NPR Says Enough Is Enough: Quits Twitter
from the time-to-leave dept
The only surprising thing here is that it took this long: NPR has officially announced that it has quit Twitter. This is in response to Elon’s chaotic decision to first label the account “state-affiliated media,” a label that was designed to help users understand if a media organization was actually a dedicated mouthpiece of the government (which NPR is not). Indeed, NPR was initially the example that Twitter used as to the types of media organizations that such a label should not apply to.
After receiving some pushback for this, and revealing his near total lack of intellectual curiosity on the matter, Musk agreed to change the label to “government funded media,” despite that being misleading as well (and again, it seems that such a label would apply just as much to Twitter itself).
NPR had stopped posting to its main Twitter account after the initial label was made, and on Wednesday morning announced that it was leaving for good:
NPR will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, becoming the first major news organization to go silent on the social media platform. In explaining its decision, NPR cited Twitter’s decision to first label the network “state-affiliated media,” the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia, China and other autocratic countries.
The reasoning, explained by NPR CEO John Lansing, is about more than just the label, but about how the label came to be:
“At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter,” he says. “I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again.”
Meanwhile, Musk’s willingness to just make shit up as he goes along without thinking through the consequences of said labeling was on display in an interview he gave to the BBC, in which he said he’ll probably change the label on NPR, the BBC and other similarly situated news orgs as “publicly funded.”
It’s unclear how that will win back anyone.
Meanwhile, the NPR Twitter account did wake from its weeklong slumber to basically tell everyone the many other places you should go to get NPR info that are not Twitter.
So Musk’s whims are now going to drive more people to following NPR on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Considering that Twitter’s biggest advantage over those other sites was that people used Twitter to follow news, this seems like a pretty massive self-own by Musk.
Filed Under: elon musk, media, social media
Companies: npr, twitter
Comments on “NPR Says Enough Is Enough: Quits Twitter”
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Snowflake
Conservatives suffered from social media “fact check”ing and “context” labels for quite some time. But within one week of context that NPR is partially funded by the government (which is entirely true!), they rage quit. This is why leftists were in tears when the Elon purchase was announced; they knew they couldn’t handle being subjected to the same treatment.
Re:
The context of that factual statement is itself lacking context: NPR receives a miniscule amount of its funding from the government. The Twitter label could be read as saying “NPR is an arm of the U.S. federal government” when NPR is anything but. That’s what NPR took issue with—well, that, and the wildly impulsive (and frankly immature) nature of the person who approved of the label being put on the NPR account.
Re:
Can you show us on the doll where reality touched you?
Re: Every major large company is government funded
When the threshold is only 1%, then even Twitter is government funded (Saudi Arabia). 1% is so small that most large companies would be government.
Re:
If they don’t like it, all they have to do is stop lying. Simple solution really. Might even save ’em a few billion here and there. Those awards for actual malice can really add up.
Re: Re:
Or, to be more accurate, they could stop lying, stop engaging in yellow journalism, stop trying to hack into voicemails to mislead investigators, stop slandering, stop harassing, stop funding campaogns for link taxes and stop carrying water for the next Richard Nixon and…
ACTUALLY DO PROPER FUCKING REPORTING.
Sadly, Rupert Murdoch would rather do all of that to grift 74 million insurrectionists instead of actually doing journalism.
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Re: Re:
Hot take.
What if, just maybe, the “fact checkers” were sometimes wrong? What if there was a systemic bias? What if sometimes the factcheckers themselves actually lied on purpose?
Re: Re: Re:
Those are claims that would be taken seriously if reported, backed with verifiable evidence.
But, for some reason, the people whining about “fact checkers” are never armed with facts.
Re: Re: Re:
Well du’h reality it self has a liberal bias, that is pretty well known. Poor reality can’t help it that people like you do not want to reside in it but in some fantasy land that never existed. And we’ll see you do so yet again in reaction to this post.
Fact checkers being wrong happens. The real ones (that is not the ones that people like you set up to emulate something you do not (want) to understand) retract their claims and generally make that known to people looking up the now debunked fact.
Deliberate lies is the best way to be ignored, derided and otherwise shunned. Except when it one of those sham organizations setup by people like you, then the people on your side close ranks and viciously attack anyone who dares to point out their emperor has no clothes.
You might want to stop with your current tactics since every accusation you do is as usual a confession.
Re: Re: Re:
“That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”
-Christopher Hitchens
Re: Re: Re:
“What if” Matthew had no facts to back up anything they say?
In contrast to Matthew, I’ll answer my own question. If they had no facts, they might start literally every sentence with the words “what if”.
