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Twitter Blocks State-Controlled Media Outlets From Advertising On Its Social Network 100

Posted by BeauHD from the that-didn't-take-long dept.
Twitter is now blocking state-run media outlets from advertising on its platform. The new policy was announced just hours after the company was criticized for running promoted tweets by China's largest state agency that paint pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong as violent, even though the rallies, including one that drew an estimated 1.7 million people this weekend, have been described as mostly peaceful by international media. TechCrunch reports: State-funded media enterprises that do not rely on taxpayer dollars for their financing and don't operate independently of the governments that finance them will no longer be allowed to advertise on the platform, Twitter said in a statement. That leaves a big exception for outlets like the Associated Press, the British Broadcasting Corp., Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio, according to reporting from BBC reporter, Dave Lee. The affected accounts will be able to use Twitter, but can't access the company's advertising products, Twitter said in a statement.

The policy applies to news media outlets that are financially or editorially controlled by the state, Twitter said. The company said it will make its policy determinations on the basis of media freedom and independence, including editorial control over articles and video, the financial ownership of the publication, the influence or interference governments may exert over editors, broadcasters and journalists, and political pressure or control over the production and distribution process. Twitter said the advertising rules wouldn't apply to entities that are focused on entertainment, sports or travel, but if there's news in the mix, the company will block advertising access. Affected outlets have 30 days before they're removed from Twitter and the company is halting all existing campaigns.
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Twitter Blocks State-Controlled Media Outlets From Advertising On Its Social Network More

Twitter Blocks State-Controlled Media Outlets From Advertising On Its Social Network

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  • Voice of America (Score:3)

    by youngone ( 975102 ) on Monday August 19, 2019 @07:55PM (#59104174)
    Oh well. They had their day I suppose.

    • Twitter needs competition. The ones listed here [alternativeto.net] all suck big time, sadly.

  • China needs to be dealt with much more harshly than this for it's approach on Taiwan, but state-controlled or not, this kind of strategy only results in a backfire. Everyone, even the scumbags need to be able to bring their voices to the table. The lesson is still not learned by the lefties... I guess it never will. Trying to silence the opposition rarely goes the way you want it to go.

    Every time people get on their faux high horses they never stop and think about about all of the others that are going

  • And the BBC is independent? (Score:3)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Monday August 19, 2019 @08:10PM (#59104212)

    If organizations like the BBC are being deemed as independent, why does it regurgitate government positions from the war in Iraq to the "crisis" in Venezuela?

    Look, here's one fella asserting that the BBC is neither independent or impartial [opendemocracy.net]

    I am inclined to agree with him BTW.

    • Re:And the BBC is independent? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Monday August 19, 2019 @08:33PM (#59104276)

      The BBC has taken a humongous turn in policy in the past decade, after it was essentially gimped by the Labour government in the last decade after decidedly doing exactly the opposite of what you complain about in your post - the BBC was very anti-Iraq war, and anti-Labour Government at that time and the government didn't like it, and laid the groundwork for reducing its authority drastically, something which has been carried on by successive governments.

      The BBC used to be something worth visiting pre-2009, but its gone rapidly downhill since then - these days, its news sites are routinely > 75% "magazine article" feel good stories rather than actual decent journalistic news. The BBC used to be decently balanced but these days isn't a news source I trust.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by novakyu ( 636495 )

      Stop the lies. The BBC can't give in to government pressure. [springfiel...ield.co.uk]

      • No EFFECTIVE propaganda comes straight out and claims that it is propaganda. The art of effective propaganda is well known to any successful empire. So, please, don't even bother. No one actually buys the idea that Britain doesn't engage in a subtle form of propaganda that isn't actually recognized as such by any casual observer. The normalization of norms is the groundwork for any propaganda. And that is what BBC spreads abroad.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The BBC is impartial. Not perfect, but it goes out of its way to avoid promoting any particular narrative.

      That's why it's constantly accused of bias from all sides.

