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FORMER RTÉ DIRECTOR General Noel Curran has said “alarm bells” should be ringing at the rate of change in social media giant Twitter since its takeover by Elon Musk.
Curran held a number of senior roles at the national broadcaster before serving as Director General between 2011 and 2016.
He currently heads the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
The EBU is the world’s foremost alliance of public service media organisations, with members in 56 countries in Europe and beyond.
Members benefit from access to exclusive sports events, as well as opportunities for sharing, learning and collaborating with other public service media organisations.
The EBU also organises and runs the Eurovision Song Contest.
In a recent blog post on the EBU website, Curran warned that “Twitter’s policy decisions are bad for public service broadcasters, but more importantly, it’s bad for citizens”.
Speaking to The Journal at the Eurovision venue in Liverpool, Curran noted that “Twitter is important whether you like it or not”.
“It is something that influencers use, and I don’t mean influencers in a social media sense, I mean it in terms of politicians, journalists, business people,” said Curran.
“Twitter has influence and whenever I talk at European level or in Brussels around social media and the threats of social media, I always try to say that social media can just flip.
“Because of the ownership structures, because of the influence and the power they have, they can just change direction.”
One of these sudden changes in direction can be seen in Twitter’s verification system.
Since taking control of Twitter in October last year, Elon Musk repeatedly warned that verification badges would be exclusively available to members who pay at least €8 a month for Twitter Blue, Twitter’s subscription service.
When the change was implemented, thousands of celebrities were stripped of their verification badges.
Many have since had their blue checkmarks restored, but several famous faces, including author Stephen King, basketball star Lebron James, and actor Ian McKellan confirmed that they had not paid for the verification badge.
Some state organisations, such as Met Éireann, An Garda Síochána, and various government departments, have retained a grey checkmark that identifies them as a “government or multilateral organisation account”.
Other accounts, such as BBC News, have a gold checkmark to signify that “it’s an official organisation on Twitter”.
In a now dropped feature, US public radio NPR and Canada’s public broadcaster CBC were described on Twitter as “state-affiliated” and “government-funded”.
These labels were previously reserved for non-independent media funded by autocratic governments.
“People need trust,” said Curran. “People don’t trust social media but they do trust some of the organisations, both public and private, that operate within the social media sphere.
“If you start arbitrarily putting new levels that you decide, as the new owner of Twitter, on what is or isn’t trusted, then I think that’s bad for democracy, it’s bad for the public and that’s why I think this is dangerous.
“It’s so arbitrary and it’s so sudden and it’s driven by almost a personal agenda on a worldwide basis and that is something we all need to stand back and have a look at.”
“An individual has come in and just flipped direction for this worldwide influential media outlet, and bang, everything goes in a different direction.”
Curran also voiced concern that leading social media companies are able to “introduce a new policy which completely influences the rest of the ecosystem and they just decide to do it”.
“That should be really worrying for people,” said Curran, “that a platform that has that amount of influence can just change policies overnight because they change owner and the owner says, ‘well, let’s do it like this’.
“That can happen elsewhere with social media and tech giants who dominate so much of what audiences get and read these days.
“I think we’re all very nervous about it and it’s still early days and we don’t know where Musk is going, but it’s an alarm bell for all of us in terms of what has happened there.”
Since Musk bought Twitter, the company has also relaxed the moderation of content on the network, letting back many users banned because of messages inciting hatred or spreading misinformation.
Musk also announced on Monday that Twitter is cancelling accounts that haven’t been used for a long time.
“We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see follower count drop,” Musk said in a tweet.
It sparked concern among users on the app that accounts belonging to deceased friends and family would soon be erased.
Elsewhere, Curran revealed to The Journal that Eurovision is “growing quite exponentially” in terms of digital and social media audience.
“I got the initial figures for the week this morning and the social media figures, they’re just extraordinary, they’ve increased massively on last year,” said Curran.
He added that the song contest is “increasing in terms of sponsorship interest, commercial interest and it’s increasing with a younger demographic”.
“Part of that is the social media interaction and the way it’s been embraced in the digital sphere,” he adds.
Curran also noted that there is scale to expand the product into other countries.
The EBU was involved in the production and broadcast of an American Song Contest last year, along a similar format to the current Eurovision.
While that project is on ice at the moment, Curran says his team is actively exploring other avenues for expansion – including, potentially, a song contest in Canada.
“We’re not actively seeking other non-European countries to perform at the moment, and we’re always open to situations that arise, but what we are actively pursuing is taking the format and the values and bringing them elsewhere.”
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The establishment are terrified of people knowing what is really going on. They want to control the narrative.
