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:
Why Social Network Analysis Is Important
https://labsblog.f-secure.com/2019/02/21/why-social-network-analysis-is-important/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Steven Melendez / Gizmodo:
Inside the world of digital hoarders, who enjoy collecting terabytes worth of data and take pride in archiving files that often disappear from the internet
Delete Never: The Digital Hoarders Who Collect Tumblrs, Medieval Manuscripts, and Terabytes of Text Files
https://gizmodo.com/delete-never-the-digital-hoarders-who-collect-tumblrs-1832900423
When it comes to their stuff, people often have a hard time letting go. When the object of their obsession are rooms full of old clothes or newspapers, it can be unhealthy—even dangerous. But what about a stash that fits on 10 5-inch hard drives?
Online, you’ll find people who use hashtags like “#digitalhoarder” and hang out in the 120,000-subscriber Reddit forum called /r/datahoarder, where they trade tips on building home data servers, share collections of rare files from video game manuals to ambient audio records, and discuss the best cloud services for backing up files.
The often stereotyped hoarders letting heaps of physical items of questionable utility dominate their homes and lives often suffer social stigma and anxiety as a result. By contrast, many self-proclaimed digital hoarders say they enjoy their collections, can keep them contained in a relatively small amount of physical space, and often take pleasure in sharing them with other hobbyists or anyone who wants access to the same public data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scott Nover / The Atlantic:
Profile of satirical media company Thud, founded by former Onion editors, as it launches its first project DNA Friend, a parody of at-home DNA analysis services
A Satire Venture Co-founded by Elon Musk Arrives With a Thud
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/elon-musk-satire-venture-arrives-with-a-thud/584026/
The media company, run by former Onion editors, promises that Musk—no longer part of the operation—isn’t responsible for the comedy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Seven Step Program for Fighting Disinformation
https://www.justsecurity.org/62718/step-program-fighting-disinformation/
After nearly two years of investigation by Congress and the Department of Justice, there’s no longer any serious dispute that Russia and other unfriendly state actors are exploiting social media, hoping to fracture Western democratic institutions and social cohesion. The question is only to what extent it’s working. But whether you believe that Russian exploits shifted the outcomes in the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum or the 2016 U.S. presidential election is, oddly enough, beside the point. The hard fact is, these disruptive efforts are certain to continue, and state-level adversaries will only up their game and push harder for successful outcomes as time goes on. Neither state-actor trolls nor would-be domestic propagandists will be going away anytime soon.
That’s why a comprehensive response-and-deterrence strategy is critical.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hipster whines at tech mag for using his pic to imply hipsters look the same, discovers pic was of an entirely different hipster
YEAH! SCIENCE
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/06/hipsters_all_look_the_same_fact/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jecorded Future:
Report: the goal of Chinese state-run social media influence campaigns is to promote an idealized view of China rather than sow discord among the US public
Beyond Hybrid War: How China Exploits Social Media to Sway American Opinion
https://www.recordedfuture.com/china-social-media-operations/
Recorded Future analyzed data from several Western social media platforms from October 1, 2018 through February 22, 2019 to determine how the Chinese state exploits social media to influence the American public. This report details those techniques and campaigns using data acquired from Recorded Future® Platform, social media sites, and other OSINT techniques. This report will be of most value to government departments, geopolitical scholars and researchers, and all users of social media.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Monika Bickert / Facebook:
Facebook will curb vaccine misinformation by reducing the ranking of anti-vaccine Pages and groups, halting recommendations for those pages, rejecting ads, more — We are working to tackle vaccine misinformation on Facebook by reducing its distribution and providing people with authoritative information on the topic.
