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:
Facebook fake review factories uncovered by Which? investigation
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/oct/20/facebook-fake-amazon-review-factories-uncovered-which-investigation
Firms paying refunds to buyers who write five-star reviews on Amazon, consumer group says
Tomi Engdahl says:
Closed-doors discussions to filter the internet continue
https://edri.org/closed-doors-discussions-to-filter-the-internet-continue/
On 12 September 2018, the European Parliament (EP) adopted the worst imaginable amendments to the copyright Directive proposal. After this disastrous vote, discussions moved behind closed doors, to the informal trilogues discussions, where the Council of the European Union (EU Member States), representatives of the Parliament and the European Commission (EC) are trying to reach an agreement on the two positions of the text (the Council proposal and the EP texts). Will they, soon? That’s less clear now.
OTECTING DIGITAL FREEDOM
SettingsSearchMenu
24 Oct 2018
Closed-doors discussions to filter the internet continue
By Diego Naranjo
On 12 September 2018, the European Parliament (EP) adopted the worst imaginable amendments to the copyright Directive proposal. After this disastrous vote, discussions moved behind closed doors, to the informal trilogues discussions, where the Council of the European Union (EU Member States), representatives of the Parliament and the European Commission (EC) are trying to reach an agreement on the two positions of the text (the Council proposal and the EP texts). Will they, soon? That’s less clear now.
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The Italian government has expressed its intention of moving away from the text previously agreed by the Council since the new government does not support some aspects of it, namely the upload filters. As there are several other Member States that were hardly enthusiastic about the proposal to start with, there seems to be the possibility that the Council ends up revising its own version. The Council text explicitly asked for upload filters in Article 13 of the Directive, while the EP text “only” leads to the same result by changing the liability of platforms.
Given the concerns around Article 13, it is possible that Council will decide to review its position, and Member States need to discuss further their positions. The text has faced strong criticism from academics, civil society, librarians, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, and many others. If the EU wants to achieve a successful reform which won’t be challenged immediately in the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), this further debate is crucial. If the worst parts of the text are not amended, the EU could be rushing itself to adopt a text that is wrong in many levels.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
How Gab, the social network where the Pittsburgh shooting suspect aired his hatred in full, became a platform of choice for neo-Nazis and other extremists
On Gab, an Extremist-Friendly Site, Pittsburgh Shooting Suspect Aired His Hatred in Full
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/us/gab-robert-bowers-pittsburgh-synagogue-shootings.html
Early Saturday, moments before the police say he barged into a Pittsburgh synagogue and opened fire, Robert Bowers’s anti-Semitic rage finally boiled over as he posted one last message online.
But he did not turn to Facebook or Twitter. Instead, the man accused of killing 11 people went to Gab, a two-year-old social network that bills itself as a “free speech” alternative to those platforms, and that has become a haven for white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other extremists. There, he posted a signoff to his followers.
“I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered,” Mr. Bowers wrote. “Screw your optics, I’m going in.”
“The challenge faced by any platform that allows everything permitted under U.S. law is that if left unabated, the most objectionable content will inevitably take over,” said Micah Schaffer, a former policy leader at YouTube and Snap who is now a technology policy consultant. “If an online community is dominated by porn, beheadings or white supremacists, most people aren’t going to think it’s a good place for their baby photos.”
Facebook and Twitter’s attempts to crack down on hateful and violent speech have been inconsistent, and many objectionable posts still slip through the cracks.
But the companies have made earnest efforts to clean up their platforms — and in the process, they have pushed some extremists to alternative venues like Gab.
In an email interview on Saturday, Mr. Torba, Gab’s chief executive, said that he had not reviewed all of Mr. Bowers’s posts, but that the company had turned over information about his account to law enforcement agencies and was cooperating with the investigation.
“Because he was on Gab, law enforcement now have definitive evidence for a motive,” Mr. Torba wrote. “They would not have had this evidence without Gab. We are proud to work with and support law enforcement in order to bring justice to this alleged terrorist.”
Technically, there was nothing special about Gab at the start — its interface was buggy and unattractive, and it lacked the features of more established social networks. But the platform’s intentionally slim rule book attracted a crowd of extremists, including white nationalists and neo-Nazis, who had been banned from other social platforms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed News:
The toxic political news cycle in the US is not “broken”; it is a feature of the system that participants and online platforms have helped build — It’s become routine these days to hear people describe the churning cycle of politics and news, tossed back and forth between Twitter …
Our Political News Cycle Isn’t Broken, It’s Working As Planned
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/false-flags-mail-bombs-media-trump-internet
What feels like chaos is the product of a well-oiled machine, where all participants seem to know their specific roles.
