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:
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
PayPal says it has banned all Infowars-related sites for promoting hate or discriminatory intolerance against certain communities and religions
PayPal bans Infowars for promoting hate
https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/21/17887138/paypal-infowars-ban-alex-jones-hate-speech-deplatform
Tomi Engdahl says:
Joseph Bernstein / BuzzFeed News:
Profile of Marc Randazza, a free speech advocate and lawyer who tries to limit social media platforms’ ability to act against hateful and abusive content — The new speech wars are a push and pull between individuals, governments, and platforms. At the center of this is attorney Marc Randazza …
Marc Randazza Is Fighting To Keep Nazis And Trolls On Twitter In The New Speech Wars. Here’s Why.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/meet-the-free-speech-lawyer-fighting-to-keep-nazis-and
The new speech wars are a push and pull between individuals, governments, and platforms. At the center of this is attorney Marc Randazza, fighting for Nazis, satanists, and unapologetic trolls. Here’s why.
“FREEDOM,” it reads in between the stars. And in the topmost stripe: “Of SPeech.”
The advent of the internet ignited a big bang of speech, the consequences of which America hasn’t yet reckoned with.
spirit of the famous Evelyn Beatrice Hall quote: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” By this well-polished nugget of Enlightenment logic, the more society hates what someone has to say, the higher the calling to represent them. Historically in the US, that has meant socialists, pornographers, artists, and Nazis.
For a long time, that calling led Randazza to represent some of the biggest names in porn: Kink.com, Bang Bros, Corbin Fisher. But more recently, he’s become better known as a free speech advocate for a who’s who of internet-famous right-wingers, people who run the gamut from trollish to hateful to worse. They include the Infowars goblin Alex Jones; the neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin; Gawker bête noire Chuck Johnson; the white supremacist writer Jared Taylor; the white supremacist politician Paul Nehlen; an anonymous planner of the deadly 2017 Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally; and the Twitter activist Cernovich, who is Randazza’s friend. In so doing, he’s become the legal face of the burning conservative conviction
The backlash is a virtuous feedback loop, a sign of doing something right.
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube’s ‘alternative influence network’ breeds rightwing radicalisation, report finds
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/sep/18/report-youtubes-alternative-influence-network-breeds-rightwing-radicalisation
Study blames social media site’s network of scholars, media pundits and internet celebrities who unite to promote far-right politics
The report describes an “alternative influence network” of about 65 scholars, media pundits and internet celebrities promoting a range of rightwing political positions, from mainstream conservatism to overt white nationalism. They are broadly united by their reactionary position: an opposition to feminism, social justice and leftwing politics and present themselves as an underdog alternative to the mainstream media.
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=Standards_and_Values
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ina Fried / Axios:
In internal email after WSJ report, Google CEO Pichai denied efforts to politically bias search results, reaffirmed Google should remain politically neutral
E-mail: Google CEO denies bias in search results
https://www.axios.com/google-1537569845-1365391a-ee00-47df-a9ee-b3a9413bd053.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
David Stanway / Reuters:
China has shut down 4,000+ websites and online accounts, removed 147,000 pieces of information during its three-month campaign against “harmful” content — SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China has shut down more than 4,000 websites and online accounts in a three-month campaign against …
China shuts thousands of websites in clean-up campaign: Xinhua
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-internet/china-shuts-thousands-of-websites-in-clean-up-campaign-xinhua-idUSKCN1M302F
China has shut down more than 4,000 websites and online accounts in a three-month campaign against “harmful” online information, the official Xinhua news agency said on Saturday, citing the country’s illegal publication watchdog.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook not protecting content moderators from mental trauma: lawsuit
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-lawsuit-idUSKCN1M423Q
A former Facebook Inc contract employee filed a lawsuit in California, alleging that content moderators who face mental trauma after reviewing distressing images on the platform are not being properly protected by the social networking company.
Former Facebook moderator sues over mental trauma
It reportedly doesn’t do enough to treat mental scars.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/24/facebook-sued-over-moderator-mental-trauma/
Facebook’s content moderators don’t have an easy task. They often have to see the very worst of what people post, including graphic violence and sexual abuse. And while the social network has resources to help, at least one former worker doesn’t believe that’s enough. Ex-contractor Selena Scola has sued Facebook for allegedly “ignoring its duty” to protect moderators who deal with mental trauma after seeing disturbing imagery. Rather than create a safe environment, it’s producing a “revolving door of contractors” who are permanently scarred by what they’ve seen, Scola’s lawyer Korey Nelson said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google CEO Sundar Pichai Is Headed To Washington This Week To Discuss Censorship, China
https://politics.slashdot.org/story/18/09/25/028252/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-is-headed-to-washington-this-week-to-discuss-censorship-china?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jim Waterson / The Guardian:
The News Media Association, which represents British newspapers including The Guardian, has called on the UK govt to levy a tax on tech giants to fund the press — News Media Association says Google and Facebook should fund the journalism from which they profit
UK newspaper industry demands levy on tech firms
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/sep/25/uk-newspaper-industry-demands-levy-on-tech-firms
News Media Association says Google and Facebook should fund the journalism from which they profit
Tomi Engdahl says:
With his internet cut off, Julian Assange steps down as editor of WikiLeaks
https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/27/julian-assange-wikileaks-new-editor-in-chief/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
WikiLeaks has a new top dog. Its contentious figurehead and founder, Julian Assange, will step aside, letting former WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson take the reins due to what WikiLeaks calls “extraordinary circumstances” that have seen Assange “held incommunicado.”
