Right so it’s either an echo chamber telling you what you want to hear or it’s a train wreck. Just delete that shit and the world is instantly better.
Musk Has No Idea Why He Gave NPR ‘State-Affiliated Media’ Label Elon Musk appeared to be uncertain about why exactly he gave NPR’s Twitter account a “state-affiliated media” label Wednesday, according to a series of emails exchanged between the billionaire and NPR reporters. On Wednesday, upon learning that only 1 percent of the outlet’s funds come from government support, Musk wrote, “Well, then we should fix it.” According to NPR, Musk appeared confused by the difference between public media and state-controlled media. In another message, NPR reports that Musk compared the outlet to state-controlled media: “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.” The label still remains as of Thursday evening. Musk told NPR that Twitter is still evaluating the case.
I admittedly don't like what Elon is doing with Twitter but also recognize that he's brilliant and has made significant contributions to society with Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink. What an objective waste of his time to be dealing with a label on NPR's Twitter page. All self-inflicted.
I’d like to cut him some slack given the monumental contributions he has been involved in, but he’s turned himself into such a complete douche it’s hard to ignore. More importantly it is taking away from areas where he can make a meaningful difference.
Twitter targets its rival Substack, forcing well-known journalists to choose https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/04/07/twitter-substack-taibbi-musk-split/
Musk removes limits on the amount of russian propaganda they can psot, says let the customer figure it out Elon Musk Makes Big Change Affecting Vladimir Putin (msn.com) The Russian president has two official accounts: one in Russian and one in English. They have 3.6 million and 1.7 million followers respectively. The most recent messages on the English account date to March 2022. The accounts of high-ranking Russian officials were accused of spreading misinformation about the Ukraine war. "We're aware that Twitter is being restricted for some people in Russia and are working to keep our services safe and accessible," the company had said in a statement. Twitter Lifts Limits on Russian Accounts More than a year later, the platform has lifted these limits and Musk has just indicated that the group will not censor content posted by Russian officials, but it will not promote it or recommend it. The tech mogul made the announcement after he was challenged by a user of the platform, who pointed out to him that former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had called for the genocide of Ukraine.
If other major news outlets follow this lead, twitter is in trouble. It is a great place to get news if you have a curated list of follows, but if the journalists aren't on there, it is just facebook, but with more junk. https://www.npr.org/2023/04/12/1169269161/npr-leaves-twitter-government-funded-media-label 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 decision by Twitter last week took the public radio network off guard. When queried by NPR tech reporter Bobby Allyn, Twitter owner Elon Musk asked how NPR functioned. Musk allowed that he might have gotten it wrong. Twitter then revised its label on NPR's account to "government-funded media." The news organization says that is inaccurate and misleading, given that NPR is a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence. It receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Facebook is way more profitable than Twitter, perhaps that is the aim! Of course the social and informational value will plummet.
https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances NPR Revenues NPR is an independent, non-profit media organization. We are also a membership organization of separately licensed and operated public radio stations across the United States. NPR's two largest revenue sources are corporate sponsorships and fees paid by NPR Member organizations to support a suite of programs, tools, and services. Other sources of revenue include institutional grants, individual contributions and fees paid by users of the Public Radio Satellite System (PRSS; i.e. Satellite interconnection and distribution) So NPR (the content provider) gets very little from Federal government. Public broadcasting stations, which pay NPR for content, get some money from federal government (CPB- corporation for public broadcasting) but a relatively small share, less than 10% for the DFW public broadcasting station (excluding employee retention credit ) but probably higher for smaller cities and rural stations. https://www.kera.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/FY22-Updated-CPB-FM-Report.pdf About CPB