mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
TBF, I don't think that tag applies to businesses.
A better example would be PBS, which doesn't have the tag on it even though it directly relies on federal funding. Musk is trolling.
General Elon Musk Fukkery Thread
- Thread starter Armchair Militant
- Start date
A better example would be PBS, which doesn't have the tag on it even though it directly relies on federal funding. Musk is trolling.
But my point is that NPR is no more "state-affiliated" than any private business that receives a small portion of its funding from government contracts or grants. It's ridiculous to try to equate that in people's minds with actual captured state media run by the government, or even the numerous media outlets in countries with poor press freedom who follow the government line even if the government doesn't directly operate them.
The tag makes public information worse, not better.
mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
The tag is "state-affiliated media."
Those entities you listed are not media.
Another example of Musk trolling liberals with this NPR shyt: Voice of America is a state department-funded media outlet. It doesn't have a tag.
Yo, I've never paid any attention to Taibbi, is he kinda slow? Why does he come off as some sort of college "bro" who doesn't know what he's talking about and can't even argue coherently?
Breh, we're arguing over the "state-affiliated" half of the phrase, not the "media" half.
The point is that no one in the public would consider Tesla to be "state-affiliated", regardless of whether a portion of their funding comes from the federal/state governments. Whether they deserve a tag on Twitter is irrelevant, the point is the meaning of the phrase in discourse. It's not how that phrase is used and Musk full well knows that, he's purposely trying to create a false impression in people's minds.
mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
When we talk about "state owned" entities being a concern, its disingenuous to say all companies are a concern instead of media. We are adults, we don't need to do this. No one gives a fukk about Turkish Airways or even Huawei. We care about the media outlets because that is media messaging.Breh, we're arguing over the "state-affiliated" half of the phrase, not the "media" half.
he point is that no one in the public would consider Tesla to be "state-affiliated", regardless of whether a portion of their funding comes from the federal/state governments. Whether they deserve a tag on Twitter is irrelevant, the point is the meaning of the phrase in discourse. It's not how that phrase is used and Musk full well knows that, he's purposely trying to create a false impression in people's minds.
What we should be concerned about is why don't the BBC have a state-owned tag. Or Voice of America?
Breh, back off and look at my argument again because you've misinterpreted it three times in a row.
My issue is not whether those companies get a tag or not. My issue is what the phrase means in the English language. Regardless of whether companies like Tesla need to be tagged, they are not considered "state-affiliated" by the public because the phrase is never used that way. When Musk uses that phrase to refer to NPR, he knows that people are going to interpret the phrase in a false manner that doesn't apply to NPR's actual operation at all.
I'm not talking about government-owned or government-controlled entities, because NPR is not one of those. I'm talking about independent organizations that happen to recieve a small, diversified bit of government funding just like damn near every major entity on Earth.
All language is defined by use. If you use a phrase in a way that is explicitly not the public meaning of the phrase, knowing how it will be interpreted, then you're lying.
mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
I feel what you are saying, and we actually agree. Thats why I brought up that he was inconsistent with the application of the term because there are actual state-affiliated broadcasts entities that are run by the government that don't have the tag. Musk is doing this to troll people, and it worked.
ogc163
Superstar
Elon Musk says NPR's 'state-affiliated media' label might not have been accurate
April 6, 20238:58 PM ET
Bobby Allyn
Twitter CEO Elon Musk, pictured here in August 2022, placed a "state-affiliated media" label on NPR's Twitter account, leading to widespread criticism.
Carina Johansen/NTB/AFP via Getty Images
Twitter CEO Elon Musk said the platform's recent labeling of NPR as "state-affiliated media" might not have been accurate during a series of email exchanges that provided a glimpse into the billionaire's thought process on decisions that reverberate far beyond the social network.
Regardless, as of late Thursday, the designation remained.
On Wednesday, press freedom advocates and the network itself were taken aback to see that Twitter had placed NPR in the same category as government-aligned propaganda outlets in China and Russia — despite the network's federal support, in the form of competitive grants, accounting for about 1% of its annual operating budget.
In one email exchange, Musk appeared to be unclear about the difference between public media and state-controlled media when he decided to affix a state-affiliated media label on NPR's account.
MEDIA
Twitter labels NPR's account as 'state-affiliated media,' which is untrue
"Well, then we should fix it," Musk wrote in an email on Wednesday to this reporter, when told that government support represents about 1% of NPR's finances.Musk added: "What's the breakdown of NPR annual funding?"