Assange created the organization in 2006 and has served as its editor-in-chief ever since. Hrafnsson, an Icelandic journalist, will take over, though he’s not new to leadership at WikiLeaks.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pew: A majority of U.S. teens are bullied online
https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/27/pew-a-majority-of-u-s-teens-are-bullied-online/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
Teens blame politicians and social media sites for failing to protect them
A majority of U.S. teens have been subject to online abuse, according to a new study from Pew Research Center, out this morning. Specifically, that means they’ve experienced at least one of a half-dozen types of online cyberbullying, including name-calling, being subject to false rumors, receiving explicit images they didn’t ask for, having explicit images of themselves shared without their consent, physical threats, or being constantly asked about their location and activities in a stalker-ish fashion by someone who is not their parents.
Of these, name-calling and being subject to false rumors were the top two categories of abuse teens were subject to, with 42% and 32% of teens reporting it had happened to them.
a large majority – 90% – of teens now believe that online harassment is a problem and 63% say it’s what they consider a “major” problem.
girls and boys are both harassed online in fairly equal measure
receiving or avoiding abuse is directly tied to how much screen time teens put in.
That is, the more teens go online, the more abuse they’ll receive.
Forty-five percent of teens say they’re online almost constantly, and they are more likely to be harassed, as a result.
Many of the top media sites were largely built by young people when they were first founded, and those people were often men. The sites were created in an almost naive fashion, with regard to online abuse. Protections – like muting, filters, blocking, and reporting – were generally introduced in a reactive fashion
After all, device addiction resulting in increased exposure to online abuse is not a plague that only affects teens.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook blocked users from posting some stories about its security breach
https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/28/facebook-blocks-guardian-story/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
Some users are reporting that they are unable to post today’s big story about a security breach affecting 50 million Facebook users. The issue appears to only affect particular stories from certain outlets, at this time one story from The Guardian and one from the Associated Press, both reputable press outlets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tim Berners-Lee:
Tim Berners-Lee unveils Solid, an open source project to decentralize the web and give users control of their data, and Inrupt, a startup to guide the project — I’ve always believed the web is for everyone. That’s why I and others fight fiercely to protect it.
One Small Step for the Web…
https://medium.com/@timberners_lee/one-small-step-for-the-web-87f92217d085
Solid changes the current model where users have to hand over personal data to digital giants in exchange for perceived value. As we’ve all discovered, this hasn’t been in our best interests. Solid is how we evolve the web in order to restore balance — by giving every one of us complete control over data, personal or not, in a revolutionary way.
Solid is a platform, built using the existing web. It gives every user a choice about where data is stored, which specific people and groups can access select elements, and which apps you use. It allows you, your family and colleagues, to link and share data with anyone. It allows people to look at the same data with different apps at the same time.
Solid is guided by the principle of “personal empowerment through data” which we believe is fundamental to the success of the next era of the web. We believe data should empower each of us.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Christine Schmidt / Nieman Lab:
Tow Center study of digital adaption in local news: Google’s reach, from AMP to ads, is pervasive, 12% of outlets don’t have a website, 80% have a Facebook page
Where local news has adapted to digital — and where it can still grow (hint: not geographically)
http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/09/where-local-news-has-adapted-to-digital-and-where-it-can-still-grow-hint-not-geographically/
So you want to support local news. But can you even find the subscribe button on the Daily Planet’s clunky website to do so?
Is the website optimized for a smartphone? (Which is, of course, what you’re probably trying to use to find said button.) Does the organization even have a website, or does it shoot straight to social media instead of fighting with a WordPress template?
If you answered “uh, don’t know” or “eek, no” or “maybe I can for one site but I care about strengthening local news more broadly,” then you might want to check out this new research from Calvin College professor Jesse Holcomb, published over at Columbia University’s Tow Center.
News on the internet has been around for — well — several decades. But it’s no surprise that local news outlets — stymied by scale and ownership, and often serving audiences behind the digital curve — have not been able to adapt to the age as quickly as national organizations.
More than one in ten (12 percent) local news outlets do not have their own website; when outlets are accounted for that only offer a PDF of their recent content, that figure rises to 17 percent.
Most local media are on social media. Nearly eight in ten local news outlets have their own Facebook profile. Even outlets without their own website are on the social networking site—fully one in three (34 percent).
When it comes to mobile, responsive design is more common (84 percent of local news sites) than individual apps (27 percent of local news outlets). Fully 74 percent of local TV stations offer their own app.
Overall, a slight majority of local news outlets (57 percent) offer an online pathway to subscription, donation or membership. This varies wildly depending on the sector, with broadcasters highly unlikely to do so, and daily newspapers highly likely.
On average, daily newspaper and local TV station websites are the slowest to load, at more than 20 seconds each, by one measure. Digital native publishers, and community weeklies and magazines tend to load faster, at a rate of between 13-15 seconds each.
Only about a quarter (23 percent) of local news websites redirect to a secure version. Overall, about four in ten (39 percent) local news outlets offer or promote a newsletter product on their website.
