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Comment by local_crmdgeon | Hacker News Reader

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It disregards editorial control, which was part of how Twitter used to decide this.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitt...

"State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy."

Whether CBC is actually neutral and non-partisan is something of a perennial political issue in Canada. I personally would say it is. A lot of the country disagrees. The opposition party wishes to cancel it. Opinion polls indicate the public believes it to be the most partisan major broadcaster in Canada.

Twitter will be wading into some very turbulent waters if they're going to start deciding which public broadcasters are "editorially independent" and which are not. Especially since there's no real consensus on the question in some of the countries which run them.

The policy I linked isn't new, just recently updated- they started wading into those waters a long time ago.

Even if there's no official interference, one must ask themselves: could people working at the public broadcaster have their careers on hold if they don't push the correct narrative?

When the media landscape is disproportionally dominated by one state-backed entity (so it really doesn't have to compete with anyone else), you can't just jump to your competitor...

Also, could pushing the correct narrative land them a cushy non-elected government job?

Except this is a pure marketing talk, ie this phrase literally doesn't mean anything quantifiable. Unless you're trying to argue that NPR's CEO, which came directly from US government propaganda agency, maintains "editorial independence" in some magic, American-specific way.

I think it's funny that all the Americans/Russians commenting here seem to believe there are only two public broadcasters in the world: RT, and NPR. And that Twitter was merely being unfair by not labeling NPR as "state affiliated." ;)

In fact, as I noted elsewhere in this thread, there are many (dozens?) of other public broadcasters around the world, most of which are not labeled as "state affiliated"--apparently in keeping with Twitter's (IMO reasonable) distinction between "state controlled" and "state funded/editorially independent."

Musk's eye of Sauron fell upon NPR--and only NPR, not Deutsche Welle or Radio France or CBC or BBC or any of the other respected independent public broadcasters--because he is, in the American sense, a right-wing nutjob with an ax to grind.

That Twitter would bend their principles--in either direction--to American domestic politics in such a transparent way should give users, especially those who are not interested in American culture wars, pause.

It's sad to see that so far much of the conversation here is going exactly how Twitter would prefer it goes... focused on whether 1% of funding qualifies as "state affiliated". When the real story is that Musk decided to arbitrarily target an organization based on his presumptions about its political beliefs.

> When the real story is that Musk decided to arbitrarily target an organization based on his presumptions about its political beliefs.

I'm assuming that people aren't dwelling on that because everyone already agrees that's the case.

Plenty of evidence that this isn't true, unfortunately. And that's precisely the point that the GP made: people are using this as an opportunity to split hairs over the percentage of control, rather than to identify this as yet another way in which Elon Musk abuses his ownership of Twitter.

>Musk's eye of Sauron fell upon NPR--and only NPR, not Deutsche Welle or Radio France or CBC or BBC

Well, sure, but you gotta start somewhere. At least this is a move in the right direction; let's hope for similar labelling for other media that deserve it.

I assume Musk will get distracted by something else--a bathroom-humor pun off the name of one of his companies, say, or realizing that 4/20 is just around the corner again, or the implacable, unconquerable, immutable existential sadness of realizing that he's truly alone in this world with nobody, despite all his wealth and power, whom he can trust truly loves him--before he realizes there are public broadcasters in other countries.

C'est la vie. It's hard being at the top (depending on the stock price on a given day).

Many countries have publicly funded/editorially independent broadcasters. Of the below, none seem to be listed as "state affiliated":

https://twitter.com/bbc https://twitter.com/deutschewelle https://twitter.com/srf https://twitter.com/radiofrance https://twitter.com/CBCNews

They put it for BBC now. And that's good.

Hah, funny. This is how policy changes happen in the Musk era: a juvenile troll, followed by an embarrassingly transparent attempt to cover it up.

The joke is on all of us for giving this silly man our attention. I regret that I even know about this "news story."

Musk disagrees.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65248196

> Mr Musk said Twitter was adjusting the label for the BBC to "publicly-funded". "We're trying to be accurate," he said.

> "We're trying to be accurate," he said.

This is hilarious. Musk is trying to be a lot of things, but "accurate" is clearly not one one of them.