It’s become routine these days to hear people describe the churning cycle of politics and news, tossed back and forth between Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, comments sections, and television, as “broken.” You can feel the nation’s blood pressure rising as the election approaches, and the specter of political violence gets closer and closer. But this isn’t a broken system: There’s order to the madness. In fact, what feels broken is the product of a well-oiled machine in which all participants seem to know their specific roles.
The end result is a near-perfect union of many of the darkest forces in American culture — the collision of toxic hyperpartisanship, sensationalized media, and a mature online ecosystem that seems to incentivize and accelerate the worst impulses and behaviors. And if the past is any indication of future performance, it will only get worse. The machine is not broken, it’s firing on all cylinders.
That’s why, within minutes of Wednesday morning’s reports that suspicious explosive devices had been mailed to well-known Democrats like former president Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton, far-right media personalities reflexively mused that the packages were a “false flag” attempt to solicit goodwill for Democrats two weeks before the midterms. That dozens of pro-Trump commentators and personalities settled on this narrative at once is not a coincidence or a conspiracy. It’s far simpler: Crying “false flag” is a tried and true tactic. And for an audience eager to dismiss anything that will challenge their preexisting ideologies, it’s effective.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Committee to Protect Journalists:
Following the arrest of a mail bomb suspect, CPJ calls on Trump to “stop rhetorical assaults on the press and branding of journalists as enemies of the people” — Federal authorities today arrested a Florida man, identified as Cesar Sayoc, suspected of mailing 13 bombs addressed …
CPJ calls on Trump to dial back rhetoric against media and critics
https://cpj.org/2018/10/cpj-calls-on-trump-to-dial-back-rhetoric-against-m.php
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloomberg:
Inside Indonesia’s “war room”, a government-run hub with 70 engineers monitoring online news and social media for fake news, ahead of April 2019 elections
politics
Inside the Government-Run War Room Fighting Indonesian Fake News
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-24/inside-the-government-run-war-room-fighting-indonesian-fake-news
Indonesia has established an army of engineers aimed at containing the spread of hoaxes and fake news ahead of the presidential election next year.
More than 187 million people are expected to cast their votes when the country goes to the polls on April 17. With six months of campaigning left, a deluge of political and social narratives — true and false — are being distributed to shape voters’ views.
In an attempt to stem that flow, Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications has established a ‘war room,’ where a surveillance team of 70 engineers monitor social media traffic and other online platforms 24 hours a day.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrew Liptak / The Verge:
After Pittsburgh shooting, Gab has been suspended by PayPal, Stripe, and hosting provider Joyent; Microsoft had terminated Azure agreement with Gab last month — Stripe and cloud host Joyent have indicated that they will suspend Gab’s accounts — Hours after Paypal confirmed …
Two more platforms have suspended Gab in the wake of Pittsburgh shooting
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/28/18034126/gab-social-network-stripe-joyent-deplatforming-hate-speech-pittsburgh-shooting
Stripe and cloud host Joyent have indicated that they will suspend Gab’s accounts
Gab.com goes down after GoDaddy threatens to pull domain
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/28/18036520/gab-down-godaddy-domain-blocked
Tomi Engdahl says:
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed News:
Online hatred, trolling, harassment, and conspiracy theories are spilling into the physical world with ever greater and more alarming frequency — This week, reporters dredged up the online pasts of two monsters: a Florida man who was arrested for sending pipe bombs to at least a dozen …
The Conspiratorial Hate We See Online Is Increasingly Appearing In Real Life
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/mailbomb-pittsburgh-shooting-online-hate-real-world
Why toxic online behavior is spilling into the streets.
This week, reporters dredged up the online pasts of two monsters: a Florida man who was arrested for sending pipe bombs to at least a dozen of President Trump’s critics, and a neo-Nazi sympathizer who opened fire in a Pittsburgh synagogue, killing 11 worshipers on Saturday morning. In both instances, their digital footprints offered all the expected clues — the internet profile of a modern extremist, teeming with all-caps memes; hundreds of breathless, almost frantic tweets, likes, and shares of violent fantasies; and hateful ideologies repeated over and over again, sometimes to an audience of seemingly no one.