Combatting Vaccine Misinformation
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/combatting-vaccine-misinformation/
Tomi Engdahl says:
U.S. Cancels Journalist’s Award Over Her Criticism of Trump
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/07/u-s-cancels-journalists-award-over-her-criticism-of-trump-international-women-in-courage-award-state-department/
Jessikka Aro was to receive a “Women of Courage” prize. Then officials read her Twitter feed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tiukkapipomoderaattorit terrorisoivat verkkokeskusteluja
https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/tiukkapipomoderaattorit-terrorisoivat-verkkokeskusteluja/8299548d-86d7-41ae-8455-b8da0d2ba4f8
Tomi Engdahl says:
She exposed Russian trolling. Her award for her work was rescinded after she criticized Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/she-exposed-russian-trolling-her-award-for-her-work-was-rescinded-after-she-criticized-trump/2019/03/08/1bbdc4f8-41ba-11e9-9361-301ffb5bd5e6_story.html?utm_term=.f2b9b08ae84a&tid=sm_fb
What Ms. Aro exposed in St. Petersburg was ground zero for the Russian mischief campaign against the 2016 presidential election, according to an indictment subsequently returned in the United States. The troll factory was funded by one of President Vladimir Putin’s cronies, Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin.
Tomi Engdahl says:
John F. Harris / Politico:
Despite frequent attacks on media, Trump arguably has the most frequent, informal, and sustained personal interactions with reporters and commentators since JFK
Why Trump Loves the Fake News
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/03/08/trump-jfk-225697
Like JFK before him, the president likes talking to reporters. But for different reasons.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Beyond Hybrid War: How China Exploits Social Media to Sway American Opinion
https://www.recordedfuture.com/china-social-media-operations/
Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, researchers, reporters, and academics have devoted countless resources to understanding the role that Russian disinformation, or influence operations, played in the outcome of the election. As a result, there exists an implicit assumption that other state-run influence campaigns must look the same and operate in the same manner.
However, our research demonstrates that social media influence campaigns are not a one-size-fits-all technique.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From the UK and Romania
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/removing-cib-uk-and-romania/?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Valeuutisista väkivaltaan – Facebookin maailmanvalloituksen synkät seuraukset
https://www.ulkopolitist.fi/2019/03/06/valeuutisista-vakivaltaan-facebookin-maailmanvalloituksen-synkat-seuraukset/
Facebook on maailmanlaajuisen laajentumisensa myötä tuonut miljoonille ihmisille internet-yhteyden ja sen mukana valeuutiset.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google News may shut over EU plans to charge tax for links
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/nov/18/google-news-may-shut-over-eu-plans-to-charge-tax-for-links
Search engine is lobbying hard to stop proposed tax, aimed at compensating news publishers
Tomi Engdahl says:
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
Nielsen data on US Facebook users from August 2016 to October 2018 shows a 10% decline in usage per person YoY across all age brackets
https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?destination=%2ftechnology%2f2019%2f03%2f11%2fzuckerberg-says-hes-going-all-in-private-messaging-facebooks-declining-user-numbers-tell-us-why%2f%3f
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook finds UK-based ‘fake news’ network
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47482145
Facebook has removed more than 130 accounts, pages and groups it says were part of a UK-based misinformation network.
The company said it was the first time it had taken down a UK-based group targeting messages at British citizens.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Analysis Of Brexit-Centric Twitter Activity
https://labsblog.f-secure.com/2019/03/12/analysis-of-brexit-centric-twitter-activity/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://newsfromthelab.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/2019_analysis_of_brexit_centric_twitter.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Maxwell Tani / The Daily Beast:
Internal emails: First Look Media plans to let go ~4% of staff; Laura Poitras said the move cuts the research team, which has overseen the Snowden archive — Laura Poitras—the Citizenfour director and award-winning filmmaker who helped start The Intercept’s parent company First Look Media …
Laura Poitras ‘Sickened’ By Layoffs at The Intercept
http://www.thedailybeast.com/laura-poitras-sickened-by-layoffs-at-the-intercept
Laura Poitras—the Citizenfour director and award-winning filmmaker who helped start The Intercept’s parent company First Look Media—lashed out Wednesday after layoffs were announced internally at the publication, according to emails obtained by The Daily Beast. “I am sickened by your decision to eliminate the research team, which has been the beating heart of the newsroom since First Look Media was founded, and has overseen the protection of the [NSA leaker Edward] Snowden archive,” she wrote.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Google says it removed 2.3B bad ads in 2018, down 28% from 2017 and terminated ~1M bad advertiser accounts, including ~734K publishers and app developers — Around this time of year, Google shares how many “bad ads” it killed the year before. And every year, the number grows. But not this time.