Re: Re: Re:
They’d be Fox News employees.
Re: Re: Re:
What if, instead of looking at every fucking thing as some grand conspiracy, you stop thinking every mundane thing as having some massive, globally-coordinated plot to it?
You fucking screwballs would be a lot fucking happier if you just lived in reality for a while, and quit looking at every comment as some kind of challenge to a fight, or something you have to disagree with because you’re just a disagreeable shithead.
The problem is you assholes, and your overactive imaginations. Facts are facts – that you want there to be some kind of leeway in things that are undisputable is the fucking problem.
The sky’s fucking blue, jackass. If you think that’s subject to bias, interpretation, or whatever the fuck else you dumbfucks are ‘thinking,’ you’re a fucking nutjob and should be stuck in a rubber room where you belong.
Re: Sleep Paralysis Demon Reborn III
No stable genius would forgo due diligence when spending over forty billion dollars to buy something in a field you’ve never managed before. Musk has repeatedly shown he has near zero experience with operating a social media platform and even less understanding regarding what creates value at Twitter. Stable genius spent billions of dollars he did not need to spend to make a moronic $54.20 joke. “I’ll buy your stupid Twitter and make it 100 times bestester than it currently is. I need no business model, I need no due diligence, I am the stable genius that knows everything you do not know. I can play League of Legends while running all my always successful corporations while getting handjobs. I bet you didn’t know in so many scenes online there is a specialist giving my a handy as I am being interviewed. It’s why I’m smirking so often. It’s to hide my glorious orgasms from you plebs. I am the hardcore speed king of the kitchen sink up my ass!! I am the Emperor who invented Inivisiclothes!! I am the walrus!!!!”
As always, the christofascist branch of conservatives keep providing me with buckets of chuckleheads. The perpetual self owning stupidity would be even funnier if they weren’t so busy trying to fuck up some people’s lives because they’re obsessed with genitals and what people are doing with them–except when it comes to wholesome Toddlers and Tiaras pageants that are literal breeding grounds for groomers. Those are as American as daily gun massacres! We’ve had so many this year that there’s been more massacres so far this year than there have been days in this year. At least the GOP is making it incredibly clear what their priorities are.
Gun violence? Let’s give people the ability to carry concealed weapons with no training and no background checks!1!! The real problem isn’t guns, it’s drag queens grooming our children to be less boring. Sure the only men in dresses that are repeatedly convicted for sexually abusing children are men in their holy dresses. Plenty of religions hid their child raping priests for decades and kept shuffling them about allowing them to keep abusing children. They’re the party of child safety.
E/Or stopped paying for CSAM scanning software from Thorn allowing those creeps to have more tentacles online that can service heir grooming efforts. I would not at all be surprised if it turned out E/Or has a Mount Rushmore sized collection of child porn. I also wouldn’t be shocked if he enjoyed watching animal slaughterhouse videos including from his Neuroticlink slaughterhouses. E/Or is a twisted shadow of what evil appears in cartoons. He’s patheticness come to life. I cannot wait for the inevitable HBO miniseries documenting E/Or’s rise and flaming downfall.
Re:
“Conservatives suffered from social media “fact check”ing and “context” labels for quite some time”
Yes, they did lose their crap over accurate labels quite a lot didn’t they?
“But within one week of context that NPR is partially funded by the government (which is entirely true!)”
Partially = around 1% in this case, as I understand. Why do I feel that you’re be crying about unfair treatment if other platforms correctly noted the much higher levels of public investment in Tesla, SpaceX, etc.?
“This is why leftists were in tears when the Elon purchase was announced”
Nobody was in tears, that’s another right-wing echo chamber hallucination. At most, people were annoyed that the things that protected from toxic hatemongers would be removed and a previously useful platform would be reduced to another 4chan. The fact that respected factual reporting outlets are moving away from the platform proves that correct, by the way.
Also, it’s doubtful that this is the sole reason. NPR most likely looked at the overall landscape, where Musk was inviting back Russian propaganda outlets, racists and traitors to post again while removing verification and moderation for CSAM, and decided that this simply wasn’t a battle worth fighting.
Re:
Apart from being factually wrong, that wasn’t the point.
1. Musk/Twitter started applying a tag to the NPR twitter account which they had up until then had used NPR as an example of when the tag wasn’t correct. After that was pointed out, Musk/Twitter removed that example from the definition. In subsequent exchanges, it was clarified that the change had nothing to do with new information or changed circumstances.
