Public broadcasters want to reclaim online spaces with “Public Spaces Incubator” | Hacker News Reader

Public broadcasters want to reclaim online spaces with “Public Spaces Incubator”

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38 pointspantalaimon65 comments

This is a big challenge, and I applaud them for taking it. There is no information about how they intend to do this, which is fair since they're just getting started.

How would you attempt this? Moderation is hard and labour-intensive. I moderated a community for a while, and I hated it. It was a lot of unrewarding work, and the reward was mostly indifference, with bouts of stalking and harassment.

I can't imagine it being any easier when inviting the average Joe to discuss politics.

> free from harassment or bullying

Hope springs eternal, but color me skeptical that any speech that is inconvenient to those with authority doesn't instantly get labelled as cyberbullying and shut down.

The only way to guarantee freedom of speech is to acknowledge that some people are going to get their knickers in a twist when they see some of the comments, and there's nothing that can be done about that.

That's one thing I just don't get.

When I started on the internet there were 3 rules that were drilled into my head.

1. Don't believe everything or anything you see on the internet.

2. Don't divulge any personal information on the internet

3. Don't take anything on the internet seriously.

It seems like those three rules solve most of the problems we have on the internet. I've also noticed most of the issues and problems associated with the internet came about after people started breaking rule number 2.

Maybe the solution is instead of trying to ban anonymous internet usage we instead ban identified internet usage.

Seriously promoting those rules would go a long way towards solving many of the Internet's problems surrounding misinformation and privacy, but would create an even bigger crisis for the ruling class. The problem is that powerful people don't also want the masses to apply a lens of skepticism to everything they hear coming from them. There is no way for them to promote a message of "don't believe everything you hear" and not have that bite them back hard because people would also apply that rule towards them. This is why attempts to solving "misinformation" have so far been things like "independent fact checkers" and outright censorship.

> The new "Public Spaces Incubator" (PSI) initiative will develop and test innovative solutions that encourage accessible and meaningful online conversations on issues of public interest, free from harassment or bullying — inclusive exchanges that will reflect diverse viewpoints and promote greater empathy and understanding, without suppressing perspectives or ideas.

When ideas like racism and sexism are experienced as harassment, how is it possible to be both free of harassment and of the suppression of ideas?

I don't think it's possible. You have to tell people that they aren't really being harassed, or that their ideas aren't really being suppressed. And the interpretation of which is which cannot be objective.

This is a joke. I don't know about the other broadcasters, but Canada's CBC is the propaganda organ of the liberal party and only allows an ultra-narrow ideological viewpoint. This will be the opposite of inclusive, it will just be a woke echo chamber.

It's big tent: everyone is free to come into their tent and think correctly. See, no one excluded!

What you say here is what someone who has extreme or fringe political views would say. I don’t know if you do have such views but it might be worth considering what it means or how it comes across to others to say things such people say. It’s hard to believe they only allow an ultra narrow viewpoint. It’s not like the liberal party is always the one in power in Canada.

The CBC is well noted for how extreme of a bias it has, especially compared to other public broadcasters such as BBC or PBS.

Most public broadcasters lean a bit left but are somewhere in the median. CBC is not.

Being a public broadcaster does not exempt you from criticism.

Definitely doesn’t exempt one from scrutiny or criticism. But I find it hard to believe that they only allow an ultra narrow viewpoint. I don’t watch television news so I realize I could be completely wrong.

I've listened to CBC for decades, and as of the last few years you simply will not hear a conservative viewpoint expressed in good faith. And increasingly you won't even hear moderate left views.

I'm not conservative myself, but I get very uncomfortable when a large part of our population is treated like their views are not worth hearing.

Thank you for the correction. I'm shocked this is so since it's not like conservatives will never again gain power in Canada. So it doesn't make sense to alienate a political party that can someday defund you.

less extreme than I thought https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cbc-news-canadian-broadcastin...

AT least compared to the https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/huffington-post/ or https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/fox-news-bias/

What you're saying was true of the CBC from 8ish years ago, but the modern CBC is an entirely different animal.

It really is embarrassingly partisan, and increasingly out of touch with the absolute vast majority of Canadians.

This is true for their television programming, but moreso for their radio side. Often third rate podcasts and YouTube channels will bring in more views than their flagship shows. It's really only kept afloat by increasingly large funding by the federal government, with the associated conflicts of interest that brings.

What's interesting to me about this phenomenon is that if you are a committed supporter of the agenda and you're accustomed to an outlet like the CBC being fair and moderate, you end up in a constructed frame of reference in which everyone else has left the Overton window, when in reality, the window has been closed around you. I don't think the net effect actually convinces anyone to change their mind, but it does something to the people who are inside the narrowed window: it makes them less and less tolerant of dissenting views.