Scrolling through these internet histories, what’s remarkable isn’t the roiling hatred — tragically, that’s become almost commonplace online. But what’s truly alarming is how familiar the digital trail left behind by these dark extremists feels. The violent errata left by these domestic terrorists aren’t inaccessible, hundred-page, hand-scrawled manifestos or garages filled with red string and corkboards; instead, they’re Facebook posts and tweets and enthusiastic online trolling, the likes of which many of us come in contact with on a daily basis. And it’s that familiarity — just one turn of the screw more extreme than a normal shitpost — that makes a tour of their digital pasts so upsetting.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Taking Down Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior from Iran
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/10/coordinated-inauthentic-behavior-takedown/
https://www.wired.com/story/iran-facebook-trolls-using-russia-playbook/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Paypal bans Gab following Pittsburgh shooting
The gunman had a history of anti-Semitic posts on the site
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/27/18032930/paypal-banned-gab-following-pittsburgh-shooting
Gab loses hosting provider following Pittsburgh mass shooting
Payment provider Stripe is also likely backing away.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/10/28/gab-loses-hosting-provider/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here’s the thing about free speech: It’s not absolute.
https://www.macleans.ca/society/heres-the-thing-about-free-speech-its-not-absolute/
The misconception that freedom of speech is absolute is most prevalent on the Internet, writes Emma Teitel
What Bronson’s forlorn fans fail to grasp, however, is that while it may be annoying that some people would rather loudly boycott an event than simply quietly not attend, NXNE, a music festival with a reputation to uphold and sponsors to appease, is in no way obligated to allow Action Bronson to shout violent obscenities in the public square.
In fact, nobody is obligated to let another person do so—not even the government, if what that person is saying constitutes hate speech. But a misconception about freedom of speech persists in our culture, and nowhere is this misconception more prevalent than on the Internet. Case in point: Reddit, often referred to as the “bulletin board” of social media websites, shut down a group of popular, highly offensive sub-reddits (conversation threads) this month
“Private corporations like Twitter and 4Chan have a significant and chilling effect on speech and discourse in the public square when they shut down discussion.”
Yiannopoulos is right. But his point doesn’t negate the fact that corporations are not governments in the business of protecting fundamental freedoms. They are in the business of turning a profit, something they can’t do with shoddy reputations.
Perhaps it’s liberating to believe that, no matter our political leanings and prejudices, there’s a place we can say whatever we please, without consequence.
But that place never existed. Even in the Internet age, most of us express ourselves in public squares that are ultimately private spaces, run by corporations.
Those spaces have bottom lines. And lines in the sand.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Sanders can’t name a single ‘fake news’ outlet
https://edition-m.cnn.com/2018/10/29/politics/sarah-sanders-fake-news/index.html?r=http%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2F
Given that the President of the United States was blaming the media for creating the “great anger in our Country” and arguing that the mainstream media was the “true Enemy of the People,” it didn’t seem like much of a stretch to ask the White House to name names. Who, exactly, is the fake news? What outlets are the enemy of the people?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Zuckerberg says the future is sharing via 100B messages & 1B Stories/day
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/30/close-friendsbook/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
The News Feed won’t sustain Facebook forever, and that’s scaring investors. Today on Facebook’s earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg stressed that sharing is shifting to private chat, where people send 100 billion messages per day on Facebook’s family of apps, and Stories, where he says people share 1 billion of these slideshows per day (though it’s unclear if that includes third-party apps like Snapchat).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Mark Zuckerberg says sharing is shifting to private chat, where users send 100B messages per day on Facebook’s apps, and Stories, used by 1B+ people per day
Zuckerberg says the future is sharing via 100B messages & 1B Stories/day
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/30/close-friendsbook/
The News Feed won’t sustain Facebook forever, and that’s scaring investors.
people send 100 billion messages per day on Facebook’s family of apps, and Stories, where he says people share 1 billion of these slideshows per day
Tomi Engdahl says:
U.S. declines in internet freedom rankings, thanks to net neutrality repeal and fake news
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/31/united-states-drops-internet-freedoms-fake-news-net-neutrality/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
If you need a safe haven on the internet, where the pipes are open and the freedoms are plentiful — you might want to move to Estonia or Iceland.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will ‘Deepfakes’ Disrupt the Midterm Election?
https://www.wired.com/story/will-deepfakes-disrupt-the-midterm-election/
Plenty of people are following the final days of the midterm election campaigns. Yale law researcher Rebecca Crootof has a special interest—a small wager. If she wins, victory will be bitter sweet, like the Manhattan cocktail that will be her prize.
