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Guardian Will No Longer Post on Elon Musk's X

posted by janrinok on Sunday November 17 2024, @05:32AM   Printer-friendly

c0lo writes:

From the horse's own mouth:

The Guardian has announced it will no longer post content on Elon Musk's social media platform, X, from its official accounts.

In an announcement to readers, the news organisation said it considered the benefits of being on the platform formerly called Twitter were now outweighed by the negatives, citing the "often disturbing content" found on it.

"We wanted to let readers know that we will no longer post on any official Guardian editorial accounts on the social media site X," the Guardian said.
...
Responding to the announcement, Musk posted on X that the Guardian was "irrelevant" and a "laboriously vile propaganda machine".

Last year National Public Radio (NPR), the non-profit US media organisation, stopped posting on X after the social media platform labelled it as "state-affiliated media". PBS, a US public TV broadcaster, suspended its posts for the same reason.

This month the Berlin film festival said it was quitting X, without citing an official reason, and last month the North Wales police force said it had stopped using X because it was "no longer consistent with our values".

In August the Royal National orthopaedic hospital said it was leaving X, citing an "increased volume of hate speech and abusive commentary" on the platform.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Monday November 18 2024, @06:09PM (4 children)

    by ElizabethGreene (6748) on Monday November 18 2024, @06:09PM (#1382328) Journal

    Perhaps I was mistaken. It is entirely possible that I misread the intent of this section, specifically, of this letter [x.com] from the Commissioner of the FCC to Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. It appeared, to me, to be a very thinly veiled threat.

    For now, I am writing to obtain information from you that can inform the FCC's work to
    promote free speech and a diversity of viewpoints. As you know, Big Tech's prized liability
    shield, Section 230, is codified in the Communications Act, which the FCC administers.2 As
    relevant here, Section 230 only confers benefits on Big Tech companies when they operate, in
    the words of the statute, "in good faith."    3

    It is in this context that I am writing to obtain information about your work with one
    specific organization-the Orwellian named NewsGuard.4 As exposed by the Twitter Files,
    NewsGuard is a for-profit company that operates as part of the broader censorship cartel.5
    Indeed, NewsGuard bills itself as the Internet's arbiter of truth or, as its co-founder put it, a
    "Vaccine Against Misinformation."6 NewsGuard purports to rate the credibility of news and
    information outlets and tells readers and advertisers which outlets they can trust.7 As the U.S.
    House Committee on Small Business 2024 Staff Report stated, "[t]hese ratings, combined with
    NewsGuard's vast partnerships in the advertising industry, select winners and losers in the news
    media space."8 NewsGuard does so by leveraging its partnerships with advertising agencies to
    effectively censors targeted outlets.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 18 2024, @07:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 18 2024, @07:36PM (#1382349)

    https://www.axios.com/2024/06/14/newsguard-oversight-committee-investigation-free-speech [axios.com]

  • (Score: 0, Redundant) by khallow on Monday November 18 2024, @09:16PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 18 2024, @09:16PM (#1382368) Journal
    I heard [thehill.com] about these guys some time ago:

    Recently, I wrote a Hill column criticizing NewsGuard, a rating operation being used to warn users, advertisers, educators and funders away from media outlets based on how it views the outlets’ “credibility and transparency.”

    Roughly a week later, NewsGuard came knocking at my door. My blog, Res Ipsa (jonathanturley.org), is now being reviewed and the questions sent by NewsGuard were alarming, but not surprising.

    [...]

    Brill and his co-founder, L. Gordon Crovitz, want their company to be the media version of the Standard & Poor’s rating for financial institutions. However, unlike the S&P, which looks at financial reports, NewsGuard rates highly subjective judgments like “credibility” based on whether they publish “clearly and significantly false or egregiously misleading” information. They even offer a “Nutrition Label” for consumers of information.

    Of course, what Brill considers nutritious may not be the preferred diet of many in the country. But they might not get a choice since the goal is to allow other companies and carriers to use the ratings to disfavor or censor non-nutritious sites.

    [...]

    I was first asked for information on the financial or revenue sources used to support my blog, on which I republish my opinion pieces from various newspapers and publish original blog columns.

    Given NewsGuard’s reputation, the email would ordinarily trigger panic on many sites. But I pay not to have advertising, and the closest I come to financial support would be my wife, since we live in a community property state. If NewsGuard wants to blacklist me with my wife, it is a bit late. Trust me, she knows.