And in case this wasn't obvious, I'm not just talking about the CBC here.

What you say here implies that you think extreme or fringe political views are somehow "bad".

No; it merely indicates that someone who holds such views may not be the most impartial judge of the impartiality of another party.

For the most part, in this current time, they are. There are examples where they aren't bad, of course.

Weren't they the ones to float the idea that the Trucker's protests were somehow violent and that the Russians were behind it?

They'll study this forever, but they'll never add a comment section to their websites.

Wrong, ARD, the second largest German PSB has had a very lively comment section for ages [1].

Part of the reluctance in setting up comment sections in general is that media orgs are liable for postings there and manual moderation costs a lot of money, unless you outsource that to underpaid, traumatized semi-slaves as Facebook does.

[1] https://meta.tagesschau.de/

> Wrong, ARD, the second largest German PSB has had a very lively comment section for ages.

These comments aren't even linked from the articles on the tagesschau.de website.

> Part of the reluctance in setting up comment sections in general is that media orgs are liable for postings there and manual moderation costs a lot of money.

Whatever makes media orgs reluctant to have a comment section (and to show it prominently) also applies to any other public space, so if they can't even handle that, there's no point in having initiatives to think about other public spaces.

BBC has had comments on its site for over 2 decades

Does it still have comments?

It does, but it turns them off on any article that is even remotely controversial.

CBC had a comment section, and it make the YouTube comment section look civilized in comparison.

Can we stop with the term "public-owned"? These aren't publicly traded companies (that anyone from the public can buy a stake into) but state-owned and operated broadcasters.

Now, as to their objectives, I have no faith that these state media can or will be able to create spaces where the first amendment is preserved considering their poor track-record in the matter. [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29783996

ZDF is not state-owned. It's an independent non-profit institution financed in part by the non-government TV tax.

"Non-government tax" is bullshit semantics. Any random organization cannot collect a tax unless a government has delegated special authority to that organization, thereby making that organization part of government.

It's like saying "independent courts" aren't part of "the government" because the courts are "independent" and because elected politicians don't have the official authority to tell judges how cases should be decided. Semantics. The courts are a branch of government.

No it isn't. It means that the government doesn't control the funding (or lack of funding) for a public broadcaster.

That's an important part of their independence.

Also, it's not really a tax, it's a levy or fee.

What happens if someone doesn’t pay the fee?

> Some people went to jail because they refused to pay.

https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/gez-rundfunkbeitrag

No, that absolutely is a tax.

That's basically a language/cultural issue - in some places the semantics of the word "tax" are more narrowly defined than in others leading to discussions like these.

That's like saying anyone who owns property is a "part of the government" because "the government" has granted them special authority to enforce their property rights.

In Germany, the right of those broadcasters to collect that fee is derived directly from the constitution, just like the right to own property is.

In a system where private property ownership is only specially delegated to a handful of people or organizations, those few privileged people or orgs ARE part of the government. In a system where everybody has that right by default, that's different.

An ostensibly independent organization that has been granted a special right to collect a tax is an example of the former, not the latter.

SRG SSR is not in any sense owned or operated by the Swiss Confederation or any Swiss canton.

Well, none of these state broadcasters are actually in the US, so they don't have to worry about the first amendment :)

But I do take your meaning.

What a waste of public money. It tells a lot that they dont try just creating a mastodon instance but that would too cheap. Public media in Germany also has a very strong left bias. (see https://www.medienpolitik.net/2021/02/das-herz-des-journalis... )

(für die Deutschen auf HN: Hier ein Podcast https://www.welt.de/kultur/medien/article228196819/Podcast-W... wo der Autor seine Thesen noch einmal genauer erläutert. )

> they dont try just creating a mastodon instance but that would too cheap

Nothing there states it will NOT be a Mastodon or rather Fediverse/ActivityPub server. A likely outcome of this is, that their online video platforms will get ActivityPub support as explained here by Leonhard Dobusch, a member of the ZDF Board of Directors that approved this: https://chaos.social/@leonido/109829771565248856 (german)

But you cant start a project to explore Open Protocol options and pre-empt the outcome. The working group on this will figure out the best plan and it will likely be ActivityPub, because what else is there ?

> What a waste of public money.

You have very strong feelings about something you don't seem to know much about.

> Public media in Germany also has a very strong left bias.

*Educated people have a strong left bias.

Also your first link bases this on a poll of "Volontariat" journalist, meaning journalists in the beginning of their career, meaning young people. Congratulations for proving: Young people tend to be leftists. Applause for this groundbreaking discovery.

No seriously no. But again leftist live in their bubble and feel educated while able not to read provided sources.

The waste money is linked to the Working group which is typical for govt agencies. Also with no parlamentarial supervision they wast money again.

