I have written on journalism and media trends eariler few years ago. So it is time for update. What is the state of journalism and news publishing in 2017? NiemanLab’s predictions for 2017 are a good place to start thinking about what lies ahead for journalism. There, Matt Waite puts us in our place straight away by telling us that the people running the media are the problem.
There has been changes on tech publishing. In January 2017 International Data Group, the owner of PCWorld magazine and market researcher IDC, on Thursday said it was being acquired by China Oceanwide Holdings Group and IDG Capital, the investment management firm run by IDG China executive Hugo Shong. In 2016 Arrow bought EE Times, EDN, TechOnline and lots more from UBM.
Here are some article links and information bits on journalist and media in 2017:
Soothsayers’ guides to journalism in 2017 article take a look at journalism predictions and the value of this year’s predictions.
What Journalism Needs To Do Post-Election article tells that faced with the growing recognition that the electorate was uniformed or, at minimum, deeply in the thrall of fake news, far too many journalists are responding not with calls for change but by digging in deeper to exactly the kinds of practices that got us here in the first place.
Fake News Is About to Get Even Scarier than You Ever Dreamed article says that what we saw in the 2016 election is nothing compared to what we need to prepare for in 2020 as incipient technologies appear likely to soon obliterate the line between real and fake.
Headlines matter article tells that in 2017, headlines will matter more than ever and journalists will need to wrest control of headline writing from social-optimization teams. People get their news from headlines now in a way they never did in the past.
Why new journalism grads are optimistic about 2017 article tells that since today’s college journalism students have been in school, the forecasts for their futures has been filled with words like “layoffs,” “cutbacks,” “buyouts” and “freelance.” Still many people are optimistic about the future because the main motivation for being a journalist is often “to make a difference.”
Updating social media account can be a serious job. Zuckerberg has 12+ Facebook employees helping him with posts and comments on his Facebook page and professional photographers to snap personal moments.
Wikipedia Is Being Ripped Apart By a Witch Hunt For Secretly Paid Editors article tells that with undisclosed paid editing on the rise, Wikipedians and the Wikimedia Foundation are working together to stop the practice without discouraging user participation. Paid editing is permissible under Wikimedia Foundation’s terms of use as long as they disclose these conflicts of interest on their user pages, but not all paid editors make these disclosures.
Big Internet giants are working on how to make content better for mobile devices. Instant Articles is a new way for any publisher to create fast, interactive articles on Facebook. Google’s AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) is a project that it aims to accelerate content on mobile devices. Both of those systems have their advantages and problems.
Clearing Out the App Stores: Government Censorship Made Easier article tells that there’s a new form of digital censorship sweeping the globe, and it could be the start of something devastating. The centralization of the internet via app stores has made government censorship easier. If the app isn’t in a country’s app store, it effectively doesn’t exist. For more than a decade, we users of digital devices have actively championed an online infrastructure that now looks uniquely vulnerable to the sanctions of despots and others who seek to control information.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook will pay Reuters to fact-check Deepfakes and more
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/12/reuters-facebook-fact-checker/?tpcc=ECFB2020
Eye-witness photos and videos distributed by news wire Reuters already go through an exhaustive media verification process. Now the publisher will bring that expertise to the fight against misinformation on Facebook. Today it launches the new Reuters Fact Check business unit and blog, announcing that it will become one of the third-party partners tasked with debunking lies spread on the social network.
The four-person team from Reuters will review user generated video and photos as well as news headlines and other content in English and Spanish submitted by Facebook or flagged by the wider Reuters editorial team.