In June, Crootof bet that before 2018 is out an electoral campaign somewhere in the world will be roiled by a deepfake—a video generated by machine learning software that shows someone doing or saying something that in fact they did not do or say. Under the terms of the bet, the video must receive more than 2 million views before being debunked. If she loses, Crootof will owe a sporting tiki drink to Tim Hwang, director of a Harvard-MIT project on ethics and governance of artificial intelligence. If she wins, it will validate the fears of researchers and lawmakers that recent AI advances could be used to undermine democracy.
The US midterms are seen as a possible target that could prove the pessimists right. Facebook says the elections have already attracted other, more conventional disinformation campaigns.
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘He must be stopped’: Missouri candidate’s children tell voters he’s basically an asshat
Kids can be so cruel when you’re a racist homophobe
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/01/missouri_candidates_children_tell_voters_hes_a_bad_guy/
There’s no question that fatherhood brings immense responsibility. From the moment they come into the world, children think you are immortal, an aeons-old genius – nay, a god.
However, two of US Republican Steve West’s kids didn’t get the memo – maybe they’ve grown up? – having explicitly told the Missouri electorate not to vote their pops into the state’s general assembly.
While perceived “homophobia” and “racism” may well win support from some sects of Americans, West’s comments on these matters have not impressed his offspring, moving them to contact their local paper.
“My dad’s a fanatic. He must be stopped,” son Andy West told The Kansas City Star. “His ideology is pure hatred.”
Daughter Emily’s endorsement also left a lot to be desired. “I can’t imagine him being in any level of government. A lot of his views are just very out there. He’s made multiple comments that are racist and homophobic and how he doesn’t like the Jews.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/supercellin-paananen-kritisoi-kaavailtuja-digiveroja-6747580
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tool up for the midterms with this Facebook junk news aggregator
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/01/tool-up-for-the-midterms-with-this-facebook-junk-news-aggregator/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
With the US midterms fast approaching purveyors of online disinformation are very busy indeed spreading their hyper-partisan junk on Facebook .
Their goal: Skewing democratic outcomes by putting out misleading, deceptive or incorrect information that’s packaged as real news about politics, economics or culture — yet presented in a way that panders to prejudices and is more likely to get virally spread on mainstream social media platforms where it has the chance to influence people’s views.
This has happened before; is still happening; and will keep on happening
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jonah Engel Bromwich / New York Times:
Blockchain-powered network Civil’s token sale failed because people buy into blockchain to make money and don’t necessarily want to use it to “fix” journalism
Alas, the Blockchain Won’t Save Journalism After All
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/style/blockchain-journalism-civil.html
Hype around the technology has led to incomprehensible applications
Civil Media Company was introduced earlier this year as both a media platform and a network, to be owned and operated by journalists and concerned citizens in tandem. It was an exciting proposal. Its technology (powered by the blockchain!) would churn under dozens of independent newsrooms, its machinery creating a new, utopian model, free from the clutches of miserly businessmen or politically compromised publishers threatening to gum up the works.
“We believe that the ad-driven business model is slowly killing good journalism — which is itself a critical foundation for free, democratic societies,” wrote one of the company’s founders
Fundamental to the model was an option for readers: They could buy into Civil, with a Civil-specific crypto token, which would somehow free journalists to take advantage of “self-governance” and “permanence,” Mr. Coolidge wrote. With this financing, Civil would be able to cut out advertisers, clickbaiters and all the other bad actors so often accused of screwing up journalism.
Civil took its currency to market in September for a month. In the end, it fell short of the minimum number of tokens it had hoped to sell
Of the approximately $1.4 million worth of tokens the company did sell, about 80 percent was purchased by ConsenSys — the blockchain software company that underwrote Civil in the first place.
Civil’s representatives said they could help fix two crises that afflict the media: one of trust and another of financial sustainability. Both, they posited, were within the power of the blockchain to heal.
Financial sustainability first: Civil’s newsrooms (18 listed on its site so far) are welcome to use traditional business models (like subscriptions, paid for with dollars)
To be clear, the crisis of faith in media did not spring from confusion regarding the disputed identity of authors of blog posts.
“All cryptoeconomic public blockchains are effectively social applications,” Mr. Iles said. “You need a crowd of people to agree to run it.”
So: Civil is a media company that supports but also is a group of linked newsrooms that is also a blockchain-based social network which is supported by tokens that are purchased by people who care about journalism.
The Problem
The technology that undergirds cryptocurrency is complex, but because it’s been touted as the next big thing for the last several years
People who are in a strong position to understand what Civil is doing
have openly admitted that they don’t understand how the organization works. The rate of such statements only increased as Civil’s token sale got underway in September.