Maybe the problem is public engagement. 25 years ago I would get a newspaper in the morning to read on the train. If something made me really mad, I could write a letter to the editor. It probably wouldn't be selected for publication. I could read the handful of other letters to the editor that were published that day, and if anything those people had to say made me mad, well, this is my stop, time to go to work aaaaand I've forgotten all about that thing that made me mad.

Maybe we don't need this. At all.

>Public broadcasters* want to reclaim online spaces with “Public Spaces Incubator”

* Government broadcasters

ZDF is not a government broadcaster. It's paid for by the TV tax, which is also not managed by the German government.

Oh that's interesting. I just assumed. Sorry! So who collects the tax?

This is an explainer I wrote for immigrants: https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/gez-rundfunkbeitrag

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Perhaps I need to make improvements to the text. Sometimes you've been around for so long that you forget what confuses people.

Judging by that link I guess they changed it to everyone pays instead of just those with TVs? When I lived in Berlin twenty years ago, I remember TV tax enforcers would go door to door to try to find people with TVs without paying the tax. The advice I was given by Berliners was basically never to talk to random strangers coming to the door...not surprised they would change the system.

Yes they changed it because they now also stream their program on the internet (well, parts of it…) so you don't need a TV anymore to receive it.

Totally fascinating. Thank you!

nicbou's link has details on the how, but here's a direct answer to the why:

The money is not a tax because it's not the government that collects it, and the government cannot decide how much it should be. Instead, there are institutions that have been granted powers to levy their own fees and self-govern to a large degree. Accountability is established through an oversight board that includes representatives from civic society and other independent review institutions.

That accountability is more of a joke though. It's a very self-serving system and the people on top are granting themselves more lavish salaries than what the chancellor gets.

Worth adding that it's a compulsory charge for every German household, regardless of whether they watch or listen to the programming, or own a TV. Non-payment leads to collection agency, and ultimately jail.

it is still enforced by the state, you cant get rid of it. So it is basically govermental one.

How so? The government has zero control over it.

The government will put you in jail if you don't pay it. Not quite like a Netflix subscription, then.

The government will put you in jail if you don't pay your gym membership or your parking fines and ignore it after it's sent to collections. It's not specific to the TV tax.

The government neither set nor collects the TV tax, and has no control over what the financed media publishers do.

Do you realize how silly it is to tell me how a system you hitherto didn't know about works by quoting something I wrote? Feel free to check the source it cites for more context.

" The government will put you in jail if you don't pay your gym membership or your parking fines and ignore it after it's sent to collections. It's not specific to the TV tax." So I can quit the contract if you like to?

" Do you realize how silly it is to tell me how a system you hitherto didn't know about works by quoting something I wrote? Feel free to check the source it cites for more context. " I do know how good the systems work. Maybe you should accept people can come to different conclusions. This like arguing with a conspiracy theorist.

Remember that the premise of this conversation is that ZDF is not government-run. That you are legally required to pay the TV tax has no bearing on that. The government neither collects nor allocates that money, and has no control over the broadcasters.

It is govermental run. as it is no private institution, as I am forced to by the govermental and it is collected by govt agencies.

The only true thing that my parliament does not have any say but some obscure council with e.g. representatives from the church.

It is a shitty system with left bias news, shitty films and shitty tv shows. Only the left defends it fearing they might lose a powerful media institution.

If you're talking about whether they're under the executive or financial control of a single (or small number of) ruling councils outside themselves:

* CBC, RTBF, yes

* SRG SSR, hell no

* ZDF, not really

Either way, all of them have editorial independence.

> "Online spaces that are free from disinformation, misinformation, harassment and abuse are near extinction."

This is a nothingburger. Some organizations parasitizing various tax bases to reach a vanishingly small set of viewers intends to investigate the possibility of potentially looking into building some crappy websites that don't meaningfully differ from any number of censored comment sections that already exist.

European countries' media systems are very different from the US and your conclusions are not really valid.

The ZDF, one of these PSBs, reaches an average of 5 million people daily on TV, which accounts to >10% of the German TV audience, and it has an online reach of >100 million monthly visits which also makes it one of the top news sources online. Their audience leans towards elderly segments, but it's still a huge chunk of the market, however you may define it.

So like a mid tier youtube channel?

SRG SSR has a daily radio audience market share of 43%, and 34% for television.

> censored comment sections

Hacker News has censored comment sections, why are you even here if it's such a dealbreaker?

Translation: We're going to be short, yet tall. Blue-eyed, yet brown-eyed. Right-handed, yet left-handed.

> Online spaces that are free from disinformation, misinformation, harassment and abuse are near extinction. The social media environment has splintered into so many echo chambers that exclude diversity of opinion, discourage debate and silence dissent.

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