    NewsGuard also claimed that it could not find a single correction on my site. In fact, there is a location for readers marked “corrections” to register objections and corrections to postings on the site. I also occasionally post corrections, changes and clarifications.

    NewsGuard also made bizarre inquiries, including about why I called my blog “Res Ipsa Liquitur [sic] – the thing itself speaks. Could you explain the reason to this non-lawyer?” Res ipsa loquitur is defined in the header as “The thing itself speaks,” which I think speaks for itself.

    But one concern was particularly illuminating:

    “I cannot find any information on the site that would signal to readers that the site’s content reflects a conservative or libertarian perspective, as is evident in your articles. Why is this perspective not disclosed to give readers a sense of the site’s point of view?”

    I have historically been criticized as a liberal, conservative or a libertarian depending on the particular op-eds. I certainly admit to libertarian viewpoints, though I hold many traditional liberal views.

    For example, I have been outspoken for decades in favor same-sex marriage, environmental protection, free speech and other individual rights. I am a registered Democrat who has defended reporters, activists and academics on the left for years in both courts and columns.

    The blog has thousands of postings that cut across the ideological spectrum. What I have not done is suspend my legal judgment when cases touch on the interests of conservatives or Donald Trump. While I have criticized Trump in the past, I have also objected to some of the efforts to impeach or convict him on dubious legal theories.

    Yet, NewsGuard appears to believe that I should label myself as conservative or libertarian as a warning or notice to any innocent strays who may wander on to my blog. It does not appear that NewsGuard makes the same objection to HuffPost or the New Republic, which run overwhelmingly liberal posts. Yet, alleged conservative or libertarian sites are expected to post a warning as if they were porn sites.

    So not only are they offering a censorship service to social media sites, they're extorting blogs too, building up a blacklist for advertisers to avoid.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 18 2024, @10:04PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 18 2024, @10:04PM (#1382382)

    Threat or not, it's a steaming pile of horse hockey.

    Why? Because Section 230 isn't some "gift" to big tech by the Democrats in order to stifle speech.

    In fact, it applies to everyone connected to the Internet. To my Pixelfed instance which only I use. To SoylentNews.org. To your mailing list, IRC server, XMPP server, website and any other sort of thing where third parties can post stuff.

    And it doesn't matter whether it's an individual, a small business, Meta, Google or some random Mastodon instance.

    As such, it protects *everyone*. Remove Section 230 and you take away those protections (and to be clear, such protections are from nuisance lawsuits when some jackass doesn't like what some third party has posted on your site) from everyone.

    What would be the result do you think? Any sane person would either shut down their site (or not allow third parties to post on their site), which would get rid of pretty much every site like SoylentNews and the Better Business Bureau and every other site that can't afford to operate under threat of lawsuits.

    Who would that leave? Just the biggest players, Meta, Google, X, (possibly, but maybe not) Reddit. Because they're the only ones who have the resources to operate in such an environment.

    If getting rid of every mom and pop site on the Internet is your goal, then getting rid of Section 230 is the way to go.

    Don't get all wrapped up in *claims* (where's the actual evidence) of censorship. Ask yourself, "Cui Bono?" And if the answer is the folks you're suspicious of, does it really make sense to push for getting rid of Section 230?

    But don't believe me. I'm just some random asshole on the Intertubes. Go see for yourself.

    Sure Jim Comer and Brendan Carr will piss and moan about NewsGuard, but what *exactly* is Newsguard supposed to have done that's inappropriate?

    Have customers? And those customers include government agencies? What about SpaceX? You could say the same about them. Or Amazon, or Microsoft or Google or any of tens of thousands of government contractors.

    Instead of being told there's some "there" there, go see for yourself instead of listening to folks (both in the media and in government) who have every reason to distort the truth.

    Unless it doesn't matter to you if someone distorts the truth as long as such distortion comports with what you want to believe. If so, I'm wasting my time. I hope I'm not.

    • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Monday November 18 2024, @10:53PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 18 2024, @10:53PM (#1382396) Journal
      Nobody is advocating removing Section 230. ElizabethGreene correctly observes that Section 230 protection is not absolute. My view is that creating a censorship cartel is not protected by Section 230 for the reasons I've stated [soylentnews.org] before.

      Unless it doesn't matter to you if someone distorts the truth as long as such distortion comports with what you want to believe. If so, I'm wasting my time. I hope I'm not.

      There are many ways to distort the truth. Creating a single censor that most social media outlets use is one such way.