I have written on journalism and media trends eariler few years ago. So it is time for update. What is the state of journalism and news publishing in 2017? NiemanLab’s predictions for 2017 are a good place to start thinking about what lies ahead for journalism. There, Matt Waite puts us in our place straight away by telling us that the people running the media are the problem.
There has been changes on tech publishing. In January 2017 International Data Group, the owner of PCWorld magazine and market researcher IDC, on Thursday said it was being acquired by China Oceanwide Holdings Group and IDG Capital, the investment management firm run by IDG China executive Hugo Shong. In 2016 Arrow bought EE Times, EDN, TechOnline and lots more from UBM.
Here are some article links and information bits on journalist and media in 2017:
Soothsayers’ guides to journalism in 2017 article take a look at journalism predictions and the value of this year’s predictions.
What Journalism Needs To Do Post-Election article tells that faced with the growing recognition that the electorate was uniformed or, at minimum, deeply in the thrall of fake news, far too many journalists are responding not with calls for change but by digging in deeper to exactly the kinds of practices that got us here in the first place.
Fake News Is About to Get Even Scarier than You Ever Dreamed article says that what we saw in the 2016 election is nothing compared to what we need to prepare for in 2020 as incipient technologies appear likely to soon obliterate the line between real and fake.
Headlines matter article tells that in 2017, headlines will matter more than ever and journalists will need to wrest control of headline writing from social-optimization teams. People get their news from headlines now in a way they never did in the past.
Why new journalism grads are optimistic about 2017 article tells that since today’s college journalism students have been in school, the forecasts for their futures has been filled with words like “layoffs,” “cutbacks,” “buyouts” and “freelance.” Still many people are optimistic about the future because the main motivation for being a journalist is often “to make a difference.”
Updating social media account can be a serious job. Zuckerberg has 12+ Facebook employees helping him with posts and comments on his Facebook page and professional photographers to snap personal moments.
Wikipedia Is Being Ripped Apart By a Witch Hunt For Secretly Paid Editors article tells that with undisclosed paid editing on the rise, Wikipedians and the Wikimedia Foundation are working together to stop the practice without discouraging user participation. Paid editing is permissible under Wikimedia Foundation’s terms of use as long as they disclose these conflicts of interest on their user pages, but not all paid editors make these disclosures.
Big Internet giants are working on how to make content better for mobile devices. Instant Articles is a new way for any publisher to create fast, interactive articles on Facebook. Google’s AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is a project that it aims to accelerate content on mobile devices. Both of those systems have their advantages and problems.
Clearing Out the App Stores: Government Censorship Made Easier article tells that there’s a new form of digital censorship sweeping the globe, and it could be the start of something devastating. The centralization of the internet via app stores has made government censorship easier. If the app isn’t in a country’s app store, it effectively doesn’t exist. For more than a decade, we users of digital devices have actively championed an online infrastructure that now looks uniquely vulnerable to the sanctions of despots and others who seek to control information.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
In Senate hearing, Zuckerberg faces blame over violence in Myanmar
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/10/myanmar-facebook-zuckerberg-senate-hearing-genocide/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook&sr_share=facebook
Zuckerberg cited the language barrier as one of the main obstacles to proper moderation of hate speech and calls for violence.
“Hate speech is very language specific. It’s hard to do it without people who speak the local language and we need to ramp up our effort there dramatically,” Zuckerberg said.
He mentioned the company’s plan to hire “dozens” of Burmese language content reviewers as the first part of a three-pronged approach in Myanmar, also noting a partnership with civil society groups to identify hate figures in the country rather than focusing on removing individual pieces of content.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mark Zuckerberg: ‘There will always be a version of Facebook that is free’
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/10/mark-zuckerberg-there-will-always-be-a-version-of-facebook-that-is-free/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Tens of thousands’ of Facebook accounts may be related to Russian intelligence
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/10/tens-of-thousands-of-facebook-accounts-may-be-related-to-russian-intelligence/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=facebook
Facebook has previously officially noted that 470 accounts associated with Russia’s Internet Research Agency have been banned related to the 2016 election, plus 270 more in Russia just last week. But in today’s testimony Mark Zuckerberg also mentioned a much higher estimate of “tens of thousands,” though the confidence in this number would be also be much lower.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Davey Alba / BuzzFeed:
Answering lawmakers, Zuckerberg repeatedly relied on the promise of AI to weed out undesirable content, a defense that lets Facebook avoid responsibility
Why Facebook Will Never Fully Solve Its Problems With AI
https://www.buzzfeed.com/daveyalba/mark-zuckerberg-artificial-intelligence-facebook-content-pro?utm_term=.teE6r48n2#.ryQmB4oV1
Mark Zuckerberg’s promise to develop new AI tools to proactively address Facebook’s content problem allows the social network to abdicate responsibility for problems on its platform, and at scale.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says open racism, including use of slurs, isn’t against Reddit’s rules and that communities can set their own standards around language
Reddit CEO says racism is permitted on the platform, and users are up in arms
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17226416/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-racism-racist-slurs-are-okay
Reddit’s Steve Huffman clarifies his more radical approach to free speech on the internet
“I need clarification on something: Is obvious open racism, including slurs, against reddits rules or not?” asked Reddit user chlomyster. “It’s not,” Huffman, who operates on Reddit under his original handle “spez,” responded.