Google killed 2.3 billion ‘bad ads’ in 2018, down 28% from 2017
https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/13/google-killed-2-3-billion-bad-ads-in-2018-down-28-from-2017/
Around this time of year, Google shares how many “bad ads” it killed the year before. And every year, the number grows. But not this time.
“Bad ads” consist of any advertising that violates Google’s advertising policies, including ad fraud, phishing scams, and malware. That includes everything from a one-off accident to a coordinated action by scammers trying to make money.
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube To Curb Hoax And Junk Science Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gbc5bxT-rA
It seems that after a decade of promoting click-bait over content that YouTube are adding – dare I say – People! Yes, people to help untangle the mess of disinformation, chicanery, fraud, and hoax videos in recommendations. A good thing? I tend to think so, but let’s wait and see if YouTube messes this one up.
Tomi Engdahl says:
During Facebook And Instagram Outage, Authorities In Australia Urged People Not To Call Triple-Zero
https://www.inquisitr.com/5341635/during-facebook-and-instagram-outage-authorities-in-australia-urged-people-not-to-call-triple-zero/
Queensland and South Australian authorities have urged people to stop calling emergency services about the social media outage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook blames ‘server config change’ for 14-hour outage. Someone run that through the universal liar translator
Is a single tweet enough when millions of people’s communications are affected?
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/03/14/facebook_server_configuration/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Enabling a safe digital advertising ecosystem
https://blog.google/products/ads/enabling-safe-digital-advertising-ecosystem/
Dozens of new ads policies to take down billions of bad ads
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Seven Step Program for Fighting Disinformation
https://www.justsecurity.org/62718/step-program-fighting-disinformation/
The seven steps can be summarized as follows:
Move past blame, and look ahead to solutions
Define disinformation as a cybersecurity issue, not a content problem
Specify protections for the rights to free expression and privacy
Create multistakeholder mechanisms for sharing threat information effectively
Establish a fiduciary framework to promote platform ethics and user well-being
Establish an oversight body (or bodies) to identify disinformation problems and strategic solutions
Backstop all this with civil and criminal deterrence strategies
Tomi Engdahl says:
After Christchurch, Reddit bans communities infamous for sharing graphic videos of death
https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/15/reddit-watchpeopledie-subreddit-gore/
In the aftermath of the tragic mosque massacre that claimed 49 lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, tech companies scrambled to purge their platforms of promotional materials that the shooter left behind. As most of the internet is now unfortunately aware, the event was broadcast live on Facebook, making it one of the most horrific incidents of violence to spread through online communities in realtime.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HOW FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND YOUTUBE FAILED TO KEEP GRUESOME MOSQUE SHOOTING VIDEO FROM GOING VIRAL
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/7xnjye/how-facebook-twitter-and-youtube-failed-to-keep-gruesome-mosque-shooting-video-from-going-viral?utm_source=vicefbus
But it wasn’t Facebook’s much-vaunted artificial intelligence systems that flagged the content, or the company’s human moderators. It took a phone call from the New Zealand police to alert the world’s biggest social network to the live murders being broadcast on their platform, Facebook confirmed
Tomi Engdahl says:
One year in, Facebook’s big algorithm change has spurred an angry, Fox News-dominated — and very engaged! — News Feed
http://www.niemanlab.org/2019/03/one-year-in-facebooks-big-algorithm-change-has-spurred-an-angry-fox-news-dominated-and-very-engaged-news-feed
It’s been a little over a year since Facebook announced major algorithm changes that would decrease the amount of news in News Feed, instead prioritizing non-publisher content that spurs engagement and provokes comments.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Väsyneet saastan ammattilaiset valvovat internetiämme
https://www.longplay.fi/sivuäänet/vasyneet-saastan-ammattilaiset-valvovat-internetiamme
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook is rapidly losing millennials, US user base down 15 million since 2017
https://www.techspot.com/news/79082-facebook-rapidly-losing-millennials-us-user-base-down.html
Older users are taking up a larger percentage of the platform than ever before
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Christchurch, announced on 8chan, streamed on Facebook, and shared endlessly on YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit, feels like the first internet-native mass shooting — Before entering a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, the site of one of the deadliest mass murders in the country’s history …
A Mass Murder of, and for, the Internet
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/technology/facebook-youtube-christchurch-shooting.html
Before entering a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, the site of one of the deadliest mass murders in the country’s history, a gunman paused to endorse a YouTube star in a video that appeared to capture the shooting.
