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:
UK security minister proposes “Digital IDs” to enforce online civility
https://boingboing.net/2018/06/11/authoritarian-britain.html
Ben Wallach is Theresa May’s security minister; he has proposed that the UK follow China’s example and require that any place providing internet access use bank-account verification to affirmatively identify all the people who use the internet so they can be punished for bullying.
The minister characterised this as a choice between “the wild west or a civilised society”; he claimed that forcing people to identify themselves before they speak would end “mob rule on the internet.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Marina Lopes / Washington Post:
How two-thirds of Brazil’s population is using WhatsApp to undermine the country’s traditional power structures like unions amid economic and political crises
WhatsApp is upending the role of unions in Brazil. Next, it may transform politics.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?destination=%2fworld%2fthe_americas%2fwhatsapp-is-upending-the-role-of-unions-in-brazil-next-it-may-transform-politics%2f2018%2f06%2f09%2f777e537e-68cc-11e8-a335-c4503d041eaf_story.html%3f
Disparate bands of truckers turned to the messaging app to organize thousands of drivers in the largest and most effective truckers strike in the nation’s history.
“We tried to do this many times before WhatsApp, but it has never been so successful,” said Rutino, who has been driving trucks for 40 years.
Nearly two-thirds of Brazil’s 200 million people use WhatsApp to share memes, set up meetings and, increasingly, vent about politics. Now, the messaging app is helping Brazilians undermine established power structures, injecting a level of unpredictability and radicalization into a country beset by economic and political crises.
WhatsApp is particularly suited to organized movements. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, which often provide information to wider audiences, WhatsApp requires users to be invited to participate in groups, which leads to increased intimacy and secrecy, according to researchers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Facebook plans to separate archives for political ads and for ads promoting news publishers’ political content; publisher archive will be ready in a few weeks
Facebook hits back at publishers with archive policy
https://www.axios.com/facebook-archive-publishers-journalism-advertising-d3da428a-f1ed-4cfb-9f39-10b365e523fc.html
Speaking at Axios’ Media Trends event Monday night, Facebook’s head of global news partnerships Campbell Brown formally announced a policy to try to appease publishers’ concerns over a controversial archive of political ads on its platform, which would also include ads promoting publishers’ political content.
Why it matters: It’s Facebook’s latest effort to make nice with publishers, which continue to show frustration with changes and experiments to news functions on its platform.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Adblock Plus’s parent company Eyeo launches Trusted News, a browser extension for Chrome, that helps users identify fake news
Adblock Plus wants to use blockchain to call out fake news
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/13/adblock-plus-wants-to-use-blockchain-to-call-out-fake-news/
eyeo, the company behind the popular browser-based ad block product Adblock Plus, is no stranger to controversy. Which is just as well given its new “passion project”: A browser add-on that labels news content as ‘trusted’ or, well, Breitbart.
The beta browser extension, which is called Trusted News (initially it’s just available for Chrome), is intended to help Internet users spot sources of fake news when they’re exposed to content online.
And thus to help people avoid falling for scams or down into political sinkholes — at least without being aware of their inherent bias.
The system, which is currently only available for English language content, “democratically scores the integrity and trustworthiness of online news sources”, as eyeo puts it.
After being added to Chrome, the browser extension displays a small green check mark against its icon if a news source is deemed to be trustworthy.
Or you might see an orange colored ‘B’ — denoting ‘bias’
So how is Trusted News classifying sites? In the first instance eyeo says it’s leaning on four third party fact-checking organizations to generate its classifications: PolitiFact, Snopes, Wikipedia and Zimdars’ List.
But the plan is to evolve this approach using user feedback and — you guessed it — blockchain technology.
eyeo has been working with MetaCert Protocol which runs an anti-fraud URL registry (that’s also headed for the blockchain), to maintain the database for the project.
And that database will be decentralized by moving it to the Ethereum blockchain — with a new protocol and built-in game mechanics to reward submissions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reporters thought this video was North Korea propaganda. It came from the White House.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/06/12/reporters-thought-this-video-was-north-korea-propaganda-it-came-from-the-white-house/?utm_term=.caa4ac2c3a60
But as the president explained it, the video was more like an elevator pitch. It was the type of glitzy production that Trump might have once used to persuade investors to finance his hotels, and now hoped could persuade one of the most repressive regimes in the world to disarm its nuclear weapons and end nearly 70 years of international isolation and militant hostility to the United States.
