This seems perfectly fair to me and I don't understand the controversy. Maybe in the US people see "State Affiliated" as some kind of an insult? Public broadcasters like the BBC and Al Jazeera have done extraordinary work at times.
That being said it would only be fair to also include a badge for private media corporations that says who their parent corporation is.
>This seems perfectly fair to me and I don't understand the controversy. Maybe in the US people see "State Affiliated" as some kind of an insult?
From Twitter's definition
> State-affiliated media is defined as outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.
> State-affiliated media is defined as outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution. Accounts belonging to state-affiliated media entities, their editors-in-chief, and/or their prominent staff may be labeled.
> 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.
I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt and using only the most current one. Policies get updated over time and that's okay. It's a good thing for organizations to change their mind, update and improve policies.
The thing is here it's dumb no matter what version of the policy you look at lmao
Typically the State Affiliated badge is only applied to accounts where editorial control is in the hands of the state - think Chinese and Russian media companies.
Also interesting- after the change, NPR's badge says "Government-funded media" while the BBC's badge says "Publicly funded media," at least in the US. Al Jazeera does not have any such badge, other than the gold "Official Organization" badge.
Mostly because the amount of money we're talking about from NPR where including indirect funds (Government -> NPR Affliates -> NPR + Government -> NPR) reaches single digits whereas the majority of BBC funding comes from the TV license legislation enforced by the government and Al Jazeera has an undisclosed amount of money funding it.
Further a huge amount of media outlets worldwide receive money from the government in the realm of single digits and yet are not slapped with the same label, NPR is only being equated to organisations like the BBC here who are truly on a different level in terms of being "state affiliated".
NPR could very conceivably leave all of its government funding behind and not hurt all that much as a result. Whereas if BBC lost all the TV license funding it would be apocalyptic for the organisation. So regardless of the nominal independence of Al Jazeera and BBC from their respective governments, it's difficult to see them as being as independent in practice. NPR gets far more of its funding from corporate sponsors who in all likelihood have more of an editorial influence over it than the government does. They aren't however listed as "Corporate-affiliated media", which would honestly be both more accurate and more damning to their image. Whereas I really wouldn't claim that BBC or Al Jazeera are "Corporate affiliated media" but I wouldn't hesitate to call them "State affiliated".
That being said it would only be fair to also include a badge for private media corporations that says who their parent corporation is.