Huffman elaborated on his point, adding:
“On Reddit, the way in which we think about speech is to separate behavior from beliefs. This means on Reddit there will be people with beliefs different from your own, sometimes extremely so. When users actions conflict with our content policies, we take action.”
Our approach to governance is that communities can set appropriate standards around language for themselves. Many communities have rules around speech that are more restrictive than our own, and we fully support those rules.
Huffman’s approach to hate speech has evolved over the last 10 years
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pranav Dixit / BuzzFeed:
Ahead of key elections in India, experts say Facebook, Google, and Twitter aren’t doing enough to prevent abuse and political manipulation on their platforms
Facebook, Google And Twitter’s Other Election Problem Is Their Largest Market: India
https://www.buzzfeed.com/pranavdixit/facebook-twitter-google-india-election-interference?utm_term=.vjkQeY1W8#.xj89B1mYA
The world’s largest democracy is in danger of having its biggest elections influenced through the internet — but so far, US tech companies’ efforts to fix ongoing problems have been limited.
As Facebook, Google, and Twitter continue to do damage control over their platforms’ role in unauthorized data collection, foreign election meddling, and the spread of fake news in the United States, a new crisis is brewing abroad. This year, India, the world’s largest democracy, will hold several key state and national elections that will determine if India’s polarizing prime minister, Narendra Modi, gets a second term in early 2019 — and experts worry that US tech companies aren’t doing enough to ensure that their platforms aren’t used to influence or disrupt the democratic process.
A perfect storm of political polarization, digital naïveté, illiteracy, and a lack of meaningful steps from the platforms themselves has left India’s electorate uniquely vulnerable to being manipulated online. Four hundred and eighty-one million people out of India’s 1.3-billion population are currently online, and by June, the number is expected to rise to 500 million
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Guardian:
UK court on right to be forgotten: Google has to remove links about one man who “showed remorse” for past conviction, can keep links for another, who didn’t
Google loses landmark ‘right to be forgotten’ case
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/13/google-loses-right-to-be-forgotten-case
Businessman wins legal action to force removal of search results about past conviction
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Twitter has replaced its gun emoji with a water gun, thus removing one of the means with which online abusers troll their victims
Twitter replaces its gun emoji with a water gun
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/11/twitter-replaces-its-gun-emoji-with-a-water-gun/
Twitter has now followed Apple’s lead in changing its pistol emoji to a harmless, bright green water gun. And in doing so, the company that has struggled to handle the abuse, hate speech and harassment taking place across its platform, has removed one of the means for online abusers to troll their victims.
The change is one of several rolling out now in Twitter’s emoji update, Twemoji 2.6, which impacts Twitter users on the web, mobile web and on Tweetdeck.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Noah Kulwin / New York Magazine:NEW
Former Facebook, Google, Reddit execs, and other prominent technologists describe how Silicon Valley’s business model undermined its dream of a networked utopia — Even those who designed our digital world are aghast at what they created. A breakdown of what went wrong — from the architects who built it.
The Internet Apologizes …
http://nymag.com/selectall/2018/04/an-apology-for-the-internet-from-the-people-who-built-it.html
Even those who designed our digital world are aghast at what they created. A breakdown of what went wrong — from the architects who built it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tom McKay / Gizmodo:
Pentagon spokesperson says there has been a “2,000% increase in Russian trolls in the last 24 hours”, following Syria air strikes on Friday night — As Donald Trump’s administration, backed by France and the UK, launched a series of missile attacks on Syrian installations allegedly used …
How Did the Pentagon Quantify This Bizarre Statistic on ‘Russian Trolls’?
https://gizmodo.com/how-did-the-pentagon-quantify-this-bizarre-statistic-on-1825268639
As Donald Trump’s administration, backed by France and the UK, launched a series of missile attacks on Syrian installations allegedly used in the production or deployment of chemical weapons this weekend—and the president bizarrely tweeted “Mission Accomplished!” in a worrying signal with regards to his strategic insight—the question of whether Russia would retaliate on behalf of Bashar al-Assad’s government did tend to hang over the proceedings.
So far, Russia hasn’t given any signs it intends to truly escalate the situation, possibly in part because the White House has actually not yet settled on a comprehensive strategy.
For one, the actual thing allegedly being referenced, an “increase in Russian trolls,” is vague enough to mean just about anything. For example, does that number include Russian state media? Is it a reference to sheer number of posts, in which case it would be good to know how those posts are supposedly being identified? Or is it a measure of something like impact or engagement, which is even more problematic because those metrics are usually bullshit?
“I think there’s a basic reality check you can do on most statistical claims,” Tim Hartford, host of statistics podcast More or Less, told Vice. “You can just ask: Does that sound reasonable? … OK, so first, if you’ve been given a number, just ask: compared to what? … The second thing is—what does the statistic actually refer to?”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Based on ARPU, Facebook might have to charge $11-$14 for monthly subscriptions to offset ad revenue, but it would empower users with choice and a sense of value
The psychological impact of an $11 Facebook subscription
Would it make us love or hate ads?