In essence, that means: Buying CVL isn’t meant to make you money.
.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (which introduced blockchain technology to the world) and Ethereum are commodities — like gold, they fluctuate in value whether they are used or not. CVL tokens were designed to function as consumer items.
But many people aren’t willing to pay normal money for journalism.
Fewer than three thousand people were willing to buy tokens. The sale certainly suffered from how complicated the buying process turned out to be.
“How to buy into journalism’s blockchain future (in only 44 steps).”
“Ultimately the ideal customer is someone who knows enough about crypto to get through the token-buying test and cares enough about journalism to not mind that the token is restricted in its use,” she said. “I suspect that it is a small intersection of the population.”
At least one former employee believes that Civil was never built to succeed in the first place. Daniel Sieberg, one of the company’s co-founders, who left in July, said that the token was fatally flawed.
“It is fundamentally a locked box,” he said. “The token’s not worth anything. The simple fact is, the token isn’t necessary.”
It is still unclear how Civil plans to alleviate people’s confusion in order to achieve its mission.
Still, a problem remains: People don’t buy into blockchain applications unless they can make money. There is no evidence that people want to use it to “fix” journalism. There is also no evidence that anyone really understands how that would even work.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook Allowed Advertisers to Target Users Interested in “White Genocide” — Even in Wake of Pittsburgh Massacre
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/02/facebook-ads-white-supremacy-pittsburgh-shooting/
Apparently fueled by anti-Semitism and the bogus narrative that outside forces are scheming to exterminate the white race, Robert Bowers murdered 11 Jewish congregants as they gathered inside their Pittsburgh synagogue, federal prosecutors allege. But despite long-running international efforts to debunk the idea of a “white genocide,” Facebook was still selling advertisers the ability to market to those with an interest in that myth just days after the bloodshed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fake News
and False Flags
http://labs.thebureauinvestigates.com/fake-news-and-false-flags/
How the Pentagon paid a British PR firm
$500 million for top secret Iraq propaganda
The Pentagon gave a controversial UK PR firm over half a billion dollars to run a top secret propaganda programme in Iraq, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal.
Bell Pottinger’s output included short TV segments made in the style of Arabic news networks and fake insurgent videos which could be used to track the people who watched them, according to a former employee.
“White is attributed, it says who produced it on the label,” the contractor said. “Grey is unattributed and black is falsely attributed. These types of black ops, used for tracking who is watching a certain thing, were a pretty standard part of the industry toolkit.”
The work consisted of three types of products. The first was television commercials portraying al Qaeda in a negative light. The second was news items which were made to look as if they had been “created by Arabic TV”, Wells said. Bell Pottinger would send teams out to film low-definition video of al Qaeda bombings and then edit it like a piece of news footage. It would be voiced in Arabic and distributed to TV stations across the region, according to Wells.
The American origins of the news items were sometimes kept hidden.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tom Simonite / Wired:
A look at how deepfakes, with recent software advances that easily create AI-generated fake audio and video, could be misused to undermine elections
Will ‘Deepfakes’ Disrupt the Midterm Election?
https://www.wired.com/story/will-deepfakes-disrupt-the-midterm-election/
Tomi Engdahl says:
David Kent / Pew Research Center:
Pew: 77% of US newsroom employees are non-Hispanic whites, 61% are male, and 48% are non-Hispanic white men, more white male than overall US workers, industries
Newsroom employees are less diverse than U.S. workers overall
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/02/newsroom-employees-are-less-diverse-than-u-s-workers-overall/
Newsroom employees are more likely to be white and male than U.S. workers overall. There are signs, though, of a turning tide: Younger newsroom employees show greater racial, ethnic and gender diversity than their older colleagues, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
More than three-quarters (77%) of newsroom employees – those who work as reporters, editors, photographers and videographers in the newspaper, broadcasting and internet publishing industries – are non-Hispanic whites, according to the analysis of 2012-2016 American Community Survey data. That is true of 65% of U.S. workers in all occupations and industries combined.
Newsroom employees are also more likely than workers overall to be male. About six-in-ten newsroom employees (61%) are men, compared with 53% of all workers.