https://www.reuters.com/live-events/reuters-fact-check-case-studies-id2918313
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Analysis: among the 10K most popular sites, right-leaning outlets placed 227 cookies in a user’s browser, versus 131 for the left-leaning counterpart
Conservative News Sites Track You Lots More Than Left-Leaning Ones
https://www.wired.com/story/right-left-news-site-ad-tracking/
One analysis of news outlets found that the median popular right-wing site planted 73 percent more cookies than its left-wing counterpart.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alex Hern / The Guardian:
UK proposes plans to put media regulator Ofcom in charge of regulating social media, with a focus on removing illegal content and minimizing “harmful” content — Ministers unveil plans to block harmful content, while guaranteeing free speech — Ofcom will be put in charge …
Ofcom to be put in charge of regulating internet in UK
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/feb/12/ofcom-to-be-put-in-charge-of-regulating-internet-in-uk
Web firm bosses could be fined or imprisoned if they do not protect users from harmful content
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Mainoksessa ei saa valehdella, mutta ei siinä tottakaan tarvitse puhua.” – vanha viidakon sananlasku
Tomi Engdahl says:
McClatchy Files For Bankruptcy, Further Signaling America’s Local News Crisis
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/02/13/mcclatchy-files-for-bankruptcy-further-signaling-americas-local-news-crisis/?utm_source=FACEBOOK&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie/#676f7264696
Topline: McClatchy Co., America’s second-largest newspaper chain, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Thursday amid mounting debt obligations and a dramatic loss of print revenue, a development seen as the continuance of the country’s news crisis.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Big number: Almost 50%. That’s how many newspaper jobs disappeared between 2008 and 2018, according to the Pew Research Center. A combination of the 2008 financial crisis and declining print revenue, paired with the rise of digital publishing and tech giants like Facebook and Google, have all hurt newspapers’ abilities to stay profitable. 225 counties across America no longer have a local paper. The remaining 50% have just one local paper, published once per week.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/02/13/mcclatchy-files-for-bankruptcy-further-signaling-americas-local-news-crisis/?utm_source=FACEBOOK&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie/#676f7264696
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ten Hours of Static Gets Five Copyright Notices
https://www.eff.org/takedowns/ten-hours-static-gets-five-copyright-notices
Sebastian Tomczak blogs about technology and sound, and has a YouTube channel. In 2015, Tomczak uploaded a ten-hour video of white noise.
In the beginning of 2018, as a result of YouTube’s Content ID system, a series of copyright claims were made against Tomczak’s video. Five different claims were filed on sound that Tomczak created himself. Although the claimants didn’t force Tomczak’s video to be taken down they all opted to monetize it instead.
Normally, getting out of this arrangement would have required Tomczak to go through the lengthy counter-notification process, but Google decided to drop the claims. Tomczak believes it’s because of the publicity his story got.
YouTube’s Content ID system works by having people upload their content into a database maintained by YouTube. New uploads are compared to what’s in the database and when the algorithm detects a match, copyright holders are informed. They can then make a claim, forcing it to be taken down, or they can simply opt to make money from ads put on the video.
Copyright bots like Content ID are tools and, like any tool, can be easily abused.
Some lobbyists have advocated for these kinds of bots to be required for platforms hosting third-party content. Beyond the threat to speech, this would be a huge and expensive hurdle for new platforms
Tomi Engdahl says:
15 years ago, shares of McClatchy traded above $700. On Monday they traded below $1.
McClatchy’s Fall And The End Of The American Family Newspaper
http://on.forbes.com/61881cY0I
The Sacramento Bee was introduced in 1857 with an editorial that stated, “The object of this newspaper is not only independence, but permanence.”
Such bold confidence may ring a bit hollow in this century, especially this week, when McClatchy Co.—which publishes the Bee, along with The Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, Fort Worth Star-Telegram and over two dozen other publications—filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The McClatchy newspaper empire took generations to build and scarcely a decade to eviscerate.
McClatchy is but the latest casualty in the death spiral of the American newspaper business. Two weeks ago, Warren Buffett offloaded his papers to Lee Enterprises, signaling that he was cutting his losses. Overall, nearly half of newspaper jobs disappeared between 2008 and 2018, according to the Pew Research Service.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Britain’s Government Announces Plans To Regulate Facebook, Twitter And TikTok
https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/02/12/britains-government-announces-plans-to-regulate-facebook-twitter-and-tiktok/
Tomi Engdahl says:
FTC votes to review influencer marketing rules & penalties
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/12/ftc-influencer-marketing-law/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reuters built a prototype for automated news videos using Deepfakes tech
https://thenextweb.com/neural/2020/02/07/reuters-built-a-prototype-for-automated-news-videos-using-deepfakes-tech/
Coming to you live from the inside of an artificial neural network
Tomi Engdahl says:
The hidden biases that drive anti-vegan hatred
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200203-the-hidden-biases-that-drive-anti-vegan-hatred?ocid=ww.social.link.twitter
People love to moan that vegans are annoying: research has shown that only drug addicts inspire the same degree of loathing. Now psychologists are starting to understand why – and it’s becoming clear that the reasons aren’t entirely rational.