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/15/would-it-make-us-love-or-hate-ads/
Would being asked to pay Facebook to remove ads make you appreciate their value or resent them even more? As Facebook considers offering an ad-free subscription option, there are deeper questions than how much money it could earn. Facebook has the opportunity to let us decide how we compensate it for social networking. But choice doesn’t always make people happy.
The monthly subscription price would need to offset Facebook’s ad earnings. In the US & Canada Facebook earned $19.9 billion in 2017 from 239 million users. That means the average user there would have to pay $7 per month
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bob Papper / Radio Television Digital News Association:
Survey: in 2017 TV news employment surpassed total newspaper staff with 27K TV staff and 25K newspaper staff; ~20% of newly created positions focus on digital
Research: TV news employment surpasses newspapers
http://rtdna.org/article/research_tv_news_employment_surpasses_newspapers
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sebastian Murdock / Yahoo:
Parents of two Sandy Hook victims file lawsuits against Alex Jones and Infowars, claim they received death threats after he circulated conspiracy theories — Alex Jones has spent years claiming the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary S
Sandy Hook parents hit Alex Jones with defamation lawsuits
https://www.yahoo.com/news/sandy-hook-parents-just-hit-094656840.html
Alex Jones has spent years claiming the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School ― where a shooter killed 20 small children and six adults ― was faked. He has claimed the parents of these dead children are liars and “crisis actors.”
Now, those parents are coming after him.
In a pair of lawsuits filed late Monday, the parents of two children who died in the December 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, say Jones’ repeated lies and conspiratorial ravings have led to death threats. The suits join at least two other recent cases accusing the Infowars host of defamation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:
Analysis of ~87K articles about Facebook from USA Today, NYT, Guardian, and BuzzFeed from 2006-2018 shows coverage turned mostly negative after 2016 election — Mark Zuckerberg waits for a joint hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee, April 10, 2018.
Here’s What The Facebook Media Backlash Really Looks LIke
https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/these-charts-show-what-facebooks-media-backlash-looks-like?utm_term=.ckZbJd4vx#.tpvNRgdMQ
Sentiment analysis of over 87,000 articles provided to BuzzFeed News details the evolution of the social network as seen through the publications that cover it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This “Obama” Video Should Absolutely Terrify You
http://www.iflscience.com/technology/this-fake-obama-video-highlights-the-growing-danger-of-deepfake-videos/
A video produced by BuzzFeed has highlighted the growing problem of DeepFake videos, as it becomes easier than ever to make celebrities appear to say and do anything.
“This is now going to be the new reality, surely by 2020, but potentially as early as this year.”
And this Obama video highlights that, while the technology is still fairly complex, it is getting both easier and better. Remember that if something you watch seems unbelievable, well, it just might be.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Watch Jordan Peele use AI to make Barack Obama deliver a PSA about fake news
https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2018/4/17/17247334/ai-fake-news-video-barack-obama-jordan-peele-buzzfeed
What does the future of fake news look like? No one really knows, but here’s a little sampler from Jordan Peele and BuzzFeed
Tomi Engdahl says:
I Was a Russian Facebook Troll Named Martha
https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/telecom/internet/i-was-a-russian-facebook-troll-named-martha
Then last week, the notification emails started referring to me as Martha. Huh? And alerted me that I had changed my profile picture. And then came more, noting that I’d added two friends—one in the Ukraine, one in Tanzania—and suggesting a long list of possible friends, most of whom were tagged in Cyrillic. It looked like my dusty little Facebook account was turning into a Russian troll. (Ironically, my actual first name is of Russian origin—but I guess you can’t have a Russian troll with a Russian name.)
I dug through all of Facebook’s reporting mechanisms—there wasn’t any option for “I’m a troll.” I couldn’t report my own profile for abuse, only report someone else’s profile, or posts someone else had made. The online menus sent me through circle after circle.
Finally, I deactivated my account, giving “privacy concerns” as a reason. But I wonder how many other people who have dusty accounts
Tomi Engdahl says:
CNNMoney:
Investigation: 300+ organizations’ ads ran on extremist YouTube channels despite many advertisers saying they use YouTube’s sensitive subject exclusion filter — Advocates say YouTube is collecting kids’ data — Ads from over 300 companies and organizations — including tech giants …
Exclusive: YouTube ran ads from hundreds of brands on extremist channels
http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/19/technology/youtube-ads-extreme-content-investigation/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Claire L. Evans / New York Magazine:
Profile of Jaime Levy, the cyber punk publishing pioneer who created two of the most popular magazines of the 1990s: Cyber Rag and Electronic Hollywood
The Untold Story of Jaime Levy, Punk-Rock Cyber-Publishing Pioneer
http://nymag.com/selectall/2018/04/claire-evanss-broad-band-excerpt.html
How a punk kid from L.A. created the coolest publications of the 1990s.
Tomi Engdahl says:
OutVoice makes it dead simple for editors to pay freelancers
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/18/outvoice/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
One of the biggest headaches for freelance writers is the need to send an invoice for their work, then wait (and wait, and wait) for payment.