2. After receiving the information that contradicted what Musk/Twitter alluded to was the reason for starting to apply the tag, Musk/Twitter decided to apply a different, newly created tag, to the NPR twitter account. The newly created tag was also incorrect according to the information Musk/Twitter had just received.
3. In a broadcasted meeting with BBC, Musk/Twitter suggested creating yet another new tag and possibly apply that to both the twitter accounts of both BBC and NPR.
This is not behaviour based on information, standards or process, which makes the behaviour unpredictable. Unpredicatble behaviour is not the basis of effective collaboration.
Even if one or more of the labels could be argued to be correct/informative, there is absolutely no reason for any Twitter user, either content producer or consumer, to be able to rely on such tags, based on the behaviour and statements of Musk/Twitter.
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A Tree Falls In The Woods
With 8.8 million followers on twitter, and only dozens of interactions with every tweet, it appears that very few people actually care about getting news from NPR on twitter.
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Other news outlets may decide that being subject to the whims of an impulsive and vindictive manchild isn’t worth whatever mild benefits they receive from posting on Twitter. NPR could be the spark that lights the fuse on that particular bomb.
Re: Re:
Well, PBS has followed them out of the door.
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In the case of news, or other notification uses of Twitter, the interaction is mire likely, a new post, click link. Therefore followers are retweets are what matters, and not response on Twitter.
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Strawman alert!!!
I am guessing that you are unable to actually present an argument to the fact that Musk is acting like a complete and irrefutable man-child, you have to change the subject to something completely irrelevant just to make a dig.
BTW, did you ask every NPR follower on Twitter about their preferences of getting NPR news tweets? Otherwise, how can you make that statement and not sound like some idiot that just makes shit up to paint a narrative.
Oh wait, this is Koby, nvm.
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Yeah, that’s it. He’s just pruning the userbase to generate revenue, right?
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Yes, most NPR listeners know how to turn on a radio so don’t need Twitter to tell them the news they get listening to on the radio is still existing on the radio.
I know common sense is in short supply in your section of the silo but I know you’re not that disconnected from reality that you actually think this is some insightful proclamation where you pwn us. Ahh, wait; is this the stable genius conversation streams of unconsciousness that E/Or is unleashing?!? Now it all makes sense. They had you playing the smoke monster, no make-up or prosthetics required, on Lost! You’re acting range, so intense!
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I can access NPR’s site just fine though!
I’ll just check the site daily then.
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It’s not as though NPR also posts news items on their own web site, and that people would like to be notified of. Such a thing would never be done by a radio station would it?
Do I need to the sarc tag?
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That’s not exactly a small number.
Most people don’t like, retweet, quote tweet, or reply to the news they read. Most just read it and move on.
Re: Re:
Just look at the mental meltdown Musk had when he discovered how few impressions his tweets got and fired the engineer who spoke up about it. Which in turn resulted in Musk’s tweets got shoved down the throat in everybody’s timeline.
If we use Koby’s reasoning we can with certainty say that hardly anyone is interested in what Musk tweets these days.
It's political
Musk is on the other side with his politics.
Re: These days I wouldn't say you're wrong mind, but still...
If you’re categorizing ‘prone to making stupid decisions based upon willful ignorance and then refusing to walk them back and/or admit that they were stupid due to ego’ as ‘political’ then I guess?
Re: Re:
I mean the part where he’s repeatedly followed and boosted far-right accounts and banned or criticized people and organizations they don’t like feels like it just might be political.
The likes of Associated Press or Reuters should set up and manage a Mastodon instance for their subscribers to use. That way people would know where to look from their Mastodon instance to follow news updates.
Re: NPR has a fediverse presence
As was pointed out in the comments below, they have a presence on the fediverse, namely on my very instance: https://mstdn.social/@NPR
Re: Re:
I was thinking that a Reuters.social and/or AP.social would make it a lot easier to find news sources to follow, and also validate the account as actually being a news organization.
Meanwhile in Canada, our wingnut leader of the Tories is asking Twitter to apply the ‘government-funded media’ label to the CBC.
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Wikipedia says “It is a Crown corporation that receives funding from the government.” So, the label would be technically correct, the best kind of correct. Nevermind that it’s devoid of any useful information.
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Yeah but the only reason Poilievre wants it is because hating the CBC as a mouthpiece of the LPC is an article of orthodox Tory faith.
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British Tories are exactly the same with the BBC, even though it’s management is packed with party members, donors and appointees, push press releases like they’re news and actively censor people who disagree with government policy. They also decided to try to privatise the secondary public broadcaster, because they didn’t like being asked tough questions or being subjected to scrutiny.