“Remember, lads, subscribe to PewDiePie,” he said.
To an untrained eye, this would have seemed like a bizarre detour.
But the people watching the video stream recognized it as something entirely different: a meme.
For everyone else, it was a booby trap, a joke designed to ensnare unsuspecting people and members of the media into taking it too literally. The goal, if there was one, may have been to pull a popular internet figure into a fractious blame game and inflame political tensions everywhere.
In a tweet early Friday morning, PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg, said, “I feel absolutely sickened having my name uttered by this person.”
New Zealand authorities have identified an accused gunman
In some ways, it felt like a first — an internet-native mass shooting, conceived and produced entirely within the irony-soaked discourse of modern extremism.
The attack was teased on Twitter, announced on the online message board 8chan and broadcast live on Facebook. The footage was then replayed endlessly on YouTube, Twitter and Reddit, as the platforms scrambled to take down the clips nearly as fast as new copies popped up to replace them. In a statement on Twitter, Facebook said it had “quickly removed both the shooter’s Facebook and Instagram accounts and the video,” and was taking down instances of praise or support for the shooting. YouTube said it was “working vigilantly to remove any violent footage” of the attack. Reddit said in a statement that it was taking down “content containing links to the video stream or manifesto.”
It would be unfair to blame the internet for this. Motives are complex, lives are complicated, and we don’t yet know all the details about the shooting. Anti-Muslim violence is not an online phenomenon, and white nationalist hatred long predates 4Chan and Reddit.
But we do know that the design of internet platforms can create and reinforce extremist beliefs. Their recommendation algorithms often steer users toward edgier content
We also know that many recent acts of offline violence bear the internet’s imprint.
Now, online extremism is just regular extremism on steroids. There is no offline equivalent of the experience of being algorithmically nudged toward a more strident version of your existing beliefs,
Tomi Engdahl says:
Joseph Cox / Motherboard:
Documents, sources, and interviews with senior Facebook employees detail the process and the difficulty of moderating Facebook Live
Documents Show How Facebook Moderates Terrorism on Livestreams
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/eve7w7/documents-show-how-facebook-moderates-terrorism-on-livestreams
On Friday, at least 49 people were killed in terror attacks in New Zealand. Documents, sources, and interviews with senior Facebook employees show how difficult it is for social media companies to moderate live footage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Charles R. Davis / Columbia Journalism Review:
Tax filings show relatively high salaries at both The Intercept and parent company First Look Media as well as heavy dependence on Pierre Omidyar’s donations — On Wednesday, First Look Media delivered the latest in a flurry of bad news for digital media: the company, which includes …
The Intercept, a billionaire-funded public charity, cuts back
https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/layoffs-the-intercept.php
On Wednesday, First Look Media delivered the latest in a flurry of bad news for digital media: the company, which includes The Intercept and was founded by a tech billionaire turned Twitter critic of Donald Trump, said it could no longer afford its research team, and was eliminating those jobs as part of a 4 percent cut in its workforce. “I am sickened,” Intercept co-founder Laura Poitras wrote in a March 13 email reported by The Daily Beast. The “beating heart of the newsroom,” she said, had been torn out.