On Tuesday evening, Trump tweeted a link to the video, for all to see.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3,000 journalists covering Kim-Trump this week is WTF is wrong with media
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/14/3000-journalists-singapore/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
Media businesses are in the dumper. Every week, we hear of new layoffs, budget cuts, diminished editorial quality and more, way more. And yet, somehow, miraculously, more than 3,000 journalists managed to find the funds to travel to Singapore to cover the Kim-Trump Summit Extraordinaire this week.
How many journalists got to see the summit activity?
the number of American journalists allowed to witness the meeting between Trump and Kim was limited to seven
I notice this same dynamic watching the keynote videos of any of the top tech companies — there are hundreds if not thousands of journalists covering these events from the audience. Exactly how you build a unique story sitting there beats me.
In media, one of the most critical qualities of a great story is salience — how important a story is to a particular audience.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook Claims 99% of Extremist Content Removed Without Users’ Help
https://www.securityweek.com/facebook-claims-99-extremist-content-removed-without-users-help
At this week’s International Homeland Security Forum (IHSF) hosted in Jerusalem by Israel’s minister of public security, Gilad Erdan, Facebook claimed growing success in its battle to remove extremist content from the network.
Tomi Engdahl says:
You aren’t alone; US adults broadly think around 40 percent of the news is misinformation
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/20/you-arent-alone-u-s-adults-broadly-think-around-40-percent-of-the-news-is-misinformation/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
New findings underscore what you already know. People don’t trust traditional media as they once did. They trust social media even less. And certain groups in particular, including Republicans and people with a high school education or less, are the most suspicious that what they read isn’t accurate.
The findings aren’t pretty. Overall, Americans think that 39 percent of the news they see on TV or hear on the radio or read in newspapers is deliberately intended to deceive. U.S. adults think it’s even worse when it comes to news they’ve discovered via social media; according to this same survey, participants said that fully two-thirds of the news they discover through social media is misinformation in some form.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook tests ‘subscription Groups’ that charge for exclusive content
https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/20/facebook-subscription-groups/
Facebook is starting to let Group admins charge $4.99 to $29.99 per month for access to special sub-Groups full of exclusive posts. A hand-picked array of parenting, cooking and “organize my home” Groups will be the first to get the chance to spawn a subscription Group open to their members.
During the test, Facebook won’t be taking a cut, but because the feature bills through iOS and Android, those operating systems get their 30 percent cut of a user’s first year of subscription and 15 percent after that.
Tomi Engdahl says:
These 6 Charts Show How the World is Improving
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/6-charts-show-world-improving/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SocialWarfare
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science
It is an industry like no other, with profit margins to rival Google – and it was created by one of Britain’s most notorious tycoons: Robert Maxwell. By Stephen Buranyi
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Facebook’s blend of AI and humans to screen ads continues to snare non-political ads and legitimate news, angering some publishers as the process gets refined
A Day Care and a Dog Rescue Benefit: On Facebook, They Were Political Ads
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/business/facebook-political-ads.html
What do a day care center, a vegetarian restaurant, a hair salon, an outdoor clothing maker and an investigative news publisher have in common?
To Facebook, they looked suspiciously like political activists.
Facing a torrent of criticism over its failure to prevent foreign interference during the 2016 election, the giant social network recently adopted new rules to make its advertising service harder to exploit.
Under the new rules, advertisers who want to buy political ads in the United States must first prove that they live in the country, and mark their ads with a “paid for by” disclaimer. Any ad Facebook deems to contain political content is stored in a searchable public database.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jillian D’Onfro / CNBC:
Interview with Danny Sullivan, who founded Search Engine Land and is now Google’s “search liaison”, which entails giving explanations for company’s errors
Meet the man whose job it is to reassure people that Google search isn’t evil
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/22/danny-sullivan-on-being-google-new-search-liaison.html
Late last year, former journalist Danny Sullivan became Google’s first “search liaison.”
His job is to help Google be more transparent and communicate better with the public at a time when it’s facing increased public scrutiny.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emily McCormick / Bloomberg:
Analysis: Instagram is estimated to be worth more than $100B if it were a stand-alone company and is on track to cross 2B users within the next five years — – Boost in estimated valuation signifies a 100-fold return — App is predicted to exceed 2 billion users within five years
Instagram Is Estimated to Be Worth More than $100 Billion
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-25/value-of-facebook-s-instagram-estimated-to-top-100-billion
Facebook Inc.’s Instagram is estimated to be worth more than $100 billion, if it were a stand-alone company, marking a 100-fold return for the app was purchased in 2012, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.