Matt Saincome, founder of the punk-themed satirical news site The Hard Times, knows this, which is why he’s launching a new payment product called OutVoice.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New York Times:
How hate speech and misinformation spread on Facebook in developing countries like Sri Lanka, where reputable sources are scarce, leading to real-world violence
http://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/world/asia/facebook-sri-lanka-riots.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Daniel Funke / Poynter:
A look at Facebook’s month-long rollout of its fact-checking tool and its partners in Mexico, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, and Colombia
In one month, Facebook doubled the countries using its fact-checking tool — all outside the West
https://www.poynter.org/news/one-month-facebook-doubled-countries-using-its-fact-checking-tool-all-outside-west
What started as a pilot project 16 months ago is now one of Facebook’s primary weapons against fake news.
During his testimony to Congress last week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out the company’s three strategies for addressing misinformation. The first two include restricting spammers from purchasing ads and trying to leverage artificial intelligence to automatically delete accounts from state actors.
Lastly, Facebook is drawing upon independent fact-checking outlets to verify or debunk articles, photos and memes that users have reported. (Disclosure: Being a signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network’s code of principles is a necessary condition to be a partner.) And now, that project — which has had its ups and downs — is expanding beyond the West.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thomas Fox-Brewster / Forbes:
A look at surveillance companies like Area SpA, IPS, and Terrogence, which covertly infiltrate and manipulate social media
Beyond Cambridge Analytica — The Surveillance Companies Infiltrating And Manipulating Social Media
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/04/18/cambridge-analytica-and-surveillance-companies-manipulate-facebook-and-social-media/#d2796d440535
If it hasn’t already been made clear by Facebook’s moves to cut off AggregateIQ and Cambridge Analytica from the platform following the data privacy fiasco that exploded last month, there are multiple companies who don’t play by the social network’s rules and abuse its users’ privacy.
But in recent years a batch of surveillance companies, operating in a far more clandestine manner to Cambridge Analytica and its partners, have been infiltrating all kinds of social media platforms. These spytech vendors are offering services not only to co-opt and influence social media groups with sockpuppet accounts, but will even deliver spyware via the fake profiles they create and hone across different platforms. And at least one of those businesses has been caught out shipping to a regime with a dubious human rights record.
Privacy activists are calling for action. “The idea that former spooks are available to buy to infiltrate political groups online is alarming. Imagine how such powers can be used to infiltrate pro-democracy or human rights groups in authoritarian states,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nieman Reports:
Local TV news stations experiment with crowdsourced reporting, augmented reality, and injecting more personality into the news to attract young viewers — When the Rev. Billy Graham died in February, Raleigh-based WRAL-TV provided expansive coverage of the famed evangelist’s life and legacy.
Reinventing Local TV News
http://niemanreports.org/articles/reinventing-local-tv-news/
To attract young viewers, stations are going digital-first, crowdsourcing reporting, experimenting with augmented reality, and injecting more personality into the news
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shoon Naing / Reuters:
Witness says a Myanmar police chief ordered officers to “trap” Reuters reporter Wa Lone by giving him secret documents; Reuters EIC calls to end the case — YANGON (Reuters) – A Myanmar police chief ordered officers to “trap” a Reuters reporter arrested in December …
Myanmar police ‘set up’ Reuters reporters in sting-police witness
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-journalists/myanmar-police-set-up-reuters-reporters-in-sting-police-witness-idUSKBN1HR12Q
A Myanmar police chief ordered officers to “trap” a Reuters reporter arrested in December, telling them to meet the journalist at a restaurant and give him “secret documents”, prosecution witness Police Captain Moe Yan Naing told a court on Friday.
The court in Yangon has been holding hearings since January to decide whether the pair will be charged under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
“Today the court finally heard the truth. One of the prosecution’s own witnesses admitted that the police received orders to plant evidence and arrest ‘
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nick Visser / HuffPost:
Comey memos detail Trump’s idea of jailing reporters, first reported in 2017: “They spend a couple days in jail, make a new friend, and they are ready to talk”
Comey Memo: Trump Floated Idea Of Jailing Journalists To Make Them ‘Talk’
The president wanted to stop leaks pouring from the White House.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-jail-journalists-james-comey-memos_us_5ad96befe4b029ebe0229019
″‘They spend a couple days in jail, make a new friend, and they are ready to talk,’” Comey recounted the president saying. “I laughed as I walked to the door Reince Priebus had opened.”
The New York Times first reported the encounter last May.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reuters:
German Supreme Court rules that ad blockers are legal, in favor of Adblock Plus, and throws out a case brought by Axel Springer
German Supreme Court rules ad blockers legal, in defeat for Springer
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-trial-adblocking/german-supreme-court-rules-ad-blockers-legal-in-defeat-for-springer-idUSKBN1HQ277
Germany’s Supreme Court on Thursday threw out a case brought by Axel Springer seeking to ban a popular application that blocks online advertising, in a landmark ruling that deals a blow to the publishing industry.
The court found in favor of Adblock Plus adblockplus.org, an app marketed by a firm called Eyeo that has been downloaded more than 100 million times by users around the world seeking protection from unwanted or intrusive online advertising.