      There are some reasonable criticisms of the BBC. Sometimes they don't challenge statements enough, or even at all. Often it's in interviews, and the stated reason is that getting bogged down in arguments over every half truth or ideological claim would prevent other important issues being addressed. It's a fine balance and it's impossible to get

  • How could he not be?

    Let the government create a version of "Twitter" to broadcast the presidents communications to the public. .

    It should be just as effective.

    Right?

    • Exactly, the Twitter is only shooting itself in the foot and telling people that it actively attempts to control the public square by clearly taking sides and deciding for the public who should have a voice and who should not. Basically going to encourage governments around the world to ban them and likely institute a state controller version of twitter resulting in something worse. It will not happen immediately, but slowly over time it will.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • No. They don't but it was an opportunity to bash trump, so, obviously, that was a quality post and should be tagged +5 informative.

        • Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
          You find something you hate, you take steps to destroy their funding, voice, access, or whatever else you can think of to try to stop them or silence them. It does not matter if it is a direct or indirect attempt.

          It never works, never has, and no matter how many times it has been tried people never seem to remember that. No matter what form the attempt to silence other take, the effort is noticed.

          You just prick them little my little until there are eno

        • You guys do know this is an article about advertising, right?

          Did you read my post? Did you read the article?

          I only use such a sophomoric argument, because : are you fucking kidding me?

          How the fuck is trumps twitter handle not advertisement and furthermore how is it not state run? ( p.s. he is the fucking president and he has shown no shame in directing state policy to make fools of themselves)

          • How the fuck is trumps twitter handle not advertisement

            The featured article appears to be about the "Promoted Tweets" feature of Twitter, which get inserted into a user's timeline even if no user that the user follows has engaged with the Tweet. The @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS accounts are certainly run by the Executive Office of the President, but importantly, they do not to my knowledge pay Twitter to promote Tweets.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • How could he not be?

      He's a media run state outlet. Quite different.

  • Bias (Score:1, Troll)

    by anderoox ( 6174590 )
    Anyone who looks at video footage of the protests can tell you it is not "mostly peaceful". They have been hurling bricks and molotov cocktails, shooting ball bearings from slingshots, vandalizing, dismantling traffic signs and safety barriers, disabling traffic lights, and in at least three instances they have zip tied and beat up people who they suspect to disagree with the movement. Their current strategy is to create enough collateral damage to forcefully co-opt the rest of society into putting pressure

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jonwil ( 467024 )

      If the leaders in Hong Kong had just listened to the pressure and completly abandoned (and ripped up) the extradition bill that started all this instead of just saying its "off the table" (without actually abandoning it), things probably wouldn't have gotten so bad.

      • If the leaders in Hong Kong had just listened to the pressure and completly abandoned (and ripped up) the extradition bill that started all this instead of just saying its "off the table" (without actually abandoning it), things probably wouldn't have gotten so bad.

        So bad for who?

        Unfortunately that hasn't happened for some reason though has it? Why not?

      • The leaders in Hong Kong know that they won't even be able to run for reelection without the approval of the leaders in Beijing. They probably thought that backing down too readily would mean losing that approval.

        Hong Kong is sort of democratic: The people can vote for their leaders, but Beijing had to pre-approval all candidates before they are allowed on the candidate. So the people get to vote for any one of a list of puppets.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by _merlin ( 160982 )

          Ironically that's more democratic than it ever was under British rule. The governor was a royal appointment, and there was no voting at all. After handover it went from being a royal appointment to being a Party appointment. After people protesting every appointment, they changed it in 2014 so that HK could elect from a pool of nominees approved by the Party. As a Special Administrative Region of China, that's about as democratic as it's likely to get for a while.

      • Re:Bias (Score:4, Informative)

        by _merlin ( 160982 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @04:27AM (#59104910) Homepage Journal

        The extradition bill was only on the table because some sicko killed his girlfriend in Taiwan, and there was outrage over the fact that he couldn't be sent there to face prosecution. They can't sign an extradition treaty with Taiwan, because Taiwan isn't a country - it's the seat of the RoC which claims to be the legitimate government of all of China, including Hong Kong (and Tibet for that matter, and until recently, Mongolia as well). The loosely-worded extradition bill was designed to allow them to send people who committed crimes in Taiwan to face an RoC court. Being loosely worded, people worried it would be used to send people to face PRC courts as well. But given HK is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) within the PRC, I don't think you're really safe from PRC law in HK anyway.