The photo-sharing platform, which reached 1 billion monthly active users earlier this month, will likely help nudge Instagram revenue past $10 billion over the next 12 months,
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lara O’Reilly / Wall Street Journal:
AT&T confirms it will buy AppNexus, which operates one of the largest independent ad exchanges; sources last week said the price was expected to be around $1.6B — Following acquisitions of AppNexus and Time Warner, telecom giant wants to do more than capitalize on its own content
AT&T Plots New Marketplace for TV and Digital Video Advertising
https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-t-to-acquire-digital-ad-firm-appnexus-for-1-6-billion-1529929278
Following acquisitions of AppNexus and Time Warner, telecom giant wants to do more than capitalize on its own content
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tarleton Gillespie / Wired:
US Congress needs to reform Section 230 safe harbor provision because it is based on early ideals of the open web and wasn’t designed for social media platforms
How Social Networks Set the Limits of What We Can Say Online
https://www.wired.com/story/how-social-networks-set-the-limits-of-what-we-can-say-online
Content moderation is hard. This should be obvious, but it’s easily forgotten. It is resource intensive and relentless; it requires making difficult and often untenable distinctions; it is wholly unclear what the standards should be, especially on a global scale; and one failure can incur enough public outrage to overshadow a million quiet successes. We as a society are partly to blame for having put platforms in this situation. We sometimes decry the intrusions of moderators, and sometimes decry their absence.
Even so, we have handed to private companies the power to set and enforce the boundaries of appropriate public speech. That is an enormous cultural power to be held by so few, and it is largely wielded behind closed doors, making it difficult for outsiders to inspect or challenge. Platforms frequently, and conspicuously, fail to live up to our expectations. In fact, given the enormity of the undertaking, most platforms’ own definition of success includes failing users on a regular basis.
Tomi Engdahl says:
eevBLAB #48 – The end of Tech Journalism on Youtube?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_ftKolqq80
EEBblog previous video on the BattBump Kickstarter has been flagged for Privacy and may be removed.
If this is allowed, it’s surely the end for journalistic history and reporting of public campaigns and story containing personal information that the owner deliberately made public.
Tomi Engdahl says:
EEVblog #1099 – BattBump Kickstarter REDACTED EDITION!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhRy6GDHgUA
The infamous video is back up, with hilarious Streisand effect inducing redactions to prevent illegitimate Youtube Privacy complaints from, I don’t know
BattBump – A mobile app to share battery charge via NFC!
Yes, it’s as stupid as it sounds.
It’s NOT a joke, it’s the dumbest Kickstarter idea ever.
BattBump update — the project backs down on its claims, then cancels and vanishes
https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2018/06/27/battbump-update-the-project-backs-down-on-its-claims-then-cancels-and-vanishes/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackers Want Cambridge Dictionary to Change Their Definition
https://hackaday.com/2018/06/26/hackers-want-cambridge-dictionary-to-change-their-definition/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter Unveils New Processes for Fighting Spam, Bots
https://www.securityweek.com/twitter-unveils-new-processes-fighting-spam-bots
Twitter this week shared some details on new processes designed to prevent malicious automation and spam, along with data on the positive impact of the measures implemented in the past period.
Spam and bots are highly problematic on Twitter, but the social media giant says it has rolled out some new systems that have helped its fight against these issues. The company claims that last month it challenged more than 9.9 million potentially spammy or automated accounts every week, up from 6.4 million in December last year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fake News, Real Cybersecurity Risks
https://www.securityweek.com/fake-news-real-cybersecurity-risks
From fake outlandish crime stories to the reporting of fake stories tied to real events and suspected government manipulation, there was so much fake news in 2017 that the Collins Dictionary made this term their Word of the Year – and this is NOT fake. But the viral nature of fake news headlines and hoaxes does more than spread misinformation and cause confusion, it presents extensive cybersecurity risks that are not making the news.
Advanced fake news spreads using a global network of hoax websites. Attackers can amplify their content and messages using social media, clickbait and advertising. Furthermore, access to data and analytics on content performance and visitor demographics ensures they are able to accurately target and hone the virality of their messages. Here’s a simple and tasty example to show how this works.