When it comes to gender, however, younger newsroom employees look like U.S. employees overall. Newsroom employees ages 18 to 29 are just as likely as workers overall to be men (51% in both groups). Among older workers, newsroom employees are disproportionately male: About two-thirds of newsroom employees ages 30 and older are men, compared with a little over half of all U.S. workers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lucia Moses / Digiday:
How audience engagement editors, once called social media managers, are shifting to revenue-generating work and less toward just driving traffic — Audience development pros have always been crucial to how publishers reach new readers. But increasingly, they’re all about the revenue …
Audience development shifts focus from Facebook traffic to generating revenue
https://digiday.com/media/were-getting-smarter-audience-development-shifts-focus-from-facebook-traffic-to-generating-revenue/
“For a long time, people were looking at growth,” Karolian said. “Those things are still important, but a lot of them at this point are kind of mechanized. So now that we have a large top of funnel, it’s figuring out the middle and end of funnel.”
The decline of Facebook as a traffic source, the realization that publishers’ pivot to video hasn’t yielded the business gains they’d hoped and the push for reader revenue are all combining to change the job of audience development. In a Reuters Institute survey, digital subscriptions came up as the most important revenue stream for publishing executives in 2018; at some publishers including The New York Times and The Economist, subscriptions now top advertising as a revenue source.
“I focus a lot on the quality of the audience — the people we bring, will they monetize?” Kelly said. “All of our traffic goals are in association with some kind of revenue goal. That’s why the quality of the audience matters.”
This shift in emphasis gets audience development pros, historically tightly integrated with the newsroom, more involved with the business side.
Tomi Engdahl says:
National Geographic is using VR and social platforms to appeal to Gen Z
https://digiday.com/marketing/national-geographic-virtual-reality-social-gen-z/
“We know that to remain relevant and regarded within this shifting media landscape, we must create exceptional content that reaches our readers wherever they are,” said Jill Cress, CMO and evp of National Geographic. “Understanding that we aren’t going to necessary engage a younger new audience coming to our traditional channels, we are creating content in platform-specific ways.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
Pew study: of four UK newspapers, The Guardian is most trusted among people 18-29; 40% never listen to radio news, and 19% say they never watch TV news
Guardian named UK’s most trusted newspaper
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/oct/31/guardian-rated-most-trusted-newspaper-brand-in-uk-study
Survey suggests Britons under 30 seek out reliable news websites associated with traditional outlets
The Guardian is the most trusted newspaper brand in the UK, a study by a non-partisan media research organisation has found.
The research, conducted by the US-based Pew Research Centre, found the Guardian was particularly trusted among readers aged 18 to 29.
“Younger adults, those aged 18 to 29, largely agree with those older than them that the news media are important to the functioning of society,” said the report’s authors. “But when it comes to how the news media are doing, younger people in many countries are less keen on their performance than older adults.”
Pew finds that two-fifths of Britons aged 18 to 29 say they never listen to news on the radio, while 19% say they never watch any TV news, instead choosing to rely on news websites and social media. By comparison a third of over-50s say they never access news online.
The report finds that most trends in changing media consumption follow the same pattern across Europe, whether in the UK, France or Germany.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Erik Wemple / Washington Post:
Fact-checkers at the Washington Post, PolitiFact, and FactCheck.org are stretched thin by the volume of the false claims Trump makes as appearances ramp up — The Onion is on top of the news: “Nation’s Fact-Checkers Confirm They’ll Probably Wrap Up Evaluating Trump’s Statements By 2050 At Latest.”
President Trump has fact-checkers gasping for air
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/10/30/president-trump-has-fact-checkers-gasping-for-air/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.49a2afc7d5ca
The Onion is on top of the news: “Nation’s Fact-Checkers Confirm They’ll Probably Wrap Up Evaluating Trump’s Statements By 2050 At Latest.”
Glenn Kessler, The Post’s Fact Checker columnist, tells the Erik Wemple Blog, “At the moment, there are lots of things entered but blank spaces for the fact-checks so we really have to plow through them.”
Aaron Sharockman, executive director of PolitiFact, says, “We really have been stretched to the limit. We’ve been asking a fact-checker to staff nights for the past few weeks to ‘live’ fact check Trump’s remarks on Twitter. We’re just not really able to get to every claim that we might typically wish to verify.”
Hundreds of thousands of words — flimsy and false words — piling up day after day as part of an effort to deceive just enough people to record a “win” in the midterm elections.
The plume of false Trump pronouncements in recent months has generated a curiosity: Are the falsehoods spiking because Trump is just talking more, or is he belting out more falsehoods per word?
For the first event, 76 percent of the 98 statements were “false, misleading or unsupported by the evidence,” versus 70 percent of the 88 statements for the second event.
“I found that he is getting more dishonest per word,” says Dale.