@Brian Boru: Not really most people know ( or should know at this stage, ) that the so called Irish government don’t give 2 ducks about Irish citizens !
@Brian Boru: exactly the msm only flows 1 way when people see the current of the media they will ask questions but not on till then we will see p3ople at our doorsteps looking a vote again by God we only see them every 4 years (sf)while in power blaming every one else
@Brian Boru: by establishment do you mean properly funded investigative journalists working for large broadcasters? Yes I suppose the guy living rent-free in his mum’s basement and tweeting out misinformation and disinformation really has the lowdown on what us actually going on out there!
Have to agree with Brian Boru. I’m no fan of Elon Musk and deleted twitter years ago, but…
It’s more worrying that we have in our own country our main broadcaster has a board appointed by the Government.
I remember when the anti water charges protests were in full swing, the Shills on RTE news were grossly, GROSSLY underreporting the attendance figures.
If that’s not “soft totalitarianism” I don’t know what is.
@Kris Bopp: If you don’t follow the news you’re uninformed – if you do, you’re mis-informed.
Thank God, Elon took over Twitter. Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and other high profile journalists unearthed mass censorship by the American government.
Curran and his ilk would rather the old days when RTE had a monopoly on information and news.
Free speech is the bedrock of all human rights.
@west awake: Not true, contrary to what conservatives say, social media platforms amplify conservative content. Indeed, Mark Zuckerberg cozied up to Donald Trump and Jared Kushner, his political connections, for example, explain why US suddenly decided target social media rival Tiktok. Also, Zuckerberg vetoed a Facebook attempt to block misinformation from Infowars off Facebook, after Alex Jones was removed from the platforms after he shared misinformation about the Sandy Hook school shooting i.e. his followers had unfettered freedom to continue to post his lies so he removal didn’t affect the spread of his misinformation.
From recent article from the Atlantic, and with linked to other articles that support what it says:
“Conservatives maintain they have been (subject to “censorship) (1) by social-media companies for years, either by the imposition of terms of service they complain are unfairly punitive to the right or by bans imposed on particular users.
There is ample evidence though, that social-media networks (consistently exempt) (2) conservative outlets (from their own rules) (3) to (avoid political backlash) (4), a fear seldom displayed when it comes to throttling left-wing content.
And despite the right-wing perception of liberal bias on Twitter, (an internal audit found that the site’s algorithms “amplify right-leaning political content more than left-leaning content.”) (5) The evidence suggests that for all their outrage, conservatives consistently receive preferential treatment from social-media platforms, but are so cavalier about disregarding the terms of service that sometimes they get banned anyway.”
Elon Musk Isn’t Buying Twitter to Defend Free Speech – https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/elon-musk-twitter-free-speech/629694/
(1) With just a few weeks to go before the Nov. 3 vote, the social media companies are continuing to shift their policies and, in some cases, are entirely reversing what they will and won’t allow on their sites. On Friday, Twitter underlined just how fluid its policies were when it began letting users share links to an unsubstantiated New York Post article about Hunter Biden that it had previously blocked from its service.
Article Title: “In Reversal, Twitter Is No Longer Blocking New York Post Article”
(2) No longer. Mr. Zuckerberg is now an active political operator. He has dined with President Trump, talks regularly with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, and has pressed lawmakers and officials to scrutinize rivals including TikTok and Apple Inc., people involved in the discussions say.
(Ah, so that’s the reason why they’re going after Tiktok)
Article Title: “How Mark Zuckerberg Learned Politics”
(3) According to internal discussions, Facebook removed “strikes” so that conservative pages were not penalized for violations of misinformation policies.
Article Title: “Sensitive to claims of bias, Facebook relaxed misinformation rules for conservative pages”
(4) But Zuckerberg didn’t consider the Infowars founder to be a hate figure, according to a person familiar with the decision, so he overruled his own internal experts and opened a gaping loophole: Facebook would permanently ban Jones and his company — but would not touch posts of praise and support for them from other Facebook users. This meant that Jones’ legions of followers could continue to share his lies across the world’s largest social network.
Article Title: “Mark Changed The Rules”: How Facebook Went Easy On Alex Jones And Other Right-Wing Figures”
(5) Twitter algorithms amplify conservative content more than that of the political left, researchers find.
The review covered millions of tweets by elected officials in seven countries, as well as posts that linked to political content from news outlets.
Article Title: “Twitter algorithms amplify conservative content more than that of the political left, researchers find”
Musk scares the big players.
People that have built careers in state funded media groups have a vested interest in casting aspersions against new media and social media platforms, primarily the ones that don’t play the game of confirming with the same agenda as they do.