We need to be thinking now about ways to not only reduce the risk imposed by fake news, but also educate people to better identify these threats. So, how can we do this?
● Establish user awareness. Fake news spreads because people naturally want to share information with their social networks. Before sharing a link, always take time to review it – often the URL will be extremely similar to the real site, but with tiny differences. An example of this is the “share to get free stuff” social media scam. At a glance it looks identical, but the shared link has added characters. A quick review could prevent the unnecessasary spread of fake information.
● Utilize profiling services. To keep ahead of targeted campaigns, a number of security companies now offer profiling services that monitor the internet for possible targeting, website hijacking or spoofed company domain names.
● Secure and monitor the entire network. Make sure that you have the right security in place to protect the network and ensure that corporate data remains safe. Installing the latest endpoint security solution and keeping it up-to-date will reduce the risk of any malware being able to infect devices. Also, monitor the network to spot anomalous traffic as early as possible. This prevents malware from contacting C&C servers to activate and also reduces the risk of data leaving the network.
● Stay ahead with machine learning and automation. Once a fake news site has been recognized, it can be instantly blacklisted with updated policies pushed out to all devices automatically. In addition, the benefit of a cloud-based solution means that everyone subscribed to the service will be aware of, and protected against, the threat in near real-time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://blog.netprofile.fi/perinteisen-median-toimintamallit-kohtasivat-sosiaalisen-median-toimintatavat?utm_campaign=Netprofile-blogi-promo&utm_content=73641381&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Experts Bet on First Deepfakes Political Scandal
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/robotics/artificial-intelligence/experts-bet-on-first-deepfakes-political-scandal
A quiet wager has taken hold among researchers who study artificial intelligence techniques and the societal impacts of such technologies. They’re betting whether or not someone will create a so-called Deepfake video about a political candidate that receives more than 2 million views before getting debunked by the end of 2018.
The actual stakes in the bet are fairly small: Manhattan cocktails as a reward for the “yes” camp and tropical tiki drinks for the “no” camp. But the implications of the technology behind the bet’s premise could potentially reshape governments and undermine societal trust in the idea of having shared facts. It all comes down to when the technology may mature enough to digitally create fake but believable videos of politicians and celebrities saying or doing things that never actually happened in real life.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thanks Economist, You Really Know What Has Gone Wrong with the Internet
https://svedic.org/programming/thanks-economist-fix-the-internet
Tomi Engdahl says:
Elsevier are corrupting open science in Europe
https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2018/jun/29/elsevier-are-corrupting-open-science-in-europe
Elsevier – one of the largest and most notorious scholarly publishers – are monitoring Open Science in the EU on behalf of the European Commission. Jon Tennant argues that they cannot be trusted.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Court Rules Copying Photos Found on Internet is Fair Use
https://petapixel.com/2018/07/02/court-rules-copying-photos-found-on-internet-is-fair-use/
A Virginia federal court has made a decision that photographers won’t be happy to hear: the court ruled that finding a photo on the Internet and then using it without permission on a commercial website can be considered fair use.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vietnam Activists Flock to ‘Safe’ Social Media After Cyber Crackdown
https://www.securityweek.com/vietnam-activists-flock-safe-social-media-after-cyber-crackdown
Tens of thousands of Vietnamese social media users are flocking to a self-professed free speech platform to avoid tough internet controls in a new cybersecurity law, activists told AFP.
The draconian law requires internet companies to scrub critical content and hand over user data if Vietnam’s Communist government demands it.
The bill, which is due to take effect from January 1, sparked outcry from activists, who say it is a chokehold on free speech in a country where there is no independent press and where Facebook is a crucial lifeline for bloggers.
The world’s leading social media site has 53 million users in Vietnam, a country of 93 million.
Many activists are now turning to Minds, a US-based open-source platform, fearing Facebook could be complying with the new rules.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tim Cushing / Techdirt:
The Malaysian government, now led by a new prime minister, says it plans to repeal the Anti-Fake News Act 2018
Malaysian Government Decides To Dump Its Terrible Anti-Fake News Law
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180702/11240340156/malaysian-government-decides-to-dump-terrible-anti-fake-news-law.shtml
Malaysia’s government seized upon the term “fake news” as a way to silence coverage of internal corruption. The new law gave the government a way to steer narratives and control negative coverage, going beyond its already-tight control of local media. It would have worked out well for Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was facing a lot of negative coverage over the sudden and unexplained appearance of $700 million in his bank account.