The study also points out that Google’s “many tentacles in the online local news space are striking: Not only are publishers indexed in Google’s search engine and their pages’ loading times optimized by Google’s AMP project, but Google advertising services appear on many local news websites. Further, nearly half of all local news websites that offer online video host it on YouTube, which is owned by Google.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What will happen when newspapers kill print and go online-only? Most of that print audience will just…disappear
http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/09/what-will-happen-when-newspapers-kill-print-and-go-online-only-most-of-that-print-audience-will-just-disappear/
A new study of The Independent’s 2016 shift to online-only finds that its print readership didn’t move to digital when the newspaper did. It’s now “more glanced at, it seems, than gorged on.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Christine Schmidt / Nieman Lab:
Center for Media Engagement experiments: readers are more likely to click on links with images, links at the end of an article, and links to related content
Just because clickthrough rates are low doesn’t mean you can’t do anything about them
http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/09/just-because-clickthrough-rates-are-low-doesnt-mean-you-cant-do-anything-about-them/
At the top of this article or down below, at the bottom?
We don’t want your finger to cramp so here’s the gist: News site visitors are more likely to make those recirculating taps when stories are grouped in a simply titled Related Stories module rather than a more tongue-twisting section (though we’re still partial to What We’re Reading), when at the bottom of the article (yay for reading finishers, or at least scroll-happy visitors), and when accompanied by images.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How the media encourages — and sustains — political warfare
Oppositional framing in news stories encourages oppositional thinking in news audiences.
http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/09/how-the-media-encourages-and-sustains-political-warfare/
Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has been waging war against the American press by dismissing unfavorable reports as “fake news” and calling the media “the enemy of the American people.” As a countermeasure, The Washington Post has publicly fact-checked every claim that Trump has labeled as fake. In August, The Boston Globe coordinated editorials from newspapers across the nation to push back against Trump’s attacks on the press. The Associated Press characterized this effort as the declaration of a “war of words” against Trump.
News organizations might frame themselves as the besieged party in this “war.” But what if they’re as much to blame as the president in this back-and-forth? And what if readers are to blame as well?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook Just Met With Reps From Myanmar, The Philippines, And Sri Lanka To Discuss Its Global Misinformation Problem
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/daveyalba/facebook-misinformation-myanmar-philippines-sri-lanka
The embattled social network discussed enforcing individualized, region-specific policies after learning about cultural differences that make certain countries particularly vulnerable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Eric Nuzum / Audio Insurgent:
Despite some worries about falling ad prices, podcasting audiences and ad budgets are growing as the medium matures and moves past the gold rush stage
The Rumors of Podcasting’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
https://medium.com/audio-insurgent/the-rumors-of-podcastings-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated-a25d4066997c
What tulips, cryptocurrency, and bespoke home-delivered dog food can tell us about the resilience of audio and the madness of crowds
Tomi Engdahl says:
H.G. Watson / JSource:
Public Policy Forum report shows the total number of newspaper articles in Canada fell by almost half in 10 years, city hall coverage has been most impacted
New report finds newspaper cuts bad news for local political coverage
http://j-source.ca/article/new-report-finds-newspaper-cuts-bad-news-for-local-political-coverage/
Public Policy Forum research could indicate that local newspapers are being saturated by wire service stories, rather than featuring local political coverage.
The report, “Mind the Gaps: Quantifying the Decline of News Coverage in Canada” emerged from an interest in finding out how much — if at all — news coverage has decreased over the past 10 years. “One of the black holes of information has been exactly what is the effect on coverage of our civic institutions,” said Edward Greenspon, president and CEO of PPF.
While the total number of newspaper articles has dropped by almost half in the last 10 years — from about 11,000 stories a year to just under 6,000 — coverage of civic affairs hasn’t dropped as significantly. In 2008 just over 6,000 stories about civic affairs were published. Ten years later, in 2017, newspapers published about 4,000 stories about civic affairs.
But that’s not necessarily good news. The slower drop in civic affairs reporting may actually a symptom of cuts to other newsroom beats. “It may well be that publishers are trying to “protect the core” by concentrating limited resources on covering civic affairs at the expense of other topics, or that institutional coverage is easier to maintain under resource pressures,” states the report.
City hall coverage has been the most impacted by the shrinking Canadian media market.
This, again, could be indicative of cost-saving strategies on the part of large newspaper chains. As newspapers centralize their services, it’s easier to send small, local newspapers stories produced from wire services or from a central political bureau.
There are also just fewer stories about these topics in the paper overall. “The number of articles across all three themes declined from 4.0 to 2.1 per edition—a drop of 48 percent—from 2008 to 2017.
The depth of coverage hasn’t declined as fast
Effect varies by community
Tomi Engdahl says:
Abigail Geiger / Pew Research Center:
Survey: the percentage of US adults using the internet (89%), smartphones (77%), and social media (69%) has plateaued and remains nearly unchanged since 2016
Internet, social media use and device ownership in U.S. have plateaued after years of growth
By Paul Hitlin
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/28/internet-social-media-use-and-device-ownership-in-u-s-have-plateaued-after-years-of-growth/
The use of digital technology has had a long stretch of rapid growth in the United States, but the share of Americans who go online, use social media or own key devices has remained stable the past two years, according to a new analysis of Pew Research Center data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Majority of Teens Have Experienced Some Form of Cyberbullying
http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/09/27/a-majority-of-teens-have-experienced-some-form-of-cyberbullying/
59% of U.S. teens have been bullied or harassed online, and a similar share says it’s a major problem for people their age. At the same time, teens mostly think teachers, social media companies and politicians are failing at addressing this issue.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This European Ruling Could Break the Internet
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-10-01/this-european-ruling-could-break-the-internet
Establishing a global “right to be forgotten” would be a big mistake.