“We are excited that Germany’s highest court upheld the right every internet citizen possesses to block unwanted advertising online,” Adblock Plus said after the verdict.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emilia Petrarca / The Cut:
Two computer-generated Instagram influencers had an orchestrated feud where one “hacked” the other’s account and “revealed” she was not a real person
Everything We Know About the Feud Between These Two Computer-Generated Instagram Influencers
https://www.thecut.com/2018/04/lil-miquela-hack-instagram.html
If you need any further proof that we’re living in The Matrix, here it is.
On Tuesday, the Instagram account of Miquela Sousa — also known as @LilMiquela, a 19-year-old Brazilian-American model, singer, and Instagram personality with almost a million followers — appeared to have been hacked by a blonde, pro-Trump troll named Bermuda, or @BermudaIsBae. Over the course of about eight hours, Bermuda wiped Lil Miquela’s account clean, posting photos of herself instead with threatening captions like: “You can’t have your account back until you promise to tell people the truth.”
But wait, it gets wilder: Neither Lil Miquela nor Bermuda are real people. They’re computer-generated avatars with anonymous creators.
Drama is drama, though! And the best gossip is the kind that has zero consequences on real peoples’ lives. Except our lives, of course, which have been turned completely up-side down by the Orwellian antics that transpired on Tuesday. If you have a lot of questions, you are not alone. So do we.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Surge in Anonymous Asia Twitter Accounts Sparks Bot Fears
https://www.securityweek.com/surge-anonymous-asia-twitter-accounts-sparks-bot-fears
Hong Kong – It has been jokingly referred to as “Botmageddon”. But a surge in new, anonymous Twitter accounts across swathes of Southeast and East Asia has deepened fears the region is in the throes of US-style mass social media manipulation.
Maya Gilliss-Chapman, a Cambodian tech entrepreneur currently working in Silicon Valley, noticed something odd was happening in early April.
Her Twitter account @MayaGC was being swamped by a daily deluge of follows from new users.
“I acquired well over 1,000 new followers since the beginning of March. So, that’s approximately a 227 percent increase in just a month,” she told AFP.
While many might delight in such a popularity spike, Gilliss-Chapman, who has previously worked for tech companies to root out spam, was immediately suspicious.
The vast majority of these new accounts contained no identifying photograph and had barely tweeted since their creation.
But they all seemed to be following prominent Twitter users in Cambodia including journalists, business figures, academics and celebrities.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Monika Bickert / Facebook:
Facebook publishes the internal guidelines it uses to enforce its public Community Standards, will allow users to appeal when their posts are taken down — One of the questions we’re asked most often is how we decide what’s allowed on Facebook. These decisions are among the most important …
Publishing Our Internal Enforcement Guidelines and Expanding Our Appeals Process
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/04/comprehensive-community-standards/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
Facebook gives its definition of terrorism, says it took action on 1.9M pieces of ISIS and al-Qaeda content in Q1, ~2x the previous quarter, finding 99% itself
Facebook Removes More ISIS Content by Actively Looking for It
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-23/facebook-removes-more-isis-content-by-actively-looking-for-it
Facebook Inc. said it was able to remove a larger amount of content from the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the first quarter of 2018 by actively looking for it.
The company has trained its review systems — both humans and computer algorithms — to seek out posts from terrorist groups. The social network took action on 1.9 million pieces of content from those groups in the first three months of the year, about twice as many as in the previous quarter. And, 99 percent of that content wasn’t reported first by users, but was flagged by the company’s internal systems, Facebook said Monday.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Radhika Jones / Vanity Fair:
Vanity Fair’s website has launched a paywall, with readers getting four articles a month for free before needing to subscribe
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ryan Whitwam / Android Police:
Google is changing its pistol emoji into a squirt gun in Android P, following Apple, Twitter, and Samsung
Google is turning its pistol emoji into a squirt gun
https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/04/24/google-turning-pistol-emoji-squirt-gun/
A few years ago, Apple was the first big emoji designer to stop rendering the “pistol” emoji as a real gun. It went from a revolver to a green squirt gun, and other companies have just started coming around. Twitter and Samsung already made the change, and now it’s Google’s turn. Say goodbye to the revolver and hello to the super soaker.
Google has updated its Noto Color Emoji repository on GitHub with the new emoji. That indicates that Android P will feature the redesigned pistol emoji. It’s orange with a large yellow water reservoir on the top. So, it’s a super soaker, which is even more toy-like than the other squirt gun alternatives we’ve seen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jason Rezaian / Washington Post:
Reporters without Borders has released its annual press freedom report-card and the US is ranked 45th in the world; Philippines slid to #133 and Turkey to #157
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/04/25/reporters-without-borders-just-released-its-annual-press-freedom-report-card-and-the-grades-are-dismal/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Justin Baragona / Contemptor:
Infosec expert for Joy Reid says significant evidence exists that her old blog was compromised and some recently circulated posts were not on site at any time — Earlier this week, Mediaite published a bombshell report on the discovery of a large number of homophobic posts that had been discovered …
Joy Reid’s Cyber-Security Expert: ‘Significant Evidence’ Her Old Blog Was ‘Compromised’
http://contemptor.com/2018/04/24/joy-reids-cyber-security-expert-significant-evidence-her-old-blog-was-compromised/
Reid’s expert has responded to allegations the MSNBC host wrote a number of homophobic posts on her defunct blog.