Razak is no longer Prime Minister. His replacement, Mahathir Mohamad, claimed he would abolish the law if elected.
UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, David Kaye, had already officially complained to Malaysia’s government about its “fake news” law and the damage it would do free speech. The government appeared to have ignored this in favor of protecting itself from free speech.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
News UK says The Times and The Sunday Times now have 500,000 paid subscribers combined, with digital-only subscriptions growing 20% year-over-year to 255,000
Times and Sunday Times hit 500,000 subscribers as digital outnumbers print for first time
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/times-and-sunday-times-hits-500000-subscribers-as-digital-outnumbers-print-for-first-time/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Timothy McLaughlin / Wired:
How Facebook became synonymous with the internet in a newly democratic Myanmar and ended up relying on civil society groups for help in policing rumors — The riots wouldn’t have happened without Facebook. — ON THE THE evening of July 2, 2014 a swelling mob of hundreds …
How Facebook’s Rise Fueled Chaos and Confusion in Myanmar
https://www.wired.com/story/how-facebooks-rise-fueled-chaos-and-confusion-in-myanmar/
The social network exploded in Myanmar, allowing fake news and violence to consume a country emerging from military rule.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The secret of Quartz’s success? There are several.
https://www.poynter.org/news/secret-quartzs-success-there-are-several
Quartz had reason to break out the party hats Monday as the six-year-old venture was sold upstream by Atlantic Media to a similar Japanese business site in a deal worth at least $75 million and up to $110 million if it hits performance targets.
Quartz had grown in its short life from 22 to 225 staffers and zero revenue to $30 million a year.
Fundamentally, it has flourished because it was — and still is — a good idea, well-executed.
“The one-sentence summary is that we are a guide to the new global economy,” Seward said. “So we are focused on explanation” — not so much investigations or event-driven news breaks.
Content is organized around themes, “obsessions” in Quartz parlance, with topics like media, tech and an assortment of others getting attention, but not in a traditional beats and lines-of-business way.
Quartz stories also have a distinctive tone — plainly written, often short, and free of the inside baseball terminology of the genre
users “tell us they like reading about other industries, totally unrelated to their own.”
“We try to serve the next generation of business leaders, the person the CEO turns to for advice.”
“We do celebrate our failures,”
This year the company is on target to grow 25 to 30 percent
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Alarming Number Of Scientific Papers May Need To Be Retracted
http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/an-alarming-number-of-scientific-papers-may-need-to-be-retracted/
An analysis of hundreds of scientific papers over seven years has found a large number might need to be retracted due to duplicated images. About 35,000, to be exact.
they found about 6 percent had been “inappropriately duplicated”, using software to spot the images, and extrapolated for their final figure
In other words, a number of papers were using images from other research and passing it off as their own. This, of course, leads to questions about the veracity of research in the process – and has led to a number of retractions already.
“The cases that were retracted were the papers where we felt that there were too many errors to be corrected, or where misconduct was suspected.”
software to analyze 20,000 papers, and found that 3.8 percent of those contained duplicated images. Taking that figure across the almost 9 million biomedical papers published from 2009 to 2016, and suggesting that up to 11 percent contain errors worthy of retraction, they come to their final figure of 35,000 papers being suspect.
having one researcher assemble the images, or training peer reviewers to spot duplications could help prevent issues like this in future.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Are algorithms hacking our thoughts?
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/20/are-algorithms-hacking-our-thoughts/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
As Facebook shapes our access to information, Twitter dictates public opinion and Tinder influences our dating decisions, the algorithms we’ve developed to help us navigate choice are now actively driving every aspect of our lives.
But as we increasingly rely on them for everything from how we seek out news to how we relate to the people around us, have we automated the way we behave? Is human thinking beginning to mimic algorithmic processes? And is the Cambridge Analytica debacle a warning sign of what’s to come — and of happens when algorithms hack into our collective thoughts?
Online, the world becomes an infinite supply of products, and now, people. “The web opens access to an unprecedented range of goods and services from which you can select the one thing that will please you the most,” Ullman explains in Life in Code. “[There is the idea] that from that choice comes happiness. A sea of empty, illusory, misery-inducing choice.”
