[account42]

> In some cases you can see hints of that before they came into power. In France for instance, our main far right party (Rassemblement National) supports drastic budget cuts to state-financed media, and I believe a more direct control of said media from executive power.

What does defunding state-funded media (aka propaganda) have to do with the freedom of expression?

[loup-vaillant]

Oh my…

You familiar with separation of power? Like Judges being funded by the state, and yet, somehow able to stay independent? Shocking, I know. Here’s even more shocking: media are like that too.

I mean, okay, they aren’t always. In France for instance they fluctuated from straight up propaganda tool, to very independent, and now back to being less independent. Unfortunately it’s not being recognised as a fourth power, worth cleanly separating from the other organs of the state (executive, legislative, judiciary). Still, the separation is there to some degree.

Anyway, freedom of expression.

The practical effect of stopping state funding of media, simply means all we’d have left as mainstream media goes, are those owned by a tiny number of very rich people. And the overwhelming majority are either neoliberal, or pretty far to the right — some squarely fall into the far right. Precisely the kind of propaganda tool you seem to expect from the state, only even more pronounced. Oh sure you’re "free" to express leftist ideas. On your tiny YouTube channel. Nobody is going to listen to you from their TV or their radio.

Kinda suits the far right parties, doesn’t it?

We speak of freedom of expression, but really that is taking it from the wrong end. What we really need is freedom of information, that is, actual, practical access to a broad enough range of ideas. And with curation too. Stupid stuff like Flat Earth should be relegated to the rank of cute entertainment. Dangerously false stuff like climate change denialism should be mostly ignored by recommendation algorithm, and moderated away from any kind of mass media. Hate speech, like, "trans 'people' are abominations that deserve a bullet in the head, let’s grab our AR-15", should be prosecuted.

Anyway, what is said is much less important than what is heard, and to what extent. We can keep a nominal freedom of expression all right, but it doesn’t matter if all people hear all day is pro-genocide, pro-billionaire, anti-regulation, anti-queer, and anti-science.

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A note on vocabulary: it’s kinda hard to communicate how things work here in parts of the EU, because you just don’t have the word. I want to talk about publicly owned media, as in owned by the people, but this clashes with "public company", which means owned by shareholders.

So I have to resort to "state funded", except now you think it means "state controlled", because of course if you fund something you control it… except no, see judges, and the funding doesn’t even have to go through the state — or at least, not the executive branch.

It’s like explaining someone who’s just been told all their life that the sun rises from the East and sets to the West, means something different now than what it meant 2 thousand years ago. It doesn’t fit in a simple comment.

[em-bee]

the german approach to this is weird. i agree with your understanding of funding, and so does germany, but at the same time they outlaw state funded press, precisely because it has been abused for propaganda in the past.

that seems schizophrenic. either state funded media can be abused and there should be none of it, or we find a way to prevent abuse, but then that should also work for the press.

even more so as nowadays press is also digital and there is really no difference between a website from a newspaper and a website from other news media. but one can't be state funded, but the other can.

[loup-vaillant]

A solution to this kind of problem is to make sure the funding itself isn’t controlled buy entities you don’t want to control the thing. For instance, the classic model for publicly funded health care, retirement, and unemployment, is for the money to go from salaries, straight to the respective funds. Neither the executive nor the parliament even discuss how much money goes where.

Well, now they do to some extent, and that’s a problem, because for retirement for instance, they apparently refusing to even think of raising the rates even a little bit, and few discuss ways to raise the salaries themselves. All they can think of is making us work later, which doesn’t work because whatever pressure you relieve from the retirement funds, goes straight to the unemployment fund. Oh wait, there’s a solution: kick people out of unemployment insurance.

Anyway, something like that could be devoted to various media. I believe it would work best if it was done through an independent organisation (or federation thereof, we still want local media). And of course we want that organisation to be democratic, but I haven’t thought through the details where the devil lies.

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Note: I spoke of the independence of judges above, but if I recall correctly, in France we have much fewer of them than in Germany (per capita). They are overworked, justice takes ages to be served, and there are signs that it is on purpose. I suspect one reason is it allows the executive branch to set the priorities for the justice system, undermining its independence at a deep level.