Extending the right to be forgotten globally threatens free speech, burdens private companies, intrudes on sovereignty, and is fraught with looming risks. Not incidentally, it would also do next to nothing to advance its stated goals.
The right is ill-conceived to begin with. Censoring lawful and factual information is dubious on principle and flawed as a method of protecting privacy.
Since 2014, Google has had to adjudicate more than 727,000 delisting requests, spanning some 2.8 million web addresses. Each request must be evaluated by humans
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter:
Twitter outlines its election integrity efforts ahead of midterms, says it removed ~50 accounts pretending to be members of various state Republican parties
An update on our elections integrity work
https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2018/an-update-on-our-elections-integrity-work.html
Ahead of upcoming elections, today we are sharing updates across three critical areas of our election integrity efforts: (1) Updates to the Twitter Rules (2) Detection and Enforcement; and (3) Product Improvements.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter bans distribution of hacked materials ahead of US midterm elections
https://www.zdnet.com/article/twitter-bans-distribution-of-hacked-materials-ahead-of-us-midterm-elections/
Twitter announces three new major rule changes to its site rules and policies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samantha Cole / Motherboard:
Wikipedia editors have voted to classify Breitbart as an unreliable reference for facts and decided that Infowars should be generally prohibited as a source
Wikipedia Bans Right Wing Site Breitbart as a Source for Facts
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pa9qvv/wikipedia-banned-breitbart-infowars
Alex Jones’ InfoWars and the far-right media outlet Breitbart can’t be used as a source of fact in Wikipedia articles anymore, “due to its unreliability.”
Wikipedia editors voted to ban Breitbart as a source of fact in it articles. The consensus, reached late last month, agreed that the outlet “should not be used, ever, as a reference for facts, due to its unreliability.” Wikipedia editors also decided that InfoWars is a “conspiracy theorist and fake news website,” and that the “use of InfoWars as a reference should be generally prohibited.
Breitbart, a far-right conservative media website, has come under scrutiny—such as when it vehemently supported Alabama politician and alleged pedophile Roy Moore, when it shilled for scam cryptocurrencies through its newsletter, or when it fueled racist narratives about black NFL players. Wikipedians decided that because fact checkers have found much of Breitbart’s coverage to be “misleading, false or both,” they won’t abide it as a source of fact anymore.
“We have something over 2,500 links to Breitbart, many of them as sources in articles,” the editor who nominated the rule wrote in the vote. “I think that Breitbart is not a reliable source [...] It’s my view that we should not source anything to Breitbart other than strictly factual and uncontroversial facts about Breitbart on the articles related to Breitbart and its people.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook not protecting content moderators from mental trauma: lawsuit
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-lawsuit-idUSKCN1M423Q
A former Facebook Inc contract employee filed a lawsuit in California, alleging that content moderators who face mental trauma after reviewing distressing images on the platform are not being properly protected by the social networking company.
Former Facebook moderator sues over mental trauma
It reportedly doesn’t do enough to treat mental scars.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/24/facebook-sued-over-moderator-mental-trauma/
Facebook’s content moderators don’t have an easy task. They often have to see the very worst of what people post, including graphic violence and sexual abuse. And while the social network has resources to help, at least one former worker doesn’t believe that’s enough. Ex-contractor Selena Scola has sued Facebook for allegedly “ignoring its duty” to protect moderators who deal with mental trauma after seeing disturbing imagery. Rather than create a safe environment, it’s producing a “revolving door of contractors” who are permanently scarred by what they’ve seen, Scola’s lawyer Korey Nelson said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:
Study: 80%+ of the Twitter accounts that spread false info during 2016 election are still active, continue to push more than a million tweets per day — Enough with the “whack-a-mole” claims that as soon as you ban one fake news site, another one pops up: A report released by Knight …
More research suggests that Twitter’s fake news “strategy” is either ineffective or nonexistent
http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/10/more-research-suggests-that-twitters-fake-news-strategy-is-either-ineffective-or-nonexistent/
“The persistence of so many easily identified abusive accounts is difficult to square with any effective crackdown.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here’s how much Americans trust 38 major news organizations (hint: not all that much!)
http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/10/heres-how-much-americans-trust-38-major-news-organizations-hint-not-all-that-much/
About 13 percent of Americans don’t trust any news outlet at all. (They went 2-to-1 for Trump in 2016.)
Surveys about “media trust” suffer from a definitional problem. “Do you trust the media?” is a meaningful question only if we know what “the media” is. Is it The New York Times and CNN? Fox News and Breitbart? Occupy Democrats and your uncle’s memes on Facebook?
In Gallup’s data on that question — which asks about “the mass media, such as newspapers, TV, and radio” — 72 percent of Americans trusted the media in 1976, post-Watergate. By 2016, that was down to 32 percent.
All this is to say that I find trust questions about specific news organizations a bit more useful, since you know with much greater confidence what the person being queried has in mind.