Whether it’s shopping or dating, we’ve been programmed to constantly search, evaluate and compare. Driven by algorithms, and in a larger sense, by web design and code, we’re always browsing for more options. In Ullman’s words, the web reinforces the idea that “you are special, your needs are unique, and [the algorithm] will help you find the one thing that perfectly meets your unique need and desire.”
“We create programs using ideas we can feed into them, but then [as] we live through the program. . .we accept the ideas embedded in it as facts of nature.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
OPCW Issues Fact-Finding Mission Reports on Chemical Weapons Use Allegations in Douma, Syria in 2018 and in Al-Hamadaniya and Karm Al-Tarrab in 2016
https://www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-issues-fact-finding-mission-reports-on-chemical-weapons-use-allegations-in-douma-syria-in-2018-and-in-al-hamadaniya-and-karm-al-tarrab-in-2016/
OPCW designated labs conducted analysis of prioritised samples. The results show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties
Tomi Engdahl says:
Introduction to Critical Thinking
https://www.thoughtco.com/introduction-to-critical-thinking-1857079
When you develop critical thinking skills, you will learn to evaluate information that you hear and process information that you collect while recognizing your implicit biases. You will analyze the evidence that is presented to you in order to make sure it is sound.
Recognize Common Fallacies
Fallacies are tricks of logic, and understanding them is the best way to avoid falling for them. There are many types of fallacies, and the more you think about them, the more readily you will recognize them all around you, especially in advertisements, arguments, and political discussions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook buys ads in Indian newspapers to warn about WhatsApp fakes
https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/10/facebook-buys-ads-in-indian-newspapers-to-warn-about-whatsapp-fakes/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
As Twitter finally gets serious about purging fake accounts, and YouTube says it will try to firefight conspiracy theories and fake news flaming across its platform with $25M to fund bona fide journalism, Facebook-owned WhatsApp is grappling with its own fake demons in India, where social media platforms have been used to seed and spread false rumors — fueling mob violence and leading to number of deaths in recent years.
This week Facebook has taken out full-page WhatsApp -branded adverts in Indian newspapers to try to stem the tide of life-threatening digital fakes spreading across social media platforms in the region with such tragic results.
Tomi Engdahl says:
WhatsApp now marks forwarded messages to curb the spread of deadly misinformation
https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/10/whatsapp-forwarded-messages-india/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
WhatsApp just introduced a new feature designed to help its users identify the origin of information that they receive in the messaging app. For the first time, a forwarded WhatsApp message will include an indicator that marks it as forwarded. It’s a small shift for the messaging platform, but potentially one that could make a big difference in the way people transmit information, especially dubious viral content, over the app.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FACEBOOK APP DOWN: ANDROID USERS COMPLAIN OF CRASHES
By James Hetherington On Thursday, July 12, 2018 – 09:08
https://www.google.fi/amp/www.newsweek.com/facebook-down-app-users-complaining-crashes-android-samsung-ios-iphone-1020315%3famp=1
Tomi Engdahl says:
DON’T FEED THE TROLLS, AND OTHER HIDEOUS LIES
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/12/17561768/dont-feed-the-trolls-online-harassment-abuse
The mantra about the best way to respond to online abuse has only made it worse
According to the conventional wisdom of the internet, there’s one simple guideline for responding to trolls: don’t feed them. Ignore them, don’t react to them, don’t give them the attention they want.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.digimarkkinointi.fi/blogi/copywriting-ja-sisallontuotanto-ovat-eri-asioita?utm_medium=social-paid&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=Automaattinen+postauksien+buustaus+2.0&utm_content=Automaattinen+postauksien+buustaus+2.0+-+Lämpimät+%2B+lookalike+-+Link+Post+-+&utm_id=5b445fc7e1c75c580700854e
Tomi Engdahl says:
A new hope: AI for news media
https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/12/a-new-hope-ai-for-news-media/?guccounter=1
To put it mildly, news media has been on the sidelines in AI development. As a consequence, in the age of AI-powered personalized interfaces, the news organizations don’t anymore get to define what’s real news, or, even more importantly, what’s truthful or trustworthy. Today, social media platforms, search engines and content aggregators control user flows to the media content and affect directly what kind of news content is created. As a result, the future of news media isn’t anymore in its own hands. Case closed?