Earlier this week, Mediaite published a bombshell report on the discovery of a large number of homophobic posts that had been discovered on MSNBC host Joy Reid’s now-defunct blog, The Reid Report. The blog posts were different than the ones on former Florida Governor Charlie Crist that surfaced this past December, posts that Reid had already apologized for.
Reid provided a statement to Mediaite in which she said the posts had been “fabricated” and the “manipulated material seems to be part of an effort to taint my character with false information by distorting a blog that ended a decade ago.” She also noted she was working with a cyber-security expert.
On Tuesday, the Internet Archive published a blog post stating that they saw no evidence that supported Reid’s claims that her blog was hacked.
We discovered that login information used to access the blog was available on the Dark Web and that fraudulent entries – featuring offensive statements – were entered with suspicious formatting and time stamps. The posts included hate speech targeting marginalized communities and Ms. Reid has been explicit in condemning them.
However, we have significant evidence indicating that not only was Ms. Reid’s old blog compromised, some of the recently circulated posts were not even on the site at any time, suggesting that these instances may be the result of screenshot manipulation with the intent to tarnish Ms. Reid’s character.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook hit with defamation lawsuit over fake ads
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/23/facebook-hit-with-defamation-lawsuit-over-fake-ads/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
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Facebook hit with defamation lawsuit over fake ads
Natasha Lomas
@riptari / Apr 23, 2018
facebook icon on ios
In an interesting twist, Facebook is being sued in the UK for defamation by consumer advice personality, Martin Lewis, who says his face and name have been repeatedly used on fake adverts distributed on the social media giant’s platform.
Lewis, who founded the popular MoneySavingExpert.com tips website, says Facebook has failed to stop the fake ads despite repeat complaints and action on his part, thereby — he contends — tarnishing his reputation and causing victims to be lured into costly scams.
“It is consistent, it is repeated. Other companies such as Outbrain who have run these adverts have taken them down.
Tomi Engdahl says:
There’s A Concerning Reason Why Conspiracy Theories Took Off Big Time Before The 2016 Elections
http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/narcissists-are-more-likely-to-be-conspiracy-theorists-and-it-may-have-affected-the-2016-elections/
Before the 2016 elections, you may have noticed a rise in conspiracy theories going around.
It was a strange time. You can blame a lot of these conspiracy theories on Russian misinformation, and that’s comforting. But many American voters did believe these theories, and spread them around. More mundane conspiracy theories of media and “establishment” bias also took hold, and even became fairly mainstream.
Previous studies have indicated that conspiracy theories appeal most to narcissists, due to their paranoid tendencies, and appeal especially to those with low self-esteem.
This new study suggests that a rise in this collective narcissism led to a strengthening of conspiratorial thinking in America, which was in turn bolstered by a political environment willing to capitalize on this conspiratorial thinking.
“Political campaigns, especially those that use conspiracy beliefs as a tool to mobilize their electorate, are likely to mobilize collective narcissists,” study author Agnieszka Golec de Zavala told PsyPost. “We found that American collective narcissism was linked to the conspiratorial mindset and this relationship strengthened during the 2016 presidential campaign in the US.”
The researchers believe that conspiracy theories appeal to collective narcissists as they offer simple answers to complex questions
Tomi Engdahl says:
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Facebook’s fake “dark ads”, which impersonate people to promote scams, are a systemic problem, and need better solutions above and beyond a “view ads” button
Facebook’s dark ads problem is systemic
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/28/facebooks-dark-ads-problem-is-systemic/
Facebook’s admission to the UK parliament this week that it had unearthed unquantified thousands of dark fake ads after investigating fakes bearing the face and name of well-known consumer advice personality, Martin Lewis, underscores the massive challenge for its platform on this front. Lewis is suing the company for defamation over its failure to stop bogus ads besmirching his reputation with their associated scams.
Lewis decided to file his campaigning lawsuit after reporting 50 fake ads himself, having been alerted to the scale of the problem by consumers contacting him to ask if the ads were genuine or not. But the revelation that there were in fact associated “thousands” of fake ads being run on Facebook as a clickdriver for fraud shows the company needs to change its entire system, he has now argued.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Majority of U.S. adults still think the internet is ‘mostly’ good for society – but that number is falling
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/30/majority-of-u-s-adults-still-think-the-internet-is-mostly-good-for-society-but-that-number-is-falling/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=facebook
A growing number of U.S. adults no longer view the internet as a largely “good thing” for society, according to a new report from Pew Research Center out today. To be clear, a sizable majority – 70 percent – continue to believe the internet’s development has been mostly good. But that number has dropped by 6 percentage points since 2014, the study finds. Meanwhile, more adults now perceive the internet – perhaps more accurately – as something of a mixed bag. That number has climbed from 8 percent in 2014 to now 14 percent, Pew says.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Forging Voices and Faces: The Dangers of Audio and Video Fabrication
https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/forging-voices-and-faces-the-dangers-of-audio-and-video-fabrication
Technology companies including Google, Baidu, and Adobe have recently funded efforts to fabricate audio or video from samples of speech or fragments of footage. Startups including Voicery and Lyrebird have developed customizable human voices (built from audio recorded by professional voice actors) that can be programmed to say anything. These companies have also released do-it-yourself software that lets you synthesize your own voice (or someone else’s, with their permission) from a 1-minute recording. And open-source tools to build such programs are available on Github.