    • No where near what antifa does but they have political and media support in the US. Given how many are out there and how little violence there has been I'd say it's been quite peaceful.

    • Anyone who looks at video footage of the protests can tell you it is not "mostly peaceful". They have been hurling bricks and molotov cocktails, shooting ball bearings from slingshots, vandalizing, dismantling traffic signs and safety barriers, disabling traffic lights, and in at least three instances they have zip tied and beat up people who they suspect to disagree with the movement. Their current strategy is to create enough collateral damage to forcefully co-opt the rest of society into putting pressure

      • Why is there a huge surge in new Slashdot account registrations? Because they banned anonymous posting.

        • Maybe there's something keeping you from seeing anonymous posts.

          • Re:Bias (Score:5, Informative)

            by _merlin ( 160982 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @04:30AM (#59104916) Homepage Journal

            Slashdot no longer allows posting if you're not logged in. For a couple of days, they also prevented anonymous posts from logged-in users. They deleted a lot of anonymous posts, and replies to anonymous posts as well (e.g. this [slashdot.org] was a reply to an AC that got deleted along with its parent). They're allowing anonymous posts by logged-in users again, but a lot of former ACs have had to create accounts.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Mashiki ( 184564 )

            Maybe there's something keeping you from seeing anonymous posts.

            You misunderstand their point. You can only be an AC if you have an account now, they can see AC posts just fine.

            • You misunderstand their point. You can only be an AC if you have an account now, they can see AC posts just fine.

              So you mean there won't be any more swastika ascii art? That's not really fair to Trump supporters, is it?

              • Re: (Score:3)

                by Mashiki ( 184564 )

                So you mean there won't be any more swastika ascii art? That's not really fair to Trump supporters, is it?

                I didn't realize that Trump supporters were in favor of socialism. Unlike all of those democrats who've recently come out of the woodwork in favor of national socialism, sorry I mean "democratic socialism" ...especially the newest kids on the block. Strange that democratic socialism was the same argument used by the KPD along with their backing of antifa. And well shit, they even get bonus points for their Jew hatred.

                Maybe you need to do some house cleaning?

                • I didn't realize that Trump supporters were in favor of socialism.

                  You know Nazis were not socialists, but if you want to try to push that nonsense, here's Encyclopedia Britannica to fill you in on what a dope you are:

                  https://www.britannica.com/sto... [britannica.com]

                  "Hitler allied himself with leaders of German conservative and nationalist movements, and in January 1933 German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed him chancellor. Hitler’s Third Reich had been born, and it was entirely fascist in character. Within t

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Mashiki ( 184564 )

                    You know Nazis were not socialists, but if you want to try to push that nonsense, here's Encyclopedia Britannica to fill you in on what a dope you are:

                    You know that one of the greatest lies of modern history has been the repeated claim that they weren't socialists don't you? It's kind of like how people fall all over themselves over "nazis" and turn around then cheer the commies on with their 100m or more dead. While you're showing your fundamental ignorance of history, what was the nazi party called when Hitler took it over. Give you bonus points if you use the actual german spelling.

                    • You know that one of the greatest lies of modern history has been the repeated claim that they weren't socialists don't you?

                      Get a load of this guy. He thinks Encyclopedia Britannica is an SJW who's lying to him.

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

                      Get a load of this guy. He thinks Encyclopedia Britannica is an SJW who's lying to him.

                      Would you look at that, you managed to show ignorance and stupidity in one go. So now you have two things to look up, the original name and why that article is fundamentally different in tone and facts from the article in 1970. Can't wait for you to figure out just how much massaging of information went on.