Re: Re:
The whole point of a Crown Corporation is precisely that it has an independent, self-directed, arms-length relationship with the government.
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Okay, that’s one reason why the label is useless. But that doesn’t make it inaccurate: crown corporations do receive government funding.
Re: Re: Re:2
Inaccuracy isn’t the issue.
Re: Re: Re:3
It shouldn’t be; but with such vague labels and an erratic and detached CEO, the result is predictable. It’s like when Trump became president: suddenly we can’t rely on “everyone knowing” how the rules are meant to be interpreted, and we’re looking at what they literally say.
Isn’t this how it always goes? If your text is too open to interpretation, you’re liable to get screwed by whoever gains power next. Twitter was trying to use labels that basically said nothing, but, “wink wink, you know what we mean”; and now they’ve got a CEO with an apparent immunity to subtext.
Re: Re: Re:4
The labels were meant to denote accounts that were ostensibly arms of a given government. Musk was the one who erased that context by applying the label to a group that has only the tiniest of financial connections to the U.S. federal government. The problem isn’t the label, but the impulsive and ridiculous application of said label by a petulant manchild with several vendettas against news organizations that don’t kiss his ass.
Re: Re: Re:5
Yes, Mike has made the intent clear. But the label is one problem, because the words do not suggest anything like the intent. (Disclaimer: I am government-funded, in that I received a sales tax rebate payment last week and expect to receive hundreds of dollars in such payments over the next year.)
The problem with context is that it’s rare that everyone’s aware of the context. Even if a person does know, as I’m sure Musk should have, it’s really easy to turn the focus away from that context. Lots of people never saw the original label or knew its context, maybe never used Twitter, so can easily be drawn into a discussion of whether NPR or the BBC is government-funded—which, as you say, was never the point of the “government-funded” label.
Re: Re: Re:6
It wasn’t originally a “government-funded” label; it was a “state-sponsored” label. Even without the context, that’s a massive difference.
Re: Re: Re:2
Then that’s a label that needs to be evenly applied to all businesses regardless of what percentage that amount is. E/Or can either be technically correct making the symbol meaningless because almost every business gets money from the government in one way or another. Or E/Or can accurately depict reality and return to its previous definition that was focused on whether or not the institution had editorial control or not. Something like Pravda that has its agenda and board set by the government is worthy of the state media tag. Entities like NPR, BBC and CBC all have editorial and hiring control and the government has little recourse over their actions. All three entities criticize all politicians, political groups and any patently stupid positions. It’s not their fault that conservatives repeatedly use low quality media where the reporting often just leads back to somebody’s random tweet. There’s no liberal equivalent of the abject stupidity of ivermectin.
The perfect example is Ivermectin. There is not two sides of the story here. There’s medical experts that know what they’re talking about because of actual medical studies. Then there’s self proclaimed experts that are telling us the truth the experts don’t want us to know because it’d put them all out of business. It totally makes sense a dewormer designed to kill macroscopic lifeforms would also work on microscopic lifeforms that it’s never been tested on. Because they don’t want us to know that safe, simple ivermectin can save your life from so many ailments. The horror stories of parents and grandparents slathering their kids with ivermectin and being told to push through the skin sloughing off, the vomiting, the headaches, the dizziness because those aren’t signs that what is being applied to those poor children is poisonous, no it’s a sign that the magical ivermectin paste is working! Seriously, it’s horrible reading these online discussions. I was only able to read that place once and will never return.
You and your kind of self inflicted stupidity is why innocent children are being slathered with ivermectin. You know better. You know people are selfish liars and that you have to find brave strong men that are willing to declare deworming paste can cure cancer! It’s the one true shining path to freedom.
Re: Re: Re:2
Some Crown Corporations do, and some don’t, receive government funding. It’s the “arms-length” part that is considered important.
Re:
That’s entirely in character for Poilievre — and another excellent example of how entirely unsuited he is for any position requiring any degree of understanding or good judgment, let alone that of Prime Minister.
Re: Re:
Wait a minute, there’s another batshit insane successor to fucking HARPER in Canada?
Re: Re: Re:
Yes. What’s worse is that he makes Harper seem tame by comparison. The guy was already photographed posing with the freedom occupiers in Ottawa and actively rooting for the overthrow of the government before he became leader. I… recommend not listening to Pierre because whenever I hear him talk, I can almost feel myself getting dumber just listening to him.
Re: Re: Re:2
I am legit ANGRY at this.
Harper was already Bad News. And Canadaa ELECTED HIM.
How does Canada repeat the SAME MISTAKE?