That a billionaire is laying off employees is not a shock, except in this case the billionaire’s company was said to be in the public interest. Specifically, The Intercept is classified as a “public charity.” For nearly two years it has been soliciting donations from its readers for “fearless, independent journalism.”
But a review of tax filings shows that, despite a belated effort to diversify its funding stream, both The Intercept and its parent company are still almost entirely dependent on one billionaire, Pierre Omidyar, and his gifts of stock in eBay and PayPal.
In 2013, Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, announced he was investing $250 million in the dying industry of journalism. And he was hiring an all-star cast for the resurrection—journalists with Academy Award nominations to go with their reputations for fierce reporting and unsparing commentary. For a time, it was a beacon of hope. Soon, however, the budding newsroom was generating the wrong kind of content.
The Intercept produced the sort of reporting on crime, the border and America’s wars at home and abroad that had always been hoped for, much of it by writers unknown when it launched. There were still the unfortunate headlines—Reality Winner was imprisoned after giving The Intercept an intelligence report on Russian government hacking of state voting systems, and a former Intercept staffer was convicted of making hoax bomb threats at Jewish Community Centers—but the straight reporting often was and is top-notch.
But it remains curious, and especially so in the wake of layoffs: with a billionaire for a founder, why does The Intercept need to solicit donations from its readers?
And now, with cuts being made from the bottom of the organization, eyes are on its salaries at the top.
FLM, and parent of The Intercept—paid Greenwald more than $1.6 million from 2014 to 2017
Greenwald’s salary peaked in 2015, hauling in more than $518,000, money that supports an envious life in a gated community on the edge of Rio de Janeiro.
While the salaries at the top may not be unheard of in media, they are large for digital media and noteworthy in the world of progressive, nonprofit journalism. In 2017
Private foundations also are required to distribute 5 percent of their assets every year for charitable purposes; in 2017, First Look gave away 3.6 percent of its $25.9 million, and it could conceivably claim its salaries are part of its charitable giving.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Reuters, FT, and others form One Free Press Coalition to spotlight journalists under attack and will publish ten most urgent cases on the first of each month
FT, Reuters, Yahoo News and Huffpost join media coalition to ‘stand up for journalists under attack’
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/ft-reuters-yahoo-huffpost-join-media-coalition-to-stand-up-for-journalists-and-press-freedom/
Eleven international news organisations have joined a coalition to use their collective reach of 1bn people to “stand up for journalists under attack for pursuing the truth”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Source: EU to announce an antitrust fine related to Google’s AdSense next week that is expected to be much smaller than fines for Android and shopping search
Google faces third EU antitrust fine next week: source
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-google-antitrust-idUSKCN1QW1X0
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jack Crosbie / Splinter:
Media organizations like Conde Nast and Meredith often use a third-party system to circumvent offering standard benefits to part-time and full-time freelancers
‘Full-Time Freelance’ Is Just the Industry Standard
https://splinternews.com/full-time-freelance-is-just-the-industry-standard-1833266668
The position, Tamarkin wrote, was “full-time freelance,” meaning the person filling the job would work 40 hours a week and perform the duties of a full-time employee, without any of the benefits and perks. After two days of online outrage and backlash, including users virtuously snitch-tagging the New York State Department of Labor, Tamarkin tweeted on Wednesday that the position would indeed be eligible for benefits.
A spokesperson for Condé Nast told me that discrepancy was a mistake, and that the position had always included benefits.
But it’s easy to see where the mistake came from. Condé Nast employs “full-time freelancers” across many of the sites and magazines in its portfolio. And it’s not just the little guys like editorial assistants—it’s been an open secret for years that even at a prestige publication like The New Yorker, many of its “staff writers” are in fact independent contractors ineligible for health insurance and other benefits.
If that situation sounds shitty, that’s because it is. But it’s also basically the industry standard across nearly every major media organization
How do I know? Because I’m in the same boat.
under this “permalance” system, we are not considered “part-time” in the eyes of the federal government. As a “contractor,” I am not eligible for health insurance, retirement benefits, union membership, paid time-off, or sick days. If the company classified me as a full-time employee of GMG, I would be eligible for those benefits. But that, of course, would cost the company more money.