“So basically we live in an era today, at least in the Western world, where there’s more and more evidence, more and more arguments, and more and more books about how eating meat is bad,” says Rothgerber. “But still, our behaviour hasn’t changed significantly.” He points out that 2018 looks set to be – it takes a while for the annual statistics to be released – the year with the highest per capita meat consumption in the history of the United States.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mediataitoviikolla huomio lasten ja vanhempien tietoturvataitoihin
TIETOTURVA NYT!
https://www.kyberturvallisuuskeskus.fi/fi/ajankohtaista/mediataitoviikolla-huomio-lasten-ja-vanhempien-tietoturvataitoihin
Tietoturvaosaaminen on nykyarkemme kansalaistaitoja. Tietojen ja taitojen omaksuminen alkaa älylaitteen ensikosketuksesta, ja kehitys ja jatkuu läpi elämän. Haluamme olla tukemassa niin lasten kuin aikuistenkin tietoturvataitojen kehittymistä.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Miksi ”Keijo Kaarisade” ei ole satiiria
https://puheenvuoro.uusisuomi.fi/petranyqvist/miksi-keijo-kaarisade-ei-ole-satiiria/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Anti-Vaxxers Are Asking People To Stop Calling Them Anti-Vaxxers Because It’s “Highly Offensive”
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/antivaxxers-are-asking-people-to-stop-calling-them-antivaxxers-because-its-highly-offensive/
A group of anti-vaxxers is asking the media to stop referring to them as anti-vaxxers (even though that’s literally what they are), and people have been less than enthusiastic in accepting their suggested replacement.
This week, the anti-vaxxer group Crazymothers (no, we’re not even remotely kidding) posted the request to their Twitter and Instagram pages.
“Dear Media,” the open letter read. “Please retire the use of the term ‘Anti-vaxxer.’ It is derogatory, inflammatory, and marginalizes both women and their experiences. It is dismissively simplistic, highly offensive and largely false. We politely request that you refer to us as the Vaccine Risk Aware.”
People responding to the group were quick to point out that if they were really aware of the risk of any adverse effects of vaccines, which are mainly minor, extremely rare and do not include autism
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook pushes EU for dilute and fuzzy internet content rules
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/17/facebook-pushes-eu-for-dilute-and-fuzzy-internet-content-rules/
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is in Europe this week — attending a security conference in Germany over the weekend where he spoke about the kind of regulation he’d like applied to his platform ahead of a slate of planned meetings with digital heavyweights at the European Commission.
“I do think that there should be regulation on harmful content,” said Zuckerberg during a Q&A session at the Munich Security Conference, per Reuters, making a pitch for bespoke regulation.
“At the conference he also said Facebook now employs 35,000 people to review content on its platform and implement security measures — including suspending around 1 million fake accounts per day, a stat he professed himself “proud” of.”
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/17/facebook-pushes-eu-for-dilute-and-fuzzy-internet-content-rules/
Tomi Engdahl says:
BLOOMBERG TO PAY HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE $2,500 A MONTH TO PRAISE HIM ON THEIR PERSONAL SOCIAL MEDIA FEEDS: REPORT
https://www.newsweek.com/michael-bloomberg-2020-election-pays-social-media-users-advertising-text-social-media-1488213
The billionaire’s team is now hiring more than 500 “deputy digital organizers” to work up to 30 hours a week and promote his talking points to online friends and phone contact lists, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a staffer in California and internal documents.
The outreach is limited to California, which holds its presidential primary election on March 3, but could expand nationwid
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter is testing new ways to fight misinformation — including a community-based points system
A leaked demo features bright red and orange badges for tweets that are deemed “harmfully misleading.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/twitter-testing-new-ways-fight-misinformation-including-community-based-points-n1139931
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bloomberg news reporting Trump will abuse social media… What a joke!