Re: Re: Re:
Harper wasn’t insane. He was a conservative when that meant something more than ‘mindless reactionary’ and ran the country reasonably well from a fairly difficult position as a minority PM.
Meanwhile, Poilievre thinks CAD is obsolete and ought to be replaced by the crypto he’s invested in.
Re: Re: Re:2
No, Harper just meticulously hid his fundamentalist nuttery much better (to the point that many had no idea about it). And Harper was smart enough to understand that the Canadian public wouldn’t accept certain things (at least not yet, not all at once, and not without laying extensive groundwork). Harper was also ruthless enough to bridle any less disciplined “true believer” Party-members, who might spoil things by saying things too plainly or speaking the quiet parts out loud.
But Harper had plans — plans that would fit in well with the American religious and ideological “Right”. He actually decided major foreign policy on the basis of his fundamentalist religious beliefs. He was even willing to muzzle scientists and destroy research that did or might contradict his beliefs or his agenda. Harper’s truest promise was when he told a sympathetic audience that they wouldn’t recognize Canada when he was through with it.
Poilievre has enough support from the like-minded nut-wing (remember, he has enough support from that side of the membership that he won the leadership in the first-round vote), that he thinks that he can be more open about some of this.
Re:
I hate to be the guy to sit here and say “both sides are bad”, but in this case, the BSAB meme applies. While the Conservatives are trying everything they can to destroy the CBC because they won’t report things exactly like they want, the Liberal run government recently made an attempt to delete a news story off of social media because it gave the government the sads.
While the platforms rejected the demands, the Liberal government is working on an online harms bill that adds “misinformation” to the list of “harmful” content (which ultimately can mean anything as it was very ill defined) which can be demanded to be removed by anyone. Failure to comply within 24 hours means a $10 million fine. There isn’t even website size limitations to which these laws can be applied to, either, so everyone is going to get completely screwed over if this doesn’t change before it becomes law.
All this is happening while the major media outlets are sitting there saying “this is fine” and not treating these issue seriously – issues that will invariably bite them in the rear quite hard.
The Canadian political landscape just plain sucks right now. 🙁
Re: Re:
“the Liberal run government recently made an attempt to delete a news story off of social media because it gave the government the sads”
Yet, weirdly, you fail to give people enough detail to work out which story you’re thinking of. I’m not saying you’re lying, but one hallmark of people who spend too much time in one type of biased echo chamber is the fact that they assume others will immediately know which story they’re thinking of when making a claim, when it’s possible that many people they’re talking to will never have heard of it. Sometimes that’s just vagaries of how little news from places like Canada are broadcast as widely as news from places like the US. Sometimes, it’s because the story has actually been out there, but the details of the story aren’t what’s being pushed by one “side”, so it doesn’t gain traction with the “side” that knows the full context.
I hope you’re not in that category, but it’s worth stating which story you’re referring to when you’re using it as a counter-example to something.
Re: Re: Re:
It sounds a lot like the “they’ll throw you in jail for using the wrong pronoun!” lie.
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Re: Re: Re:2
They fine people all the time. Talk about taking away Peterson’s medical license. That doesn’t make it not oppression.
Re: Re: Re:3
If you’re “oppressed” by being asked to respect someone’s identity, you’re more eager to be a victim than you’re willing to admit.
I’d also bet money that you’d be “triggered” if someone kept constantly misgendering you. But I’m not going to do that to you because I’m not a complete asshole. (And if you do it to me, you won’t provoke the response you think you will because you’re not that clever and I’m not that stupid.)
Re: Re: Re:3
“Talk about taking away Peterson’s medical license.”
Yeah, it turns out if you not only don’t practise medicine, but you preach against it, you might lose the ability to claim that you agree with it.
Next up: apparently if you deal tarot cards instead of logging in to a router to edit the network config, you might lose your CCNA. This is shocking to Matthew somehow.
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Re: Re: Re:2
We’re working on that. No individual who put in the honest effort to have their offending phallus removed should live through the ignominy of Hyman referring to them as a male. This injustice has to stop, and the only way is to make an example of the close-minded fools who refuse to be fabulous.
Re: Re: Re:3
You won’t stop us, Hyman.
Enjoy your last days of still having a penis.
Re: Re: Re:
Since there is interest, here was the writeup I did on it yesterday
The tl;dr version of it is that the government didn’t like something some tabloid wrote. Rather than refute the claims, they attempted to have it taken down directly AND remove it from social media AND ban people from sharing the link to that story. Because of the way the government handled the story, the contents of the story really didn’t matter.