A few things pop out here. The bottom six — Breitbart, DailyKos, Palmer Report, Occupy Democrats, InfoWars, and in last place, Daily Caller — are all explicitly partisan sites without a pre-Internet legacy brand to fall back on. (Three liberal, three conservative.)
At the top sits The Wall Street Journal, whose combination of respected news pages and conservative editorial pages seem to be a magic formula for generating trust across the ideological spectrum.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship
https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studies-and-the-corruption-of-scholarship/
This essay, although hopefully accessible to everyone, is the most thorough breakdown of the study and written for those who are already somewhat familiar with the problems of ideologically-motivated scholarship, radical skepticism and cultural constructivism.
Something has gone wrong in the university—especially in certain fields within the humanities. Scholarship based less upon finding truth and more upon attending to social grievances has become firmly established, if not fully dominant, within these fields
This worldview is not scientific, and it is not rigorous. For many, this problem has been growing increasingly obvious, but strong evidence has been lacking.
We spent that time writing academic papers and publishing them in respected peer-reviewed journals associated with fields of scholarship loosely known as “cultural studies” or “identity studies” (for example, gender studies) or “critical theory”
We undertook this project to study, understand, and expose the reality of grievance studies, which is corrupting academic research.
we now have good reasons to believe that if we just appropriate the existing literature in the right ways—and there always seems to be a citation or vein of literature that makes it possible—we can say almost any politically fashionable thing we want
What Did We Do?
We wrote 20 papers and submitted them to the best journals in the relevant fields
7 papers accepted.
4 of these have been published online.
3 more have been accepted without having had time to see publication through.
4 invitations to peer-review other papers as a result of our own exemplary scholarship
1 paper (the one about rape culture in dog parks) gained special recognition for excellence from its journal
Because we were forced to go public before we could complete our study, we cannot be sure how many papers would have been accepted if we had had time to see them through—papers typically take 3-6 months or more to complete the entire process
Our papers also present very shoddy methodologies including incredibly implausible statistics
Many papers advocated highly dubious ethics including training men like dogs
attention that eventually got the Wall Street Journal involved, and far more importantly, it changed the ethics of utilizing deception within the project.
As a result, we came clean to the Wall Street Journal at the beginning of August and began preparing a summary as quickly as possible
What’s the Problem?
We have stated firmly that there is a problem in our universities, and that it’s spreading rapidly into culture.
This problem is most easily summarized as an overarching (almost or fully sacralized) belief that many common features of experience and society are socially constructed.
As a result, radical constructivists tend to believe science and reason must be dismantled to let “other ways of knowing” have equal validation as knowledge-producing enterprises.
It forwards the idea that we must, on moral grounds, largely reject the belief that access to objective truth exists (scientific objectivity) and can be discovered
Any scholarship that proceeds from radically skeptical assumptions about objective truth by definition does not and cannot find objective truth.
We also know that the peer-review system, which should filter out the biases that enable these problems to grow and gain influence, is inadequate within grievance studies.
In this way, politically biased research that rests on highly questionable premises gets legitimized as though it is verifiable knowledge. It then goes on to permeate our culture
peer-reviewed journals are the absolute gold standard of knowledge production. And these concepts leak into culture
As a society we should be able to rely upon research journals, scholars, and universities upholding academic, philosophical, and scientific rigor (because most academic journals do).
We approached this new effort by asking two central questions: Are we correct in our claim that highly regarded peer-reviewed journals in gender studies and related fields will publish obvious hoaxes?
Tomi Engdahl says:
University offers new course: ‘Trumpaganda’
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/09/trumpaganda-college-course-884432
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is launching a course examining President Donald Trump’s impact on democracy and the free press.
The state’s flagship university will offer “Trumpaganda: The War on Facts, Press and Democracy” as an eight-week course running through mid-December — right through the midterm elections when the president’s media machine will be in full tilt.
The course will examine his administration’s “disinformation campaign,” according to the university’s course description.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Russian ‘troll factory’ firebombed – but still fit to fiddle with our minds
Sick burn, bro: attacker only managed to torch a window-sill
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/10/russian_troll_factory_firebombed_with_minor_damage/
Russian media is reporting that someone has tried to torch the notorious St Petersberg “troll factory,” linked with trolling Western social media sites, sparking a police investigation.
The Internet Research Agency became famous as a “fake news” operation spreading misinformation by way of Facebook ads, and stealing Americans’ identities to set up the PayPal accounts that paid for the ads. In February, US authorities indicted 13 individuals as operating the troll factory.
Russian outlet RBC reported last year (in Russian) that the agency had reinvented itself as a media operation, Federal News Agency, claiming an audience of 36 million people.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram will use machine learning to scan photos to detect bullying and send them to community moderators for review if needed, rolling out in coming weeks — Instagram and its users do benefit from the app’s ownership by Facebook, which invests tons in new artificial intelligence technologies.