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/14/facebook-reverses-political-ads-rule-bloomberg-finds-loophole
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-21/donald-trump-youtube-ads-will-dominate-election-day?utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&cmpid=socialflow-facebook-business&utm_source=facebook&utm_content=business&utm_medium=social
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Western universities have become places of personal fear and intellectual terror. Formerly sanctuaries for open inquiry, instead fierce ideological minorities have been setting red lines of orthodoxy in the face of a silent or, worse, compliant academy. Education — from ex ducere, to lead out — has been increasingly eroded by ideological fundamentalism and an attempt to determine not only what actions are acceptable, but even words and thoughts.
Social media has helped by officially reviving the lynch mob. We must now all sing the praises of multiculturalism, Islam, immigration, post-colonial guilt and racializing just about everything. In this new Inquisition, not even the slightest doubt or dissent can be tolerated — it must be punished!”
Europe’s New Academic Fascism
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15156/europe-academic-fascism
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vihapuheen rajoittamistoimet kiihtyvät
https://vasarahammer.blogspot.com/2020/02/vihapuheen-rajoittamistoimet-kiihtyvat.html?spref=fb&m=1
Vallassa on punavihreä huulipunahallitus, joten siksi kenenkään ei kannata yllättyä, että hallitus ryhtyy uusiin toimiin vihapuheen kitkemiseksi ja ajaa täysillä maalittamisen kieltävää lakia. Suomalainen valtamedia luonnollisesti säestää tavoitetta julkaisemalla oikean ideologian mukaisia kirjoituksia, joissa vaaditaan maalittamisen kriminalisointia. Useimmista kirjoituksista huokuva hevonpaskan löyhkä antaa aiheen olettaa, että kirjoittajat eivät juuri piittaa kirjoitustensa aiheuttamista reaktioista.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Honest Government Ad | Julian Assange
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1efOs0BsE0g
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Intellectual Yet Idiot
https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577
What we have been seeing worldwide, from India to the UK to the US, is the rebellion against the inner circle of no-skin-in-the-game policymaking “clerks” and journalists-insiders, that class of paternalistic semi-intellectual experts with some Ivy league, Oxford-Cambridge, or similar label-driven education who are telling the rest of us 1) what to do, 2) what to eat, 3) how to speak, 4) how to think… and 5) who to vote for.
But the problem is the one-eyed following the blind: these self-described members of the “intelligentsia” can’t find a coconut in Coconut Island, meaning they aren’t intelligent enough to define intelligence hence fall into circularities — but their main skill is capacity to pass exams written by people like them.
Indeed one can see that these academico-bureaucrats who feel entitled to run our lives aren’t even rigorous, whether in medical statistics or policymaking. They can’t tell science from scientism — in fact in their image-oriented minds scientism looks more scientific than real science.
The Intellectual Yet Idiot is a production of modernity hence has been accelerating since the mid twentieth century, to reach its local supremum today, along with the broad category of people without skin-in-the-game who have been invading many walks of life. Why? Simply, in most countries, the government’s role is between five and ten times what it was a century ago (expressed in percentage of GDP).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sahil Patel / Wall Street Journal:
Toy manufacturers are making merchandising deals with YouTube stars like Blippi and channels like Cocomelon as kids seek toys based on what they watch online
Toy Industry Looks to YouTube Talent for Next Generation of Merchandise
https://www.wsj.com/articles/toy-industry-looks-to-youtube-talent-for-next-generation-of-merchandise-11582581521
YouTube stars such as Stevin “Blippi” John draw retailers’ interest as children seek products based on what they watch online
Children used to want toys based on their favorite movies and TV shows, whether it was “Star Wars,” “My Little Pony” or “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
Those remain in demand
but more recently, kids have also been seeking out toys and other merchandise based on their favorite YouTube stars and channels. That has manufacturers and retailers working with new kinds of companies on toys and playthings to sell.