The current government is not exactly innocent in its efforts to clamp down on freedom of the press. Just look at the damage that can be done if Bill C-18 passes.
To further emphasize, the Conservatives won’t be an improvement on things. If they ever get elected (I seriously hope that never happens with the current leadership in that party), they’ll behave pretty much like Republican’s and say that it’s only free speech if they agree with it and ban everything they disagree with.
On a side note, I can appreciate the irony of being treated like Mike Masnick whenever I point out the flaws on one side of politics like I’m sort of hack for the other side right on his very own website. Not exactly uncharted territory for me, thankfully. I was considered a Conservative shill during the Martin years, a Liberal hack during the Harper years, and already been considered a Conservative wingnut during the current Trudeau years. I don’t expect partisan attacks to change any time soon no matter my 18 year track record of being politically non-partisan.
If that was the intent, the label is a pretty poor way to achieve it. “State-affiliated” is so vague as to be useless; it could mean almost anything, and does not imply being the propaganda arm of the ruling party. So I’m not particularly surprised that there’s disagreement over how it should be applied. It seems like this was badly handled all around.
“Government funded” (which I think needs a hyphen) is, at least, specific. And equally useless, because, taken literally, as soon as any government buys an ad as mundane as “be sure to file your taxes by Monday”, it would apply. What we really need to know is how much control or influence the government has.
Re: Twitter's rules used to make "state-affiliated account" clear...
The rules, before Musk changed them, were pretty clear that “state-affiliated” meant “content controlled significantly by a government, or a state official”, and not just “funded by”. BBC and NPR were specifically mentioned as not being state-affiliated because editorial control was independent of the governments involved.
Re: Re:
Yes, but the end-users aren’t gonna see the rules unless they specifically go looking. They just see the label, with no indication of a hidden meaning, so we have to expect some people to take it at face-value. (I wouldn’t have expected Musk to do that; but I guess if all the people “in the know” have been fired…)
So I understand what they were trying to do, but I’m a bit baffled at why they wouldn’t write something remotely specific such as “state-controlled” or “government-influenced”.
Not like this is his first tantrum
‘We can’t trust the person running the site to not to behave like a petulant and spiteful child’ should have seen them leave as soon as he bought the company and decided to show how ‘hands on’ he was going to be but better late than never I suppose.
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Also no Twitter isn't "government funded"
It was a dumb statement when you wrote a whole blog post about it, it’s dumb now, too.
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The Saudi government has a lot of money invested in Twitter, and do you really think that they don’t have a direct line to Elmo in order to exert pressure on him to make moderation decisions?
Re: Re:
And even more so, I doubt they even care if their “investment” makes money as I would assume it’s mere pennies to them in terms of the dollar figure, but more importantly, it gives them a direct link to American politics and discourse, and now they have an ally on the inside.
Re:
The Saudi government invested way more into Twitter than the US government has invested in NPR.
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Re: Re:
Besides trying to conflate completely different things (Masnick’s dumb idea, still dumb), that’s not even true…the federal government has been funding a significant % (purposefully obscurred, but lol not 1%, that’s a lie) of NPRs budget for decades upon decades. Meanwhile a Saudi prince company invested 1.89 Bn (the prince is not the government) and while the government proper owns a little of that company it’s only 16.9%.
Basically the federal government gives NPR more in straight grants every year than the Saudi gov indirectly invested (as in buying private stock) in a one time deal.
So that statement is dumb, and then it’s dumb again.
Re: Re: Re:
Please cite the evidence that backs up your claim.
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Re: Re: Re:2
The 1% is just the money given directly to the NPR umbrella org. Most of it is given directly to member stations (which is where the main org funds would go anyway) It’s probably at least 8% and could be as high as 25% if you include money funneled through universities.
https://reason.com/2023/04/13/ax-government-funding-for-npr/
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3551625-the-time-has-come-defund-the-hopelessly-biased-npr/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/taxpayers-provide-more-than-25-percent-of-nprs-funding-analyst-says
It’s super shady that it’s hard to tell just how much funding comes from government, and the 1% is just a purposeful lie via accounting trick.
Re: Re: Re:3
If the primary NPR organization isn’t receiving those funds directly from the government, you should say as much or else you’re misrepresenting the truth (likely on purpose).
But sure, let’s say that NPR does receive more money from the government than its budget lets on. So what? That money obviously doesn’t influence NPR’s news coverage and it certainly shouldn’t be a reason to give NPR a label that heavily implies it’s a direct arm of the federal government.