Instagram now uses machine learning to detect bullying within photos
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/09/instagram-bullying-photos/
Instagram and its users do benefit from the app’s ownership by Facebook, which invests tons in new artificial intelligence technologies. Now that AI could help keep Instagram more tolerable for humans. Today Instagram announced a new set of antii-cyberbullying features. Most importantly, it can now use machine learning to optically scan photos posted to the app to detect bullying and send the post to Instagram’s community moderators for review. That means harassers won’t be able to just scrawl out threatening or defamatory notes and then post a photo of them to bypass Instagram’s text filters for bullying.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rob Price / Business Insider:
Andreessen, Altman, Kalanick, others named to a Saudi advisory board for a $500B megacity project amid journalist’s disappearance; Jony Ive dropped from list — – More than a dozen high profile tech executives, including famous venture capital investors Marc Andreessen and former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick …
Top tech industry execs named to a Saudi advisory board amid controversy over reportedly murdered journalist
https://nordic.businessinsider.com/tech-execs-named-saudi-board-controversy-jamal-khashoggi-disappearance-2018-10?op=1&r=US&IR=T
More than a dozen high profile tech executives, including famous venture capital investors Marc Andreessen and former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick are part of a newly announced advisory panel for a $500 billion Saudi mega-city project.
The panel was announced as much of the focus on Saudi Arabia turns towards the fate of a Saudi dissident who disappeared after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mozilla Challenges Educators To Integrate Ethics Into STEM
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/10/10/1740248/mozilla-challenges-educators-to-integrate-ethics-into-stem?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
The context, called the Responsible Computer Science Challenge, will award up to $3.5 million over the next two years to proposals focused on how to make ethics relevant to young technologists.
Big Tech’s Half-Hearted Response To Fake News And Election Hacking
https://www.fastcompany.com/40468458/big-techs-halfhearted-response-to-fake-news-and-election-hacking
Despite big hand waves, Facebook, Google, and Twitter aren’t doing enough to stop misinformation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Breach That Killed Google+ Wasn’t a Breach At All
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/10/10/2041226/the-breach-that-killed-google-wasnt-a-breach-at-all?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
For months, Google has been trying to stay out of the way of the growing tech backlash, but yesterday, the dam finally broke with news of a bug in the rarely used Google+ network that exposed private information for as many as 500,000 users. Google found and fixed the bug back in March, around the same time the Cambridge Analytica story was heating up in earnest. [...] The vulnerability itself seems to have been relatively small in scope. The heart of the problem was a specific developer API that could be used to see non-public information. But crucially, there’s no evidence that it actually was used to see private data, and given the thin user base,
The bigger problem for Google isn’t the crime, but the cover-up. The vulnerability was fixed in March, but Google didn’t come clean until seven months later when The Wall Street Journal got hold of some of the memos discussing the bug.
There are lots of laws about reporting breaches — primarily the GDPR but also a string of state-level bills — but by that standard, what happened to Google+ wasn’t technically a breach. Those laws are concerned with unauthorized access to user information, codifying the basic idea that if someone steals your credit card or phone number, you have a right to know about it. But Google just found that data was available to developers, not that any data was actually taken.
The breach that killed Google+ wasn’t a breach at all
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/9/17957312/google-plus-vulnerability-privacy-breach-law
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rick Gates Sought Online Manipulation Plans From Israeli Intelligence Firm for Trump Campaign
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/08/us/politics/rick-gates-psy-group-trump.html
Rick Gates, a top Trump campaign aide, expressed interest in an Israeli company’s proposal for a social media manipulation effort in 2016, documents and interviews show.
A top Trump campaign official requested proposals in 2016 from an Israeli company to create fake online identities, to use social media manipulation and to gather intelligence to help defeat Republican primary race opponents and Hillary Clinton, according to interviews and copies of the proposals.
The Trump campaign’s interest in the work began as Russians were escalating their effort to aid Donald J. Trump. Though the Israeli company’s pitches were narrower than Moscow’s interference campaign and appear unconnected
Tomi Engdahl says:
Massive Censorship Wave: 800 Alternative Media Pages Purged From Facebook And Twitter
https://www.disclose.tv/massive-facebook-censorship-wave-under-way-800-alternative-media-pages-purged-349131
On Thursday October 11, 2018 Facebook initiated another large wave of censorship. This follows the previous wave that took place in mid-August 2018.
This time around Facebook removed over 800 accounts
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook Purges 251 Accounts to Thwart Deception
https://www.securityweek.com/facebook-purges-251-accounts-thwart-deception
Facebook on Thursday said it shut down 251 accounts for breaking rules against spam and coordinated deceit, some of it by ad farms pretending to be forums for political debate.
The move came as the leading social network strives to prevent the platform from being used to sow division and spread misinformation ahead of US elections in November.
Facebook removed 559 pages and 251 accounts that consistently violated rules against spam and “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” according to an online post by cybersecurity policy chief Nathaniel Gleicher and product manager Oscar Rodriguez.
“Many were using fake accounts or multiple accounts with the same names and posted massive amounts of content across a network of Groups and Pages to drive traffic to their websites,” they said.
“Many used the same techniques to make their content appear more popular on Facebook than it really was.”
