

Hard for me to find a charitable interpretation. Twitter had a longstanding feature to help identify government mouthpieces that was working fine. Musk either under pressure from those powers or just to score own-the-lob points started adding the tag to loved cherished public institutions like NPR and The Guardian, which have longstanding & sifndicisnt editorial freedom protections & don't make sense for this label. Rather than do the right thing, Musk just cancels the safeguard entirely. Takes his ball & bat, tells everyone to go home.

negidius 4y ago
I don't think it was working fine. The previous system treated state media from different countries very differently, even when they were identical according to any objective criteria. Ideally, they would have made a rule saying that if more than N% of funding came from government sources and/or government officials have the power to appoint or remove board members or employees, it's labeled as state-affiliated media.
- rektide 4y ago
  It feels like fishing for problems. For a system that was accurate & working well. The test isn't about funding. That's poor spirited. The test is about journalistic independence. NPR and the Guardian ought be hallmark leaders by any metric one could make worth a salt.
  - negidius 4y ago
    It was not accurate and did not work well at all. It was completely arbitrary. I think the ability to withhold funding can be a powerful tool for governments to influence the journalism they fund. I think that's why governments fund journalism. It's at least a risk factor, and it makes the organization state-affiliated by definition. I don't think it's unreasonable to worry about NPR thinking about how their editorial decisions will affect the government's continued willingness to give them money. I'm not saying that NPR is actually thinking about that, but it's a risk that people should keep in mind when they consume the content. Leaving funding aside, my comment was mainly referring to state media such as CBC and BBC. I fail to see why they should not get the same label as their non-western equivalents. The BBC is not even really pretending to be independent anymore, and while I don't know anything about CBC's journalism, the fact that their board is appointed (and can be removed) by the Canadian government means that they are not independent of the Canadian government. I don't know what you refer to regarding the Guardian. As far as I know, no one labeled them state media.