Re: Re: Re:
Then it’s surely easy to present the evidence? People don’t mock you because you have different ideas, it’s because you pull “facts” from your ass…
“Meanwhile a Saudi prince company”
Is that the one demonstrated to have paid $2 billion to Jared and funded a sizeable part of Twitter, or another? You have to be more specific if others are armed with facts…
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Re: Re: Re:2
Please see above, but it’s at least 10% could be as high as 25%. The number is purposefully hidden (which is bullshit) but that it’s not 1% is verified.
Fox News link just cuz it will piss you off.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/taxpayers-provide-more-than-25-percent-of-nprs-funding-analyst-says
No idea who Jared is.
Re: Re: Re:3
No idea who Jared is.
Well, isn’t that convenient.
For all the things you tell us we should be aware of, you seem to not be aware of the ones that are the most obvious.
Like, “Who is 45’s daughter-wife’s husband?” or “Who got a 2 billion dollar payout from the Saudis?” or “Who was deemed unfit to hold a security clearance?”
It’s just comical what you don’t know.
Re: Re: Re:3
Yet you expected me to know a particular journalist by name? It’s Jared Kushner.
Re:
…said nobody literate, ever.
So, every news / journalism operation that gets money from link-tax regimes is “government sponsored”. Got it.
Elon Musk
I’m curious as the whether Elon Musk actually originated the idea to label NPR or even if he was consulted about it or approved it. The whole man-child bit is mildly amusing, but I have a hard time believing that he spends all day personally playing around on Twitter censoring, labeling, shadow banning, etc. I’m pretty sure he is busy doing more important things, even though you like to think he has nothing to do but clown around with NPR. By the way, I listen to NPR from time to time. It sounds like it is an episode of Portlandia where they read government press releases.
Re:
I have to imagine he is, given that he relishes being The Guy In Charge™.
All day? No. But I’m sure he spends more time than he should doing that shit, and that’s due to both his massive-yet-fragile ego and his having fired the people who would’ve been doing that shit.
Re:
Have you read his simp-authored biography?
SpaceX and Tesla were legit ran in the same way, and the simp who wrote that garbage spun it into a good thing.
Re: re: I’m pretty sure he is busy doing more important things
That’s because you’re a peon.
He’s rich therefore he must be busy doing important money making stuff, right?
Spend some time on planet Earth, Thomas.
Re:
He’s got plenty of time to ban people for Andy Ngo, yell at engineers because Catturd2’s 5000th tweet about liberals banning cow farts isn’t getting as much engagement as he wants, be a reply guy for the worst of right wing Twitter while picking fights with celebrities and mocking disabled former employees. He absolutely is that guy who’s using the power he now has to help his ‘friends’ and punish his enemies and micromanage everything.
Was going to express my surprise that NPR didn’t just flee to Mastodon like many other journalists. It turns out that they are also on there:
@NPR@mstdn.social
https://mstdn.social/@NPR
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Re:
No one’s on mastodon. No, seriously. It’s like 1.5 million people.
Re: Re: genius
I have no money. No seriously, it’s like 1.5 million quid.
Re: Re:
And if NPR is still on Mastodon and no longer on Twitter, the people who stayed on Twitter to follow NPR are going to move to Mastodon.
That may look like a drop in the bucket now. But if enough organizations follow suit, then those drops will fill that bucket.
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Lol, OK. It’s not just a drop in the bucket, it’s been going down.
Re: Re: Re:2
Reading comprehension check:
What I said: “That may look like a drop in the bucket now.”
What ‘that’ meant: ‘the number of people who only use Twitter for NPR leaving Twitter, as per the previous paragraph’
What you thought it meant: ‘the number of people using Mastodon’
Check results: You can’t read.
Re: Re:
That’s 1.5 million more than zero.
Cope. Seethe. Mald.
Or better yet, stay in youe Emotional Support Containment Zone and never come out.
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Technically it’s not zero. Just close.
I’m the one coping here how, exactly?
Re: Re: Re:2
You’re coping by implying that 1.5 million is “close to zero”. And sure, 1.5 million users (and that’s assuming they’re all individual people) may not be “a lot” in the context of the userbase size of Twitter, Facebook, and other such large-scale services. But 1.5 million people is still a hefty amount of people in meatspace; that the Fediverse could amass a userbase that large despite the much larger services still existing should amaze anyone but the most cynical of assholes.
Re: Re: Re:3
The other point, of course, is the “network effect”. NPR or Stephen Fry or Neil Gaiman might not be much on their own. But, the people who used to use Twitter to follow them will notice when they’re gone. Then, some will go to follow the people they wanted to follow. Then, the people who followed them might go as well…
I’m not convinced that everyone who was using Twitter will go to “venue X”, be that Mastodon or elsewhere, en masse, but I also think most people use multiple social media services and they’re not going to stick around on Twitter when verification is removed and all the Nazis are there.