Other pages and accounts shut down were “ad farms” using Facebook to trick people into thinking they were forums for legitimate political debate, according to Gleicher and Rodriguez.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook removes hundreds of US political pages for ‘inauthentic activity’
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/11/facebook-purge-page-removal-spam
Some accounts were fake or ad farms pretending to be forums for political debate, company says
Removing Additional Inauthentic Activity from Facebook
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/10/removing-inauthentic-activity/
Today, we’re removing 559 Pages and 251 accounts that have consistently broken our rules against spam and coordinated inauthentic behavior. Given the activity we’ve seen — and its timing ahead of the US midterm elections — we wanted to give some details about the types of behavior that led to this action. Many were using fake accounts or multiple accounts with the same names and posted massive amounts of content across a network of Groups and Pages to drive traffic to their websites. Many used the same techniques to make their content appear more popular on Facebook than it really was. Others were ad farms using Facebook to mislead people into thinking that they were forums for legitimate political debate.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Skim reading is the new normal. The effect on society is profound
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/skim-reading-new-normal-maryanne-wolf
When the reading brain skims texts, we don’t have time to grasp complexity, to understand another’s feelings or to perceive beauty. We need a new literacy for the digital age
Tomi Engdahl says:
CBS News:
Donald Trump says US will get to the bottom of the Jamal Khashoggi case and that there will be “severe punishment” if the missing Saudi journalist was murdered
Donald Trump says US will get to the bottom of the Jamal Khashoggi case and that there will be “severe punishment” if the missing Saudi journalist was murdered
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-donald-trump-vows-severe-punishment-if-saudi-arabia-is-behind-saudi-missing-journalist/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amy Mackinnon / Foreign Policy:
Research by Transparency International finds that since 2012, nine out of 10 murdered journalists were killed in countries deemed highly corrupt — More journalists are assassinated than die in war zones. — Viktoria Marinova was not a war correspondent.
When Killing the Messenger Becomes the Norm
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/10/corruption-when-killing-the-messenger-becomes-the-norm-bulgaria-journalist-viktoria-marinova/amp/
More journalists are assassinated than die in war zones.
Out of 1,322 journalists whose deaths have been linked to their work since 1992, 848 were murdered, while 298 were killed in crossfire, according to the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists. It’s rare for journalists to be murdered in the European Union, but Marinova was the third in the past year.
In October 2017, Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed in a car bomb attack. In February, Slovak reporter Jan Kuciak was shot dead in his home—along with his fiancee—while reporting on alleged links between government officials and organized crime.
And last week, the Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared into Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul, where Turkish authorities believe he was killed.
Rob Mahoney, the deputy executive director at the Committee to Protect Journalists, said that worldwide, the atmosphere for journalism has deteriorated.
“It’s not just in the countries that you would think. Even here in the United States, we see a very strong anti-press sentiment coming straight from the top,” he said.
“Leaders around the world that are happy to shut down the space for a free press have latched onto Trump’s rhetoric of ‘fake news’ to shut down stories that they don’t like.”
According to Mahoney, in almost nine out of 10 cases, those who order the killing of journalists go free.
“That sends a very strong signal to people that this is dangerous work, and you may not be protected,”
“The number of forbidden topics [in Bulgaria] is growing all the time,” Marinova said on the program. “Investigative journalists are being systematically removed.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
University of Michigan News:
University of Michigan has developed a tool that monitors the prevalence of fake news on social media and assigns it a value called the Iffy Quotient — ANN ARBOR—As the crucial mid-term election approaches, the University of Michigan Center for Social Media Responsibility offers media …
U-M tool measures ‘iffy’ news on social media in time for 2018 election
https://news.umich.edu/u-m-tool-measures-iffy-news-on-social-media-in-time-for-2018-election/
As the crucial mid-term election approaches, the University of Michigan Center for Social Media Responsibility offers media and the public a tool to help monitor the prevalence of fake news on social media through a Platform Health Metric called the Iffy Quotient.
A web-based dashboard that shows the Iffy Quotient for Facebook and Twitter, dating back to 2016, will be updated regularly.
The Iffy Quotient is the center’s first public measurement tool. It draws data from two external entities: NewsWhip and Media Bias/Fact Checker.
NewsWhip, a social media engagement tracking firm, collects URLs on hundreds of thousands of sites every day and then gathers information on which of those sites have engagements on Facebook and Twitter.
The U-M tool divides the URLs into three categories based on the Media Bias/Fact Check lists: “Iffy,” if the site is on the Questionable Sources or Conspiracy lists; “OK,” if the site is on any other list, such as Left-Bias, Right-Bias or Satire; “Unknown,” if not on any list.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sankalp Phartiyal / Reuters:
A look at an effort by WhatsApp to fight fake news in India in partnership with Jio, using actors who perform skits in the streets
WhatsApp hits the road with skits to stamp out fake news in India
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-killings-whatsapp/whatsapp-hits-the-road-with-skits-to-stamp-out-fake-news-in-india-idUSKCN1MM0RI
The event is part of a major grassroots effort by WhatsApp to battle fake news, which has triggered numerous lynchings in a country where 200 million people use the service, more than anywhere else in the world.
The actors soon draw a crowd as the play unveils how spreading misinformation online can stir up mob violence, especially in the countryside, where caste and religious prejudices run deep.
“Our goal is to drive one of the largest coordinated public education efforts on misinformation to date anywhere in the world,” WhatsApp said.
India’s technology minister has demanded the company do more, including working out how to trace the origin of “sinister” messages. But WhatsApp says it will not take such steps, which would require it to weaken encryption and other privacy protections.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Robert Evans / bellingcat:
A look at how fascist activists discover their ideology on the internet, with 39 of the 75 individuals studied crediting content they found on YouTube
From Memes to Infowars: How 75 Fascist Activists Were “Red-Pilled”
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2018/10/11/memes-infowars-75-fascist-activists-red-pilled/
The vast majority of domestic terror attacks in the U.S. are carried out by white supremacist organizations.