                  • You know Nazis were not socialists, but if you want to try to push that nonsense, here's Encyclopedia Britannica to fill you in on what a dope you are:

                    The article in the Encyclopedia Britannica has a strong element of propaganda mixed in with facts. Certain elements on the left have long attempted to disassociated Socialism from National Socialism (Nazi). The fig leaf that is commonly used is to point out that the Nazis killed other socialists, therefore they must not be socialist - and that is exactly what your reference does.

                    However, this is completely illogical.

                    The former Soviet Union and Communist sometimes had border disputes where their soldiers k

                    • Minor correction.

                      You know Nazis were not socialists, but if you want to try to push that nonsense, here's Encyclopedia Britannica to fill you in on what a dope you are:

                      The article in the Encyclopedia Britannica has a strong element of propaganda mixed in with facts. Certain elements on the left have long attempted to disassociated Socialism from National Socialism (Nazi). The fig leaf that is commonly used is to point out that the Nazis killed other socialists, therefore they must not be socialist - and that is exactly what your reference does.

                      However, this is completely illogical.

                      The former Soviet Union and Communist China sometimes had border disputes w

                    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

                    • But sure, it murdered socialists, communists, trade unionists, was supported by the heads of industry and major business leaders, who lobbied Hindenburg to make Hitler chancellor, respected private property (at least, for people it considered "True Germans") and, outside of VW, pretty much the only time it did any significant interventions into the economy were for military reasons, not to support the working classes, but is somehow still socialist, because of that one, single, word in its original, unchanged, title.

                      No. Read more carefully. This is not an issue that can be decided by looking solely at names or labels: you have to look at deeds and actions, what people actually did, and at their ideas.

                      Go look up the Nazi organizations I mentioned that looked out for the interests of workers. They were extremely large, well funded, and quite popular. And on some occasions, they actually seized businesses when the workers councils decided that the business owners had gotten way out of line. Unlike most politicians, H

      • note to Slashdot readers: You will find that there has been a huge surge in brand spanking new Slashdot accounts in the past week, as there has been on all social media sites.

        If there is any trend in new account creation on Slashdot that correlates with that on major social media websites, the causal link has been obscured by another recent event, namely technical measures against abuse of Anonymous Coward to post repeated transphobic copypasta directed at a Slashdot user. Long-time ACs affected by AC abuse measures have created accounts for the first time in order to continue contributing comments. Alongside Slashdot account creation, do you track Anonymous Coward posting frequ

      • And yes I did register just so I can post this, not as a troll but to put forward an important point that many protest supporters including western media choose to ignore. I do not support the government's actions and I certainly agree the police have at times overreacted. But to try to cast the protesters as a coherent movement that is selflessly and rationally pursuing reform is at best a naive view of the situation. Yes there is a core of peaceful supporters, but there is also an undeniably increasingly

        • And yes I did register just so I can post this, not as a troll but to put forward an important point that many protest supporters including western media choose to ignore.

          Then you might want to actually put forward that "important point" and not some trollbot nonsense.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Layzej ( 1976930 )

          Yes there is a core of peaceful supporters, but there is also an undeniably increasingly violent and volatile element.

          Possibly including state sponsored agitators/criminals [washingtonpost.com]. With 1.7 million people on the streets [express.co.uk], antagonistic police, and organized gang violence against pro-democracy protesters, it's surprisingly civil [express.co.uk].

  • BBC is allowed because it's funded with a mandatory "license fee" instead of a tax? So all other state-funded media companies just have to predesignate the source of their funding as "license fee"?

    • No, the BBC (as well as PBS and NPR) have journalistic independence and publish stories critical of their governments/at odds with administration talking points. Hence they are allowed. Voice of America, an actual US government funded and controlled news agency, is excluded (although they are a reputable source of news.)

      This was all covered in the fucking summary

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by novakyu ( 636495 )

        No, the BBC (as well as PBS and NPR) have journalistic independence

        Oh, that was a riot. Thanks for the laughs!