Different media organizations call it different names—I generally refer to it as “permalancing,” but “part-time freelance” or “full-time freelance” works too.
The laws around who’s an independent contractor and who’s an employee are murky to say the least, and companies use a variety of tactics to skirt them as best they can.
the preferred workaround for major media companies—the Time Inc./Meredith conglomerate also uses a third-party system where full-time freelancers technically work for Yoh, a “recruiting and integrated workforce solutions” company, a “full-time freelancer” at that company said.
Despite the business outlook for digital media companies looking worse than ever, some of these practices have been going on for years
There’s a case to be made that the vast majority of “permalancers” operating in the wider American media industry are actually employees, even if they’re not paid as such, because their employers want to avoid offering them an expensive benefit package. In practice, all of these workers should be considered full employees. Their hours are often set and they almost always have designated supervisors—two things New York state labor laws say differentiate an employee from a contractor.
Almost every website, every magazine, every TV network uses workers like me. They’re usually just a little better at hiding it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Zealand Mobile Carriers Block 8chan, 4chan, and LiveLeak
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-zealand-mobile-carriers-block-8chan-4chan-and-liveleak/
Following the Friday mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, multiple internet service providers (ISP) in the country have blocked access to websites that distribute gruesome content from the incident.
The attacker live-streamed on his Facebook account his actions
Telcos take action
At least three internet companies operating in New Zealand have made this decision voluntarily and enforce it on a temporary basis against sites that still publish the sensitive materials.
“We apologise to legitimate internet users who may have been inconvenienced by this, however under the extreme circumstances we believed it was the responsible thing for the industry to do,” Kaushik said
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bhanu Pratap / Reuters:
Facebook says it has removed 1.5M videos of the Christchurch attack in the first 24 hours; over 1.2M of those videos were blocked at upload — (Reuters) – Facebook Inc said it removed 1.5 million videos globally of the New Zealand mosque attack in the first 24 hours after the attack.
Facebook says it removed 1.5 million videos of the New Zealand mosque attack
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-shootout-facebook-video/facebook-says-it-removed-15-million-videos-of-the-new-zealand-mosque-attack-idUSKCN1QY05X
Facebook Inc said it removed 1.5 million videos globally of the New Zealand mosque attack in the first 24 hours after the attack.
“In the first 24 hours we removed 1.5 million videos of the attack globally, of which over 1.2 million were blocked at upload…,”
The company said it is also removing all edited versions of the video that do not show graphic content out of respect for the people affected
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrew Liptak / The Verge:
The Internet Archive and the ArchiveTeam say they are working to preserve public Google+ posts before the platform shuts down in April — Google’s social network shuts down in April — Google is set to begin deleting data from its beleaguered social network, Google+ in April …
The Internet Archive is working to preserve public Google+ posts before it shuts down
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/17/18269707/internet-archive-archiveteam-preserving-public-google-plus-posts
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brian Gallagher / Nautilus:
Q&A with James Evans, a computational scientist, and Misha Teplitskiy, a post-doc fellow at Harvard, on filter bubbles and political diversity on Wikipedia — A lesson in how to break out of filter bubbles. — In 2013, James Evans, a University of Chicago sociologist and computational scientist …
Wikipedia and the Wisdom of Polarized Crowds
A lesson in how to break out of filter bubbles.
http://nautil.us/issue/70/variables/wikipedia-and-the-wisdom-of-polarized-crowds
Tomi Engdahl says:
We Were Threatened With a Lawsuit for This Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy_h2rBWIzc
We take threats to our business very seriously. We haven’t talked about this in a video before, so hopefully, this one fills in the gaps and provides context.