What is red-pilling?
An online community develops its own lingo over time. Among fascist activists “red-pilling” means converting someone to fascist, racist and anti-Semitic beliefs. The term originates with “The Matrix,” a popular 1999 film. The protagonist is offered the choice between a red pill, which will open his eyes to the reality of a machine-dominated world, and a blue pill, which will return him to ignorance and safety. The definition of “red pill,” as used by fascists, is rather elastic. Films and songs are described as “red pilled” if they reinforce a far-right worldview. At least one poster referred to amphetamines as red-pilled.
There appears to be no agreed-upon standard for when a human being is red-pilled. Most fascist activists agree that acknowledgement of the Jewish Question, or JQ, is critical. This means believing that Jewish people are at the center of a vast global conspiracy. The end goal of this conspiracy is usually described as “white genocide”, but there are numerous variations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Travis Fox / Columbia Journalism Review:
A look at the growth of drone journalism and the federal and local regulatory hurdles that drone journalists face
https://www.cjr.org/innovations/drones-faa-journalists-airspace.php
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rossalyn Warren / WIRED UK:
Egyptian law enforcement is using the country’s new law against “fake news” to imprison women who share their sexual harassment experiences on social platforms
Facebook drove Egypt’s revolution. Now it’s being used as a weapon to oppress women
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/egypt-fake-news-facebook-oppress-women
Social media accelerated Egypt’s revolution. Now those same services have become a tool of control for a repressive regime
The reason Mona – a 24 year-old from Lebanon, who was visiting Egypt – believes she wasn’t subjected to assault is because, at the time, she was at the centre of a country-wide media storm. Mona hadn’t committed a crime: she was behind bars because she had posted a video on Facebook talking about sexual harassment.
Mona arrived in Egypt in May on a vacation to see friends. She had visited the country before, but this time she was subjected to harassment. She was verbally abused by two men in Cairo’s Zamalek neighbourhood, and numerous men made sexually inappropriate comments to her in public. Later that day a man grabbed her breast as she walked down a pathway.
Tired and frustrated by her experience, Mona got back to her hotel and took out her phone. As a way to release her pent up anger, she started recording an explicit tirade about the harassment she experienced that day, criticising the country in the process. She posted the video on her private Facebook page, and relieved from the stress of the day, went to bed.
When Mona woke up the day after, she decided to delete her video, and go on with her travels. But she was unaware her video had been ripped from her private page by a contact, without her consent, and published on local Egyptian Facebook pages.
By the following day, her rant against harassment had gone full-blown viral in Egypt.
The legislation, signed over the summer, gives the government the power to shut down websites critical of the government, under the guise of combating misinformation. The laws are strict: just visiting a website considered a “threat” to Egypt could land a you in jail. To make matters worse, the new media law regards individuals with over 5,000 followers on social media as media entities in their own right. Ordinary social network users are considered to be on the same playing field as large media companies, and they are legally obliged to abide by the strict censorship rules.
Mona became a target. She posted an apology video to try and calm the situation. That didn’t work: in June she was arrested at the police station
July, an Egyptian court sentenced Mona to eight years in prison, convicted of “deliberately broadcasting false rumours which aim to undermine society and attack religions.”
Mona served nearly 3 months of her sentence
Mona’s experience isn’t isolated.
Human rights organisations have criticised the Egyptian government’s crackdown on freedom of expression
Still, she hopes women will keep speaking out – even if it is considered “false” news by government standards.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Outline: secure access to the open web
https://opensource.googleblog.com/2018/10/outline-secure-access-to-open-web.html
Censorship and surveillance are challenges that many journalists around the world face on a daily basis. Some of them use a virtual private network (VPN) to provide safer access to the open internet, but not all VPNs are equally reliable and trustworthy, and even fewer are open source.
That’s why Jigsaw created Outline, a new open source, independently audited platform that lets any organization easily create and operate their own VPN.
https://getoutline.org/en/home
Tomi Engdahl says:
THE CHALLENGE OF MAKING YOUTUBE A BETTER PLACE
https://www.wired.com/story/wired-25-susan-wojcicki-youtube-moderation/
SUSAN WOJCICKI HAS a difficult job. As CEO of YouTube, she leads one of Alphabet’s biggest money makers and most popular platforms. But the company she helms is very different than the YouTube that launched in 2005, when the mission was “Broadcast Yourself.” In recent years, and particularly since the 2016 election in the US, the service has found itself teeming with trolls and bad information.
“If we look at openness and all the advantages it’s had, it’s tremendous,” Wojcicki said at the WIRED25 Summit on Monday afternoon. “It’s really valuable, but we have to marry that with responsibility.”
Part of taking responsibility meant hiring content moderators, some 10,000 of them, to help remove the videos that violate YouTube’s community guidelines. In the second quarter of this year, the company, using a mix of those moderators and AI, removed 10 million videos that violated the guidelines; nearly 75 percent were removed without a single view.
In the two years since, as fake news proliferated and the video-sharing service generated millions of dollars in ad revenue, YouTube, under Wokcicki, made strides to improve the service, like implementing a tool that helps battle conspiracy theories on the service and increased (but also inconsistent) content moderation.
Such are the headaches when you have a service with more than 1 billion monthly active users pumping out hundreds of hours of content every minute.
But, as Wojcicki sees it, there is room for healthy growth, both inside her company and outside.