Is always alleged disinformation and hate speech, that are their concerns and the solution is always the censorship and cancelling of others, using the state media blueprint for what is or isn’t permissible.
There is no doubt that some people get things wrong or may have an agenda of their own, but the number of alleged instances of misinformation and conspiracy theories that ultimately end up being correct, demonstrates the value of them above and beyond a mainstream media that simply publish state sponsored press releases and calls them the news..
Do you know what’s bad for democracy? Censorship, and the EBU monopolising ‘the official narrative’
The Establishment hate Musk like they hate Trump….
Noel, if you don’t like it, go and make your own social media site.
@Brian: Who’s Noel?
@Colette Kearns: Ah poor Noel, he’s done nothing…..
Regarding the clashes today, this is exactly what the government knew would happen!
The irony is that lots of the ” freeze peach” crowd commenting on this spent yesterday telling us that Russia is marvellous.
Next it’ll be Trump is a genius and lets go 2024.
We see you.
@honey badger: No they did not, you are deliberately distorting the facts to suit your own bias. Anyone on this site that has engaged in describing Russia’s pov on this site are demonized, harassed, and bullied by a handful of regulars, which goes completely against the rules of the site, but the site allows it because it fits in with their own bias on the subject.
I have observed one person in particular being harassed, abused and threatened by the likes of you and your cohort.
Main stream media all around the world is in decline and people are seeking an alternative because they now realize that a “biased” news is nothing short of a total lie.
The very fact you equate “Freeze peach” to being a “Trump supporter” tells me that you yourself are anti freeze peach, and are in fact part of the cohort trying to manipulate the voices of others.
@honey badger: No they didn’t, but even if they did, so what?
You can’t censor people just because you disagree with them.
Read up on democracy, classical liberalism, and the First Amendment.
@west awake: this is an Irish site, Mr. 1st Amendment. You’re one of those anti-Ukraine pro-Russian posters. Did you forget which country you were posting into??
@Tomás Barrett: I’m under no obligation to support either side in that stupid proxy war,
FYI, we’re supposed to be neutral.
Does this mean Musk will not be presenting the late late show ?
Who the F gives a F what and RTE t w a t thinks? Shouldn’t they just be crawling back in that hole?
@bernard berry:
Another world salad merchant. Mainstream meedya blah blah blah.
Russias position is that they invaded a neighbouring country, killed thousands of civilians, and have completely razed towns and cities in their path. You’ll forgive me if Im not interested in understanding why Putins fetish for the glory days of the USSR is worthy of a listen.
But sure, you do you. You’ll be challenged on it every step of the way.
@honey badger: America interferes and invades all over the world, how come that doesn’t bother you?
No pro war commentators on this story,
@west awake: Is the sum total of your response to Russia killing thousands of Ukrainian civilians during its invasion of a sovereign nation really “Whatabout America”?
Childish waffle Westie. Unsurprisingly.
@honey badger: You have such a childish grasp of complicated geopolitics.
@west awake: I repeat: Is the sum total of your response to Russia killing thousands of Ukrainian civilians during its invasion of a sovereign nation really “Whatabout America”? But now with added condescension…
Keep back peddling Westie, it’s making me smile.
The upshot is DONT TRUST ANYTHING YOU SEE OR HEAR ON TWITTER!!! That’s about it. If you see a story Google it! If it’s legit it will be verified by Google or one of the major news sites. Generally, people are just people and if someone posts something g that is their opinion then you can be sure that it is only their opinion. These people who go crazy over twitter and musk being the big satan do t seem to get that it’s only like a newspaper that anyone can write in. It’s no different than Wikipedia. Would you get your law advice from Wikipedia?
@establishment loyalist David jorden:
You love to twist stats and facts nothing of what you said disproves that their was active suppression in twitter against Conservatives and that’s what being said….Conservative right leaning accounts were subject to bans…punishment…to an extreme level and this was proved in the congressional hears….
It doesn’t matter about the algorithm….what matters is the establishment loyalists in these tech companies the employer up to the ceo created a culture of suppression against anyone that disagreed with them….this has been proven…also media bias demonised anyone that wasn’t left….
Every time you try it with your posts I see you lieing….what west awake said those journalist proved is true….their was active collusion between the fbi and twitter and the biden administration in active suppression….banning people on the right, giving warnings…deleting their tweets…crippling traffic to their tweets…
What was proved was active suppression by twitters employees and upper management against its users that were on the right….
In Musk I trust – love the guy. Twitter is much improved, and way more healthy.
I await the abusive replies in pre-empting the left leaning have-a-go salt of the earth types, and the odd ‘sixty something but should know betters’.
Yes
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