Professional hazards do attach to this line of work. “It’s a very depressing duty to read through all these speeches and see so many false things or misleading things said over and over again,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Freedom House moves the US down a spot in its global internet freedom rankings citing net neutrality repeal, surveillance law renewal, disinformation, and more
US declines in internet freedom rankings, thanks to net neutrality repeal and fake news
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/31/united-states-drops-internet-freedoms-fake-news-net-neutrality/
If you need a safe haven on the internet, where the pipes are open and the freedoms are plentiful — you might want to move to Estonia or Iceland.
Although the U.S. remains firmly in the top 10, it dropped a point on the year earlier after a recent rash of changes to internet regulation and a lack of in the realm of surveillance.
Last year, the U.S. was 21 in the global internet freedom ranking — the lower number, the better a country ranks. That was behind Estonia, Iceland, Canada, Germany and Australia. This year the U.S. is at 22 — thanks to the repeal of net neutrality and the renewal of U.S. spy powers.
The report also cited “disinformation and hyperpartisan content” — or fake news — as a “pressing concern.”
https://freedomhouse.org/reports
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
How Facebook and Twitter fight online voter suppression for the midterms with algorithm changes and partnerships with organizations that report disinformation
http://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/11/02/how-facebook-twitter-are-rushing-stop-voter-suppression-online-midterm-election/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet freedom continues to decline around the world, a new report says
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/1/18050394/internet-freedom-report-2018-freedom-house-chertoff
Governments are reining in liberty for the eighth consecutive year, Freedom House reports
Digital authoritarianism is on the rise, according to a new report from a group that monitors internet freedoms. Freedom House, a pro-democracy think tank, said today that governments are seeking more control over users’ data while also using laws nominally intended to address “fake news” to suppress dissent. It marked the eighth consecutive year that Freedom House found a decline in online freedoms around the world.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hate Speech on Live ‘Super Chats’ Tests YouTube
https://www.wsj.com/articles/hate-speech-on-live-super-chats-tests-youtube-1541205849
Feature that gives paid comments special treatment generates revenue but can include racist comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hours before U.S. election day, Facebook pulls dozens of accounts for ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior’
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/05/day-before-election-day-facebook-pulls-inauthentic-accounts/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
Facebook has pulled the plug on 30 accounts and 85 Instagram accounts that the company says were engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”
The company didn’t have much more to share, only that the Facebook Pages associated with the accounts “appear to be in the French or Russian languages, while the Instagram accounts seem to have mostly been in English — some were focused on celebrities, others political debate,” he said.
Only earlier on Monday, a new report from Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism found that election interference remains a major problem for the platform
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stephen Fry is right:
““A grand canyon has opened up in our world,” Fry said. On one side is the new right, promoting a bizarre mixture of Christianity and libertarianism; on the other, the “illiberal liberals”, obsessed with identity politics and complaining about things like cultural appropriation. These tiny factions war above, while the rest of us watch, aghast, from the chasm below.”
Stephen Fry pronounces the death of classical liberalism: ‘We are irrelevant and outdated bystanders’
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/nov/05/stephen-fry-pronounces-the-death-of-classical-liberalism-we-are-irrelevant-and-outdated-bystanders?CMP=share_btn_fb
He wasn’t the only one, as the Festival of Dangerous Ideas contemplated rapid changes in contemporary politics
Tomi Engdahl says:
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Facebook says it has blocked 115 accounts on its services that may have been engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” ahead of the US midterm elections — Facebook announced Monday evening that it had blocked 115 accounts on its services that may have been engaged in …
http://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/06/facebook-blocks-115-accounts-ahead-of-us-midterm-elections.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alex Warofka / Facebook:
Facebook posts results of commissioned report on Myanmar which found Facebook wasn’t doing enough to prevent it from being used to incite offline violence — We want Facebook to be a place where people can express themselves freely and safely around the world.
An Independent Assessment of the Human Rights Impact of Facebook in Myanmar
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/11/myanmar-hria/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Chrome 71, which arrives next month, will block all ads on sites that have persistently shown abusive ads such as fake system messages
Chrome will soon ad-block an entire website if it shows abusive ads
Chrome 71 arrives next month
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/5/18063906/chrome-71-update-abusive-ads-blocking-december-2018
Tomi Engdahl says:
Paris Martineau / Wired:
Gab is back online; its domain has migrated to Seattle-area-based registrar Epik, and Cloudflare is shielding who actually hosts the site — AFTER IT WAS revealed that the suspect in the shootings at a Pittsburgh synagogue had threatened on the social media network Gab to kill Jews …
http://www.wired.com/story/how-right-wing-social-media-site-gab-got-back-online
Tomi Engdahl says:
Craig Silverman / BuzzFeed News:
Investigation finds LinkedIn has had a rise in hyperpartisan political content, with fake accounts and toxic memes; LinkedIn has removed some reported posts — “Facebook banned me, they hate me. But that’s all good — I started posting on LinkedIn and everybody is following me,” said one Trump supporter.