It will be a slow death, and by the time it happens the fanbase will have been told to think it’s someone else’s fault. Again.
Re: Re:
If 1.5 million conservatives’ tweets were ‘censored,’ no one’s tweets were ‘censored.’
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Except 1.5 million censored tweets (probably way more than that, no idea really) would be a lot of censorship. It’s not a lot of users.
Re: Re: Re:2
I’d love to have a citation for the criteria there. In early 2023, there were 450 million MAU, so even if your claim was true it would be a small minority. But, given that most “censorship” is generally just “weak willed snowflake experiencing a different opinion for the first time”, I also doubt it counts as censorship.
“It’s not a lot of users.”
Yeah, that’s the main problem. There’s a small number of weak toxic people who have been over-represented for a long time who think they’re being unfairly censored because the people they used to bully have been able to speak up. The fact that they now have a voice doesn’t mean that Twitter et al treated them poorly when they told them to GTFO, it just means bullies have to go elsewhere.
Re: Re: Re:2
Well, if the users are less important, why should anyone give a shit if they’re censored?
Re: Re: Re:2
Oh, so fewer than no people were censored. That’s reactionary mathematics for you, I guess!
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Re: Re: Re:2
No one gives a shit about conservatives being censored. Y’all rednecks should’ve stayed in your doom prepper chambers and married each other’s cousins until the inbreeding ratio finally wiped all of you out from the gene pool.
Re: Re: Re:3
You can’t hide the truth forever, Hyman. You breeders have ruined this planet for the rest of us and you’re going to have to face the consequences sooner or later. Much sooner, if we have anything to say about it.
Re: Re: Re:2
Okay, then if 1.5 million users are being “censored”, no one is being “censored”. I really don’t think you thought this defense through.
Maybe next he can apply a “Media-controlled state” warning to the UK government’s accounts?
Social Benefit too
Anyone using food stamps or other government assistance should also get this label until the entire populous has it.
Re:
YES! Including any ‘Child-tax credits.’
I see no reason for us childless people needing to subsidize those who decide they want to breed.
Re:
Ever picked up a coin on the road?
You’re now road-funded, and the road is maintained by the government, therefore you’re government-funded, according to Batty Matty’s math-illiterate “logic.”
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NPR are liars and the government dogs for free
Two remarks.
First one, they are lying when they explain they did quit the user of Twitter. Their contributors are still, to this very day, contributing and posting to Twitter.
Second : this so-called independant journalist organization has very recently shown how EAGER they are to find information about the recent leaker, and post information about him : pictures, names, They also did an investigation that clearly serves the interests of the government.
This is quite funny. Twitter labels them as government funded. They are not happy about it. And a leak happens and we can see them, with pop corn in our hand, conduct a very ethically questionnable investigation serving the purposes of the government, like the good government little dog they are.
The irony is strong in this one.
If that person, who has leaked to Discord/4Chan secret documents, had been a source to any journalist organization, those would have PROTECTED him as a source, and the government would (1) not be able to go after the journalists using the law and (2) would never be able to force them to reveal the source identity.
We have here someone that is akin to a source… And we are seeing NPR go after him, and investigate, like the proverbial hunting dog for the government.
NPR not happy to be labelled a government funded organization, meanwhile everyone can see one of their staffers publish and push pictures and images analyzes of the leak on Twitter (the same one they explain they are no longer using – this is so funny).
Geoff Brumfiel of NPR sure does like to search from anything exploitable from the pictures of the leaks, adding any finding he can find on the side, so much that he feels like he is really paid by the government for this investigation.
NPR is clearly serving the interests of the government, the hand that feeds them money and they sure dont like when anyone especially Twitter reveals it.
They clearly have on ethics when it comes to protecting sources, and they are very happy to investigate for free someone the government will destroy like they destroyed Manning.
Re:
[citation needed] for everything you said.
Also, NPR “threw a fit” over being labeled “state-affiliated”, which is completely different, and specifically the lack of research and thought that went behind the label. The ad hoc creation of a “government-funded” label followed by a “government-funded media” label solely to label NPR once Musk learned that he was completely wrong about how NPR’s funding worked was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, if anything. If the only thing that happened was the application of a “government-funded media” label to their account without any of that other stuff, I doubt NPR would’ve made such a big deal of it.
And there they go
That’s the fail here.
The majority of NPR national syndication works as a mouthpiece for only one party. Not the government