[Timon3]

Wouldn't the tag "independent journalist" make you dependent on Twitter? Following the analogy of "government funding necessarily means government influence", Twitter can give and take these labels arbitrarily (as they've done with NBC). Any independent journalist would be careful about stories on Twitter, since they might take away the tags, no?

[vintermann]

True, but you don't need Twitter's permission to start doing journalism on Twitter (nor do you have to care much about how they label you).

You absolutely need NBC's permission before you can start doing journalism on NBC.

My whole point was that governments don't need to get heavy handed to get a compliant press, since they can engineer it up front. The important filtering of news happens not at the desk, but at the hiring.