      • No, not at all. Like not even a little bit. The summary stated that a news organization must meet 2 criteria: (1) not getting taxpayer funds AND (2) operating independent of the government. BBC only meets one of these 2 criteria.

        • The summary stated that a news organization must meet 2 criteria: (1) not getting taxpayer funds AND (2) operating independent of the government.

          You're right that the summary of an article written by someone summing up Twitter's press release does say that. The actual press release actually uses an "or" and doesn't talk about taxpayer funds being present but if that funding is used to exert editorial control, and the large bank of multinational experts Twitter will use to make that determination.

          So, like

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • The fee is not controversial. No one outside of the UK considers it as anything but a tax, although collected by a different name. Renaming a tax into a "fee". Is about as meaningful as claiming that only some members of the UK government are "the government." While others are "the opposition" or an "independent judiciary.". Changing a name, even its English name, doesn't change the nature of the thing.

  • Condoning violence (Score:3)

    by hackingbear ( 988354 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @12:56AM (#59104654)

    paint pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong as violent, even though the rallies, including one that drew an estimated 1.7 million people this weekend, have been described as mostly peaceful by international media.

    These Hong Kong protests were in fact very [quora.com] violent [scmp.com], unlike what the international media told you.

    And the HK police response are calm comparing to their peers around the world [france24.com].

    This weekend's protest is only peaceful because many other HK people have had enough violence [hongkongfp.com] and the rioters are trying to repair their images. They already said they would return violence if the government would not meet their demand. That sounds like tactics of terrorists.

    The international media is condoning violence just because they dislike China.

    • Re:Condoning violence (Score:4, Informative)

      by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @02:57AM (#59104806) Journal

      These Hong Kong protests were in fact very violent, unlike what the international media told you.

      Right, a couple of random blog posts are more reliable than "the media".

      And the HK police response are calm comparing to their peers around the world.

      Now you're making excuses.

      The international media is condoning violence just because they dislike China.

      You're shilling for the Chinese state media because you hate uh... the media.

      • a couple of random blog posts

        Ever since the protesters smashed the parliament, they have set fires, shot objects, block subways, roads and airport days in and out. And you call that "a couple of random blog posts".

        You're shilling for the Chinese state media because you hate uh... the media.

        And you're shilling for your western Exceptionalism, because you hate uh... China.

        • It's very difficult to believe that there are 1.7 million lunatics currently out there smashing and burning Hong Kong. If that were the case the city would have burned to the ground within a day.

          It's entirely plausible that some small portion of the rioters are violent. With that many people it couldn't be otherwise, but that isn't sufficient to justify using extreme measures to stop them.

          The most plausible explanation is that Beijing is trying to establish a moral framework for violently suppressing

          • Read my first post, the 1.7m (an exaggerated number) protesters were peaceful this past weekend because many other people have had enough dose of violence for last two months.

            The most plausible explanation...

            Or your most likely excuse.

            • It seems as though you missed the point: If that many people had been trashing the city for the last two months there wouldn't be a city anymore.

    • Thank you for your clearly unbiased input comrade!

  • Propagandist that prohibits free speech protests a commercial business banned by them from wanting to accept their advertising. The US went thru an embarrassing election where political ads paid for in Russian roubles. Oh was that wrong? Hmm slipped by, well golly. Hey how about Tik Tok instead. They would welcome the business.

  • That leaves a big exception for outlets like the Associated Press

    I'm struggling to see how this is a government agency.

  • The protests in HK have had bad actions by some published by free Western press including unjust assaults on suspected China supporters, as well as vandalism and causing financial losses to residents and visitors unable to escape timely. Impetuous mob rule Dumb asses that undermine the broader movement. But these are not the majority. Peaceful protests also are done in many places by folks of varying ages a form of free speech which exists in many civilized countries.

  • Money still talks even with the most staunch leftists.

  • What's the difference between permitting ads from state-run media outlets, and letting Trump (or any other propagandist) tweet? Either way, lies get told, and Twitter profits from disseminating them.

  • Also block CBC/Radio-Canada, La Presse, Le Soleil, ... please.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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