I'd say editorial control subject to private interests may be worse than actual public interests. And frankly that seems to be true of all US corporate media; most US media is very pro-corporate and it's hard to find news that tells the other side of the story. On top of that, Fox News is specifically about the political interests of its owner. But none of them get labeled for it by Twitter.
But I don't see editorial control by a government for propaganda purposes as public interest; that's just the private interests of the people controlling the government. News in the public interest would be about informing the public as honestly as possible, showing the nuance, the different sides of the story, but also asking tough questions about it and getting to the bottom of the issue. Getting the truth out. Unfortunately that's not profitable enough in a capitalist media landscape.
whatever Twitter does to show the underlying institutional-level interests an account may be representing, it's very useful context IMO
npr sees it as a problem because Twitter has previously used those labels and context blurbs to weaponise their platform against accounts and messages coming from their ideological adversaries
conversely, they've given and taken blue ticks as a seal of approval and not to certify identities as the tick nominally was meant to do, going as far as removing the tick to people who stepped out of their line politically (and showering blue ticks to everyone even mildly related to the right-thinking media-government bubble)
essentially these blurbs and labels have been used almost always negatively, but right now they're out systematically pointing out the "category" of all institutional accounts, adding a bunch seemingly every day
what they are doing now it's at least superficially the correct thing to do
they now let users introduce context blurbs instead of centrally policing right-think, and they are adding ticks to government actors, and media that is either controlled, funded or affiliated to governments - in fact they should also add any funding by large foundations whether they are public or private
as a (sporadic) user this is in my interests, and it also works for them not to have to do so much speech policing in-house
> Twitter has previously used those labels and context blurbs to weaponise their platform against accounts and messages coming from their ideological adversaries
"Previously"? It's what Twitter is doing right now. That is the thing people are complaining about. It used to be used specifically to point out state propaganda channels, but Musk changed it to using for media he doesn't like. Like NPR.
> going as far as removing the tick to people who stepped out of their line politically
By making fun of Musk.
Look, you can try to spin this as if Musk is making Twitter somehow more objective and neutral, but nobody is falling for that because that's clearly not what's going on. Musk is running Twitter as his personal propaganda platform, boosting himself and accounts he approves of, and hiding those he disapproves of. It's about his personal preference now.
> now they're out systematically pointing out the "category" of all institutional accounts
"State-affiliated media" is exactly what NPR is not. Their own explanation of that category explicitly listed NPR as an example of NOT state-affiliated media. And it clearly doesn't fit their definition of it, but Musk put it in there anyway, because he wanted to punish them for criticising him. I think they have by now created a new less-wrong category for it: "government funded", but the fact of the matter is that NPR is primarily funded by donations.
Is he also pointing out "corporate funded media", by the way? Because that would also be a really useful category to point out.
But I don't see editorial control by a government for propaganda purposes as public interest; that's just the private interests of the people controlling the government. News in the public interest would be about informing the public as honestly as possible, showing the nuance, the different sides of the story, but also asking tough questions about it and getting to the bottom of the issue. Getting the truth out. Unfortunately that's not profitable enough in a capitalist media landscape.