If you don’t want your information to be public then don’t make it public
I Read a Terrible Craigslist PC Ad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBCA7lIHRzU
Tomi Engdahl says:
Washington Post:
Inside YouTube’s efforts to shut down uploads, coming as quickly as 1 per second, of the Christchurch shooting as uploaders managed to evade its detection tools
http://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/18/inside-youtubes-struggles-shut-down-video-new-zealand-shooting-humans-who-outsmarted-its-systems/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook Journalism Project:
Facebook announces the Facebook Journalism Project Community Network to support projects aimed at building community through local news
Supporting Research on News Deserts
https://facebookjournalismproject.com/article/supporting-research-on-news-deserts/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Associated Press:
Facebook is struggling with Today In, its feature curating local news, because 40% of Americans live in places that do not have enough local news coverage — About 1,800 newspapers have closed in the US in the last 15 years, partly as a result of internet-based companies like Facebook
Facebook’s local news project frustrated – by lack of local newspapers
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/18/facebook-local-news-project-frustrated-by-lack-of-local-newspapers
About 1,800 newspapers have closed in the US in the last 15 years, partly as a result of internet-based companies like Facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chris Sonderby / Facebook:
Facebook says original Christchurch attack video was viewed <200 times during live broadcast; first user report came in 12 minutes after live broadcast ended — Our hearts go out to the victims, their families and the community affected by the horrific terrorist attacks in Christchurch.
Update on New Zealand
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/update-on-new-zealand/
While we’re still reviewing this situation, we are able to provide the information below:
The video was viewed fewer than 200 times during the live broadcast. No users reported the video during the live broadcast. Including the views during the live broadcast, the video was viewed about 4000 times in total before being removed from Facebook.
The first user report on the original video came in 29 minutes after the video started, and 12 minutes after the live broadcast ended.
Before we were alerted to the video, a user on 8chan posted a link to a copy of the video on a file-sharing site.
We designated both shootings as terror attacks, meaning that any praise, support and representation of the events violates our Community Standards and is not permitted on Facebook.
We removed the personal accounts of the named suspect from Facebook and Instagram, and are actively identifying and removing any imposter accounts that surface.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Washington Post:
Inside YouTube’s efforts to shut down uploads of the Christchurch shooting, coming as quickly as 1 per second, as uploaders managed to evade its detection tools
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/18/inside-youtubes-struggles-shut-down-video-new-zealand-shooting-humans-who-outsmarted-its-systems/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.cb8ad29bfd96
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook says it removed 1.5 million videos of the New Zealand mosque attack
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-shootout-facebook-video/facebook-says-it-removed-15-million-videos-of-the-new-zealand-mosque-attack-idUSKCN1QY05X
Tomi Engdahl says:
Beto O’Rourke ‘Mortified’ Over Articles Written as Teen Member of Cult of the Dead Cow Hacker Group
https://www.securityweek.com/beto-orourke-mortified-over-articles-written-teen-member-cult-dead-cow-hacker-group
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke expressed regret Friday over writings he contributed as a teenage member of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker group.
“I’m mortified to read it now, incredibly embarrassed, but I have to take ownership of my words,” Mr. Rourke said during a podcast taping in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, attendees reported. “Whatever my intention was as a teenager doesn’t matter, I have to look long and hard at my actions, at the language I have used, and I have to constantly try to do better.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Zealand Mobile Carriers Block 8chan, 4chan, and LiveLeak
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-zealand-mobile-carriers-block-8chan-4chan-and-liveleak/
Following the Friday mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, multiple internet service providers (ISP) in the country have blocked access to websites that distribute gruesome content from the incident.
The attacker live-streamed on his Facebook account his actions that got 49 people killed. A link to the video and a lengthy “manifesto” appeared on 8chan forum, allegedly shared by the shooter. Copies of the 17-minute footage spread to other websites, including YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit.
As mainstream platforms struggled to take down the video and segments of it, some websites continue to make the materials available.
Spark NZ, Vodafone NZ, and Vocus NZ agreed to work together to identify and block access at DNS level to such online locations. 8chan and 4chan are currently unavailable to New Zealanders trying to load them through a connection from the three telcos.