You should consider the context of using that label on Twitter, not just the label name itself. State-affiliated label on Twitter means something as "biased", it's not used on its pure definition in a vacuum. That's the problem.

NPR is biased though. Extremely so.

Not in any way that doesn't label literally everything anyone says as biased. When was the last time you actually listened to one of their news broadcasts? They are annoyingly neutral both sidesing issues where one side is clearly insane and doesn't represent anyone's real views except the one guy who found a megaphone. If there's a bill in the statehouse recognizing puppies as cute they'll find the one guy who's anti-dog and willing to die on that hill.

Extremely biased is Jon Stewart, a person who does a news broadcast with the express purpose to take a stance and say something.

Yes, everything and everyone is, because they are humans.

But it doesn't matter; the government does not have any editorial control over NPR. That's what "state affiliated" means.

You say this but the subject matter of their journalists implies certain preferences that are aligned with the government's.

Until NPR starts including journalistoc voices that are critical of ESG, abortion access, and other pet projects the current administration is fond of then the designation is apt.

NPR used to be a great news source in the 90s and 2000s. That hasn't been the case since about 2012.

> Until NPR starts including journalistoc voices that are critical of ESG, abortion access, and other pet projects the current administration is fond of then the designation is apt.

I don't understand, the NPR bias was there when those were not pet projects of whatever government under Trump, correct? So why does a change in government then changes the stance of NPR if that stance was there before the current government took power?

Also, being critical of abortion access is simply stupid in 2023, it's founded on religious grounds and I don't think religion should be part of any social policy discussion... Requiring a journalistic institution to cater to "both sides" is either naive or absurdly stupid.

Being biased or having a specific political stance is not the same thing as state affiliation; it's just ... (dis)agreeing with policies. Were they "state affiliated" during the Trump admin?

The harping on their bias in this thread is ridiculous, because unless the government is telling them what to write, it's entirely irrelevant.

> NPR used to be a great news source in the 90s and 2000s. That hasn't been the case since about 2012.

SO FUCKING WHAT. Maybe they're useless garbage now, maybe not, but either way that still doesn't make them a government mouthpiece.

> SO FUCKING WHAT. Maybe they're useless garbage now, maybe not, but either way that still doesn't make them a government mouthpiece.

Like I said, until they're critical of the administration like they were with Bush Jr, then they are nothing more than a mouthpiece of the current administration.

They may choose to say things in favor of the government (or not), but that is still fundamentally different than the government telling them what to say, which is what "state affiliated" means.

Don't pretend you don't know the difference.

Um about that https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1645499884131295263

Press secretary is doing just that. Sorry but your beloved party does just that.

Isn't every news organization to some extent? https://my.lwv.org/california/torrance-area/article/how-reli...

Is "National Car Rental" state-affiliated? "National Geographic"?

Do you think the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a democracy, too?

Keyword is "Public", not "National"

So https://www.publicstorage.com/ is government controlled?

Hmm, I see your point. Names can indeed be misleading.

Another point is it’s facile to try to make arguments based on semantics. “Their name has public in it” is not a serious rebuttal to “It’s not government media.”

Someone better tell Public Storage about this!

Public Enemy would like a word.

The National Rifle Association is probably more government affiliated than NPR

Given how many congressman NRA owns, it's more like the government is NRA-affiliated...

NRA gets to run the show while the public pays the price.

Because it isn't, and it has negative connotations? You know and understand this. We know you know and understand it - you aren't fooling anyone.

Because it's not accurate.

as others have mentioned Twitter and Tesla get more government funds than NPR. The US governments budget is pretty big and handouts are plenty

It was an even bigger joke that the BBC rejected the label. The government literally imposes a radio tax to fund the Service, and pays more out of general funds for global coverage.

If thats the threshold, then a whole bunch of other entities should get the "state funded" label, and get it soon.

That's like saying Federal Express is state affiliated.

When Twitter originally created the "state-affiliated" label, the implied meaning was "propaganda rag that you shouldn't trust." It wasn't meant to be applied to any media organization that receives state funding, only those that go against the American mainstream zeitgeist, e.g. the narratives you'll read in the NYTimes or NPR. This label was never meant to mean precisely what it says at face value.

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