The results are now convincing enough to raise concerns that these tools could fall into the wrong hands. “It’s not unreasonable to think that you could fool a large group of people with the technology in the state that it’s in today,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Facebook stole the news business
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/03/facebooks-siren-call/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
Big ews outlets stupidly sold their soul to Facebook. Desperate for the referral traffic Facebook dangled, they spent the past few years jumping through its hoops only to be cut out of the equation. Instead of developing an owned audience of homepage visitors and newsletter subscribers, they let Facebook brainwash readers into thinking it was their source of information.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook shrinks fake news after warnings backfire
https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/27/facebook-false-news/?utm_source=tcfbpage&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&sr_share=facebook
Tell someone not to do something and sometimes they just want to do it more. That’s what happened when Facebook put red flags on debunked fake news. Users who wanted to believe the false stories had their fevers ignited and they actually shared the hoaxes more. That led Facebook to ditch the incendiary red flags in favor of showing Related Articles with more level-headed perspectives from trusted news sources.
But now it’s got two more tactics to reduce the spread of misinformation
First, rather than call more attention to fake news, Facebook wants to make it easier to miss these stories while scrolling. When Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers verify an article is inaccurate, Facebook will shrink the size of the link post in the News Feed.
Second, Facebook is now using machine learning to look at newly published articles and scan them for signs of falsehood. Combined with other signals like user reports, Facebook can use high falsehood prediction scores from the machine learning systems to prioritize articles in its queue for fact-checkers. That way, the fact-checkers can spend their time reviewing articles that are already qualified to probably be wrong.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cambridge Analytica shuts down in light of ‘unfairly negative’ press coverage
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/02/cambridge-analytica-shuts-down/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
Cambridge Analytica is done. In light of the sprawling controversy around its role in improperly obtaining data from Facebook users through a third party, the company will end its U.S. and U.K. operations.
In a press release confirming the decision, the company said that “unfairly negative media coverage” around the Facebook incident has “driven away virtually all of the Company’s customers and suppliers,” making its business no longer financially viable. The same goes for the SCL Group, Cambridge Analytica’s U.K.-based affiliate and parent company
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wall Street Journal:
Cambridge Analytica is shutting down following the Facebook data misuse scandal, says it was losing clients and facing mounting legal fees — Company had lost multiple clients in recent months — Cambridge Analytica , a data firm that worked for President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign …
Cambridge Analytica Closing Operations Following Facebook Data Controversy
The data company had lost clients in recent months
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cambridge-analytica-closing-operations-following-facebook-data-controversy-1525284140?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2
New York Times:
Filing shows executives at Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group, along with the Mercer family, have moved to create a new firm, Emerdata, possibly for “rebranding” — The embattled political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica announced on Wednesday that it would cease most operations …
Cambridge Analytica to File for Bankruptcy After Misuse of Facebook Data
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-shut-down.html
The embattled political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica announced on Wednesday that it would cease most operations and file for bankruptcy amid growing legal and political scrutiny of its business practices and work for Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign.
The decision was made less than two months after Cambridge Analytica and Facebook became embroiled in a data-harvesting scandal that compromised the personal information of up to 87 million people. Revelations about the misuse of data, published in March by The New York Times and The Observer of London, plunged Facebook into crisis and prompted regulators and lawmakers to open investigations into Cambridge Analytica.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Reflections on the shift to the Stories format, which will likely surpass other formats soon, as nearly a billion users consume stories across social networks
Stories are about to surpass feed sharing. Now what?
Stories are growing 15X faster than feeds, so behavior must evolve
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/02/stories-are-about-to-surpass-feed-sharing-now-what/
We’re at the cusp of the visual communication era. Stories creation and consumption is up 842 percent since early 2016, according to consulting firm Block Party. Nearly a billion accounts across Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger now create and watch these vertical, ephemeral slideshows. And yesterday, Facebook chief product officer Chris Cox showed a chart detailing how “the Stories format is on a path to surpass feeds as the primary way people share things with their friends sometime next year.”
WhatsApp’s Stories now have over 450 million daily users. Instagram’s have over 300 million. Facebook Messenger’s had 70 million in September. And Snapchat as a whole just reached 191 million, about 150 million of which use Stories according to Block Party. With 970 million accounts, it’s the format of the future. Block Party calculates that Stories grew 15X faster than feeds from Q2 2016 to Q3 2017. And that doesn’t even count Google’s new AMP Stories for news, Netflix’s Stories for mobile movie previews, and YouTube’s new Stories feature.