The (Death) Valley of news digitalization
There’s a history: News media hasn’t been quick or innovative enough to become a change maker in the digital world.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alfred Ng / CNET:
How Facebook, Google, and Twitter train and use AI to manage abuse on a massive scale with some human help as false positives remain a challenge for AI
Inside Facebook, Twitter and Google’s AI battle over your social lives
https://www.cnet.com/news/inside-facebook-twitter-and-googles-ai-battle-over-your-social-lives/
From stamping out trolls to removing fake bot accounts, here’s how social networks are waging war using AI weapon
Tomi Engdahl says:
Erik Wemple / Washington Post:
Trump anointed Fox News as state TV with his favoritism of a Fox News reporter and baseless insults of NBC and CNN during a UK news conference — President Trump’s penchant for diminishing the fourth estate didn’t wither on British soil. “Fake news,” he riffed at various points during …
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/07/13/president-trump-anoints-fox-news-state-tv/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Freia Nahser / Global Editors Network:
An overview of experiments with voice AI from The New York Times, the BBC, and the Evening Standard and how they could be monetized through Alexa — Voice assistants are still young and a bit awkward. Content experiences on them aren’t always great and it seems that news organisations …
Hi Alexa, is the monetisation conversation moot?
https://medium.com/global-editors-network/hi-alexa-is-the-monetisation-conversation-moot-f8ce5d04e3cd
Voice assistants are still young and a bit awkward. Content experiences on them aren’t always great and it seems that news organisations, marketers, and the general public haven’t quite figured them out just yet.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gerry Smith / Bloomberg:
CNN is launching CNN Business this fall, consolidating CNN Money, CNN Tech, and CNN Media, will expand tech coverage from SF bureau, plans new streaming service — CNN is launching a new business website and expanding its technology coverage, part of a broader restructuring …
CNN Tilts Business Coverage to Silicon Valley
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-13/cnn-tilts-business-coverage-to-silicon-valley-as-at-t-era-dawns
Technology focus includes hiring reporters in San Francisco
Moves will be among first changes since AT&T took over in June
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nick Cohen / The New York Review of Books:
The BBC has failed to cover the legal and political scandals behind the Brexit Leave campaign, seeming to prefer to reflect the national mood and not the facts
How the BBC Lost the Plot on Brexit
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/07/12/how-the-bbc-lost-the-plot-on-brexit/
Late last year, BBC executives had the nerve to erect a bronze statue of George Orwell outside its headquarters in central London. The sculptor caught Orwell’s spikiness. He stands one hand on hip, the other pointing forward with a cigarette between his fingers, as if caught in mid-argument. Carved into the wall behind him is the journalistic motto that Orwell and the BBC wanted us to learn: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
The BBC lifted the line from Orwell’s proposed preface to Animal Farm. Despite its being one of the greatest satires in the English language, four publishers turned the manuscript down in 1944. Orwell was attacking Stalin’s Soviet Union, then Britain and America’s wartime ally, at the most politically inconvenient time imaginable.
Here is an incomplete list of uncomfortable truths that the British government, its supposedly left-wing opposition in the Labour party, and the 17.4 million people who voted for Britain to leave the EU do not want to hear. There is no plan, and there never was a plan. The “Leave” campaign never had the integrity to present the public with a program for withdrawal. If it had, voters might have realized that Brexit would either bring a huge dislocation as Britain tore itself out of an integrated European economy, or would turn Britain into an EU satellite state, obeying its rules but without a voice in their formulation.
The naive might expect journalists to expose the delusions of the powerful.
Much of contemporary politics resembles the brainwashing techniques of religious sects, which discredit sources of information that might contradict the cult’s teachings. Political leaders cannot order their followers to cut off communications with their families and leave their partners if they are not fellow members of the sect, but they have found other ways to imitate L. Ron Hubbard. Their most effective technique is to take a half-truth—that all journalistic choices are ideological to some extent—and use it as a weapon to suppress the full truth.
It ought to be obvious that a left-wing reporter will have an urge to expose corporate misconduct, just as a right-wing reporter will be on the watch for the hypocrisies of the left. But since deeds, not motives, make the world go round, the intention of the reporter ought to be irrelevant. What matters is whether what they have found is true or important.
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are masters of the tactic of saying that, regardless of the truth of the research or the importance of the story, the very fact of the story’s existence proves its illegitimacy. The term “whataboutism” does not begin to cover the new official campaigns to discredit journalism. The political cult leader does not merely claim his opponents are as bad as he is or that reporters are motivated by their opposition to him (which is true more often than not). He tells his followers that no honest person would have covered the story in the first place. Its truth and relevance are immaterial; it has no right to exist.