LinkedIn Is Now Home To Hyperpartisan Political Content, False Memes, And Troll Battles
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/booted-off-facebook-some-trump-supporters-are-bringing
“Facebook banned me, they hate me. But that’s all good — I started posting on LinkedIn and everybody is following me,” said one Trump supporter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Valtamedia hybridisodassa kansaa vastaan
https://vasarahammer.blogspot.com/2018/10/valtamedia-hybridisodassa-kansaa-vastaan.html?spref=fb&m=1
Äärioikeisto ja hyvinvointivaltio
http://meeviren.puheenvuoro.uusisuomi.fi/263587-aarioikeisto-ja-hyvinvointivaltio
Tomi Engdahl says:
W3C launches internet hippie manifesto: ‘We’ve lost control of our data and that data is being weaponised against us’
Why can’t we all go back to being nice to each other, like in the Usenet and IRC days, er, wait…
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/05/w3c_hippie_manifesto/
“The World Wide Web is under threat,” a 19-page hippie manifesto [PDF] published by the online standards organization on Monday warns. “We’ve lost control of our personal data and that data is being weaponised against us.” That’s not all, either.
https://regmedia.co.uk/2018/11/05/the-case-fortheweb.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tim Berners-Lee launches campaign to save the web from abuse
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/05/tim-berners-lee-launches-campaign-to-save-the-web-from-abuse
A ‘Magna Carta for the web’ will protect people’s rights online from threats such as fake news, prejudice and hate, says founder of the world wide web
Contract for the Web
https://fortheweb.webfoundation.org/principles-1
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook removed 14 million pieces of terrorist content this year, and the numbers are rising
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/08/facebook-removed-14-million-pieces-of-terrorist-content-this-year-and-the-numbers-are-rising/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
Facebook must exert constant vigilance to prevent its platform from being taken over by ne’er-do-wells, but how exactly it does that is only really known to itself.
More than half of that 14 million was old content posted before 2018, some of which had been sitting around for years.
Something worth noting: Facebook is careful to avoid positive or additive verbs when talking about this content
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://aikalainen.uta.fi/2018/11/06/tutkimus-joka-lahti-kasista/
Kertomuksen prototyyppi on tarina mullistavasta, voimauttavasta yksilökokemuksesta. Vaaralliseksi kertomus muuttuu silloin, kun yksilökokemuksen perustella tehdään pitkälle meneviä yleistyksiä ja johtopäätöksiä.
Mäkelän mukaan sosiaalinen media suosii stereotyyppisiä tarinoita, joissa on konservatiiviset roolit. Tarinoissa köyhät ovat aina ansaitsevia köyhiä ja kaikki tarinankertojat hyväntekijöitä.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is it possible that the far-right is engaging in technological warfare by manipulating search results in most forms of social media and search engines?
How Google’s search algorithm spreads false information with a rightwing bias
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/google-autocomplete-rightwing-bias-algorithm-political-propaganda
Search and autocomplete algorithms prioritize sites with rightwing bias, and far-right groups trick it to boost propaganda and misinformation in search rankings
Tomi Engdahl says:
Limiting social media use reduced loneliness and depression in new experiment
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/09/limiting-social-media-use-reduced-loneliness-and-depression-in-new-experiment/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
The idea that social media can be harmful to our mental and emotional well-being is not a new one, but little has been done by researchers to directly measure the effect; surveys and correlative studies are at best suggestive. A new experimental study out of Penn State, however, directly links more social media use to worse emotional states, and less use to better.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_manipulation
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://newspek.com/SingleTopic/GetTopic?topicId=60&mindmap=true
Tomi Engdahl says:
White House shares manipulated Infowars video to justify CNN press ban – TechCrunch
https://www.tekkarsenal.com/index.php/2018/11/08/white-house-shares-manipulated-infowars-video-to-justify-cnn-press-ban-techcrunch/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Can you tell the difference? First AI newsreader looks UNCANNILY like real deal
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1042682/China-AI-newsreader-video-Sogou-robotics-robots-Xinhua-News-Oxford-University
IN a world first, a Chinese state news agency has created a virtual newsreader that works 24/7 and says whatever it is told to.