“Social media creates a window through which your friends can watch your life. Yet most social networks weren’t designed that way, because phones, screen sizes, cameras, and mobile network connections weren’t good enough to build a crystal-clear portal.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Guy Rosen / Facebook:
Facebook says it can currently use its advances in AI to flag and remove content before it’s even been reported
F8 2018: Using Technology to Remove the Bad Stuff Before It’s Even Reported
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/05/removing-content-using-ai/
But advances in technology, including in artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision, mean that we can now:
Remove bad content faster because we don’t always have to wait for it to be reported. In the case of suicide this can mean the difference between life and death. Because as soon as our technology has identified that someone has expressed thoughts of suicide, we can reach out to offer help or work with first responders, which we’ve now done in over a thousand cases.
Get to more content, again because we don’t have to wait for someone else to find it. As we announced two weeks ago, in the first quarter of 2018, for example, we proactively removed almost two million pieces of ISIS and al-Qaeda content — 99% of which was taken down before anyone reported it to Facebook.
Increase the capacity of our review team to work on cases where human expertise is needed to understand the context or nuance of a particular situation. For instance, is someone talking about their own drug addiction, or encouraging others to take drugs?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Facebook to bring outside advisers for a civil rights audit of its impact on minority groups and to investigate claims it’s biased against conservative voices
Exclusive: Facebook commits to civil rights audit, political bias review
https://www.axios.com/scoop-facebook-committing-to-internal-pobias-audit-1525187977-160aaa3a-3d10-4b28-a4bb-b81947bd03e4.html
To address allegations of bias, Facebook is bringing in two outside advisors — one to conduct a legal audit of its impact on underrepresented communities and communities of color, and another to advise the company on potential bias against conservative voices.
The civil rights audit will be guided by Laura Murphy, a national civil liberties and civil rights leader. Murphy will take feedback from civil rights groups, like The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and advise Facebook on the best path forward.
Conservatives have alleged Facebook bias for years, with the narrative building after reports that Facebook’s content reviewers were suppressing conservative content via its “Trending Topics” feature led to an inquiry by the Senate Commerce committee in 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Benjamin Mullin / Wall Street Journal:
Bloomberg’s paywall, beginning Wednesday, costs $35/month, or $40/month with Businessweek subscription and events; non-subscribers can see 10 stories/month free — The paywall, which allows visitors to read 10 articles a month for free, includes a $39.99 option that comes with a subscription …
Bloomberg’s New Paywall Will Charge Users $35 a Month
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bloombergs-new-paywall-will-charge-users-35-a-month-1525285030
The paywall, which allows visitors to read 10 articles a month for free, includes a $39.99 option that comes with a subscription to Bloomberg Businessweek and access to events
For more than a decade, Bloomberg has allowed readers to devour journalism on its consumer-facing website at no charge, in the hopes of burnishing its brand, generating advertising dollars and complementing its core terminal business.
Now that strategy is changing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrew Wallenstein / Variety:
Condé Nast says Wired, GQ, and Bon Appetit will get streaming channels to be carried on Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire; Wired channel will launch later this year
Condé Nast to Launch Wired, Bon Appetit, GQ As Their Own OTT Networks
http://variety.com/2018/digital/news/conde-nast-to-launch-wired-bon-appetit-gq-as-their-own-ott-networks-1202794293/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Felix Salmon / Slate:
Bloomberg is already well funded by terminals; one reason Bloomberg is adding paywall is because it can, another may be to offset expenses of Bloomberg TV
The Bloomberg Paywall Does Not Make Sense
Save your $420 for some outlet that needs it.
https://slate.com/business/2018/05/the-bloomberg-paywall-does-not-make-sense.html
In recent years, hundreds of publications have started putting up some version of an online paywall. Nearly all newspapers now have them; many magazines are following suit, including, most recently, Vanity Fair, where $20 per year will buy you “more breaking news, more in-depth reporting,” and—of course—a VF tote bag. In an age where the Google-Facebook duopoly is hoovering up the lion’s share of digital ad revenue, online publications need subscription money to survive and to pay their employees. At heart, the value proposition is simple: Pay us so that we can afford to continue to provide you with the journalism that the country needs.
Now, however, Bloomberg is putting up a paywall, despite the fact that it can’t make the same claim. Bloomberg’s journalists are paid out of the billions of dollars that its company’s financial terminal business earns every year, at $20,000 per terminal per year
What’s more, Bloomberg’s eponymous owner, Michael Bloomberg, one of the world’s richest men, has never worried about the cost of journalism in the past.
So why is the paywall going up? Partly because it can. Paywalls are so common nowadays that Bloomberg was effectively leaving money on the table by not having one. Like the good capitalists that they are, Bloomberg’s executives have decided to pick this low-hanging fruit. As a business decision, it’s a no-brainer.
But there’s something else going on here too, related to the way Bloomberg LP is structured. Alongside its incredibly lucrative terminal business, Bloomberg has a much smaller media business, which, as far as anybody can tell, has never made money. It was never really supposed to: Bloomberg Media, which includes the website Businessweek and a ludicrously expensive TV station, was designed to garner audience and influence for the brand, which would help Bloomberg’s journalists get scoops and ultimately drive terminal sales.
With terminal sales flatlining, that strategy starts looking less compelling, and the media business starts having to justify its own existence.