A reporter who accepts that argument has given up on journalism.
The BBC’s reporting of the scandals around the Brexit referendum is not biased or unbalanced: it barely exists.
That 2018 has been the year that Western publics realized how much Facebook knew about them, and how that information could be used by hostile foreign powers and malicious plutocrats, is thanks in large part to the efforts of Carole Cadwalladr, my colleague at the London Guardian and Observer.
Cadwalladr makes no claim to neutrality (and no one would believe her if she did).
When the whistleblower Christopher Wylie brought The Observer and The New York Times details of how data Cambridge Analytica
The firm was at the center of the Anglo-American alt-right. Steve Bannon was on its board. It worked for Donald Trump and, at the very least, had dealings with Leave.EU, a pro-Brexit campaign group fronted by Trump’s British ally Nigel Farage and funded with what is thought to be the largest campaign donation in British political history from one of our local oligarch
When news broke that Cambridge Analytica had collected identifying personal information for some 87 million Facebook users, Facebook stock fell by $134 billion.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emily Feng / Financial Times:
How Chinese state media spreads its message via 200 nominally independent Chinese language publications around the globe
China and the world: how Beijing spreads the message
https://www.ft.com/content/f5d00a86-3296-11e8-b5bf-23cb17fd1498
More than 200 Chinese-language publications reprint content from state media. The Communist party believes the coverage helps mute opposition from the diaspora
The shift in content at the UK-Chinese Times is part of an aggressive push by Communist party-backed outlets in print, radio and television to establish co-operation agreements with overseas publications
A Financial Times investigation found that party-affiliated outlets were reprinting or broadcasting their content in at least 200 nominally independent Chinese-language publications around the world. Under such agreements, these publications now reach millions of readers outside China each year, rivalling the subscription pools for all of the world’s largest newspapers.
“Chinese-language media have an incomparable advantage, due to a shared language, culture, and customs.”
Using third-party outlets to mask party content has become such a common tactic
Tomi Engdahl says:
Justin Bieber just lost millions of Twitter followers; here’s why
https://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/justin-bieber-just-lost-millions-12910586
Other celebs taking hits to their follower numbers included Barack Obama, Piers Morgan and Katy Perry
Twitter is attempting to purge its network of fake accounts – known as bots – with a massive cull that took place this week.
That meant some of the most popular users, including politicians and celebrities, took big hits to their follower counts.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comic sales are down as readers abandon print
https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/18/comic-sales-are-down-as-readers-abandon-print/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
Comic book and graphic novel sales fell 6.5% in 2017 from a 2016 high of $1.015 billion. Graphic novels brought in $570 million while comic books brought in about $350 million.
A report posted to Comichron notes that comic stores are still the biggest source for revenue while $90 million is attributable to digital downloads.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How People Are Hacking Google Images to Make “Idiot” Show Pictures of Trump
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.inverse.com/amp/article/47216-how-people-are-hacking-google-to-make-idiot-populate-pictures-of-trump?source=images
There are a few Google search inputs guaranteed to deliver pictures of the current Commander-in-Chief: “Donald Trump,” “US President,” and “idiot.”
For once, Trump can actually blame the media for something.
As mildly humorous as it is to search “idiot” on Google Images and see varying photos of Trump, it’s also a noteworthy example of how subjective and easily impressionable Google really is.
Why Does Google Think Donald Trump Is an “Idiot”?
In the past, online attempts to influence Google search results were overwhelmingly conducted by alt-right influences.
As stereotypical as it sounds, evidence points toward internet “pranksters” who skew search engines and spread real “fake news” as being overwhelmingly conservative, white men.
How Are Activists Able to Make Trump Appear as the Top Result?
Trump initially popped up under “idiot” after British protestors used the song “American Idiot” by Green Day (you know the one) to great fanfare, The Guardian reported Tuesday. Later, Reddit users allegedly upvoted a picture of Donald Trump with the caption “idiot” enough times that the correlation stuck.
But ironically, the internet users behind the initial search results didn’t have to do much to keep Trump trending under “idiot.” The media did the rest for them. Currently, all the top search results for “idiot” are pictures used by outlets in their articles explaining the phenomenon.
It’s proof that to get something done en masse online, you just need to catch a reporter’s attention. Once one publication writes an article, the rest are clamoring for clicks. And, ta-dah!