In response, NPR provided Musk publicly available documentation of the network's finances showing that nearly 40% of its funding comes from corporate sponsorships and 31% from fees for programming paid by local public radio stations.
NPR also covers the news free of any government influence — something that should mean it does not receive state-affiliated labeling, according to Twitter's own rules.
Musk, in another email, compared NPR to media outlets controlled by governments of other countries, while also admitting "it sounds like" that might not be the case.
"The operating principle at new Twitter is simply fair and equal treatment, so if we label non-US accounts as govt, then we should do the same for US, but it sounds like that might not be accurate here," he wrote.
It was a turnaround from a tweet he sent hours earlier that the state-affiliated label for NPR "seems accurate."
Amid the conflicting remarks, in a Thursday email, Musk restated his interest in applying "any given rule fairly to all," and he said the label for NPR's account is still being evaluated.
Musk's comments to NPR over the past two days only further clouded what was already a confusing situation.
But it's not the first time chaos was the norm on the social media site.
Since Musk took over the platform in October, Twitter has at times taken a hostile stance toward the national press. Musk's row with NPR is just the latest instance of the Twitter CEO's increasingly confrontational stance toward the mainstream media, which often covers Musk and his companies critically.
Twitter stripped the New York Times of its verified blue check. And in December, Musk suspended the accounts of several high-profile journalists who shared tweets or reported on an account that tracked the comings and going of his private jet.
When reporters reach out for official comment from the company on news stories, Twitter's communications department replies with a poop emoji.
But the label given to NPR was no laughing matter to free press watchers who viewed it as "a dangerous move that could further undermine public confidence in reliable news sources," the literary organization PEN America said in a statement.
John Lansing, NPR's president and chief executive, said in a statement that he was "disturbed" that Twitter has flagged the network as a state-affiliated news organization. "It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way," Lansing said in a statement.
Label was intended to help users understand what they're seeing
Despite professing an interest in fairness, Musk appears to have run afoul of Twitter's own guidelines in giving NPR a label that can harm its credibility."State-affiliated media" are outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content directly through funding, or indirectly through political pressure, according to the guidelines.
A former Twitter executive who helped develop the platform's state-affiliation labels said that editorial independence had long been the deciding factor in whether to issue the designation.
The People's Daily in China, and Sputnik and RT in Russia, for instance, received the labels, but outlets with editorial autonomy that received some government funding did not.
"In the end, [we] felt that the most fair and balanced way to implement labels was to call out state connections that had a demonstrated track record of influencing content of news reporting," the former Twitter executive said.
That meant that NPR, the government-funded outlet Voice of America, "and even Al Jazeera didn't qualify under our designation," the former employee said.
The point of the labels, the former executive said, was to help users understand what they're seeing on the platform.
"That matters a lot when you see an outlet like Xinhua, have never heard of it, and it looks like a totally legit news source," the former executive said about the state news agency that routinely pushes the official line of China's President Xi Jinping.
Besides potentially besmirching the reputation of NPR, the label influences the reach of the network's tweets.
Under Twitter's rules, and according to the former executive, accounts that have been given the state-affiliated mark are not recommended or amplified on the platform — a process known as "downranking" among social media insiders.
For example, if someone who did not already follow Russian publications like RT or Sputnik searched for the government-backed publications on Twitter, the publications were not suggested, according to a second former Twitter employee who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Accounts deemed affiliated with government, the employee said, were not allowed to advertise on Twitter. A list of what accounts received the label was never publicly revealed.
The policies were in place as a way of ensuring government propaganda did not run amuck on the platform. Now that Musk owns Twitter, it is unclear if the same platform and advertising restrictions on state-affiliated media are still in place.
NPR has not sent a tweet from its official account since Twitter affixed the label.
Network spokeswoman Isabel Lara said since all of the news organization's tweets now carry a "false disclaimer," the organization has decided to halt tweets until the label is removed.
Asked if Twitter not taking away the label meant that the company was standing by the decision, Musk punted.
"We're digging into it," he wrote.
NPR's Dara Kerr contributed to this report.
Our Deutsche Brüder preparing to fine Elon for a shyt Emoji. 
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Germany starts fine proceedings against Twitter over user complaints
Germany's federal office of justice has started proceedings to fine Twitter , accusing the social media company of mishandling user complaints over "illegal" content, a statement said on Tuesday.
www.reuters.com