The toy industry’s growing interest in online talent is based on the fact that YouTube is where many kids are going to watch videos,
“The world has changed and you will see properties ranging from ‘Fortnite’ to influencers on YouTube who are leading and competing against movies and TV shows on a day-to-day basis,” she said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
50 Cognitive Biases in the Modern World
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/50-cognitive-biases-in-the-modern-world/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dan Froomkin / Press Watch:
Political reporters shouldn’t cover the coronavirus story because it’s a science issue with right and wrong claims, not a two-sided battle over the narrative
Get political reporters off the coronavirus story because they don’t distinguish between right and wrong
https://presswatchers.org/2020/03/get-political-reporters-off-the-coronavirus-story-because-they-dont-distinguish-between-right-and-wrong/
One of the many ways the public is ill-served by the White House chokehold on information about the coronavirus crisis is that it gives way too big a role to the White House press corps, which sees most everything through a political lens – and a warped political lens, at that.
To get at the truth about this public-health threat, news organizations need to route around the White House. It is flatly insane that someone as uninformed, intellectually incurious and science-intolerant as Mike Pence is playing point-man here.
But news organizations also need to take political reporters – and perhaps even more importantly, political editors – entirely out of the loop on this story. It’s too damned important to be covered as a two-sided battle over who’s winning the narrative.
The epic irresponsibility of letting the political staff anywhere near this story was on full display in the coverage – particularly by the New York Times
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Twitter applied its “manipulated media” label for the first time, after a clipped video of Joe Biden was tweeted by a White House official, retweeted by Trump — It’s the first time the social network has enforced a new policy to fight doctored videos and photos
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/08/twitter-flags-video-retweeted-by-president-trump-manipulated-media/
Tomi Engdahl says:
“These same documents show moderators were also told to censor political speech in TikTok livestreams, punishing those who harmed “national honor” or broadcast streams about “state organs such as police” with bans from the platform.”
https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-users-discrimination/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Who should decide what we see online?
https://edri.org/who-should-decide-what-we-see-online/
Tomi Engdahl says:
“And while the coronavirus is a story none of us wish we had to cover, it has proven something encouraging: Americans need — and more importantly, want — good journalism.”
The coronavirus story is reminding Americans that they want and need good journalism » Fox News steps up its coverage
https://www.poynter.org/newsletters/2020/the-coronavirus-story-is-reminding-americans-that-they-want-and-need-good-journalism-fox-news-steps-up-its-coverage/
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube warns of increased video removals during COVID-19 crisis
https://tcrn.ch/2wf4Q6y
YouTube today warned its creator community that video removals may increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company said its systems today rely on a combination of technology followed by human review. But the current health crisis is leading to reduced in-office staffing in certain sites, which means automated systems will be removing some YouTube content without human review.
Today, YouTube utilizes machine learning technology to flag potentially harmful content, which is then sent to human moderators for review. But because of the measures YouTube is taking to protect staff, it’s planning to rely more on technology than on people in the weeks ahead.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Casey Newton / The Interface:
Amid COVID-19 crisis, tech platforms are making a premature bet on AI, as human moderators shift to moderating less sensitive content while working from home
Coronavirus and the emergency in content moderation
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/caseynewton/issues/coronavirus-and-the-emergency-in-content-moderation-233920
Today, let’s talk about some of the front-line workers at Facebook and Google working on the pandemic: the content moderators who keep the site running day in and day out. Like most stories about content moderators, it’s a tale about difficult tradeoffs. And actions taken over the past few days by Facebook and YouTube will have significant implications for the future of the business.
At first, content moderation on social networks was a business problem: let in the nudity and the Nazis, and the community collapses. Later, it was a legal and regulatory problem: despite the protections afforded by Section 230, companies have a legal obligation to remove terrorist propaganda, child abuse imagery, and other forms of content. As services like YouTube and Facebook grew user bases in the billions, content moderation became more of a scale problem: how do you review the millions of posts a day that get reported for violating your policies?
When your moderators work in house, you can apply strict controls to their computers to monitor the access they have to user data. When they work for third parties, that user data is at much greater risk of leaking to the outside world.
The privacy issues surrounding the hiring of moderators generally haven’t gotten much attention from journalists like me.
That’s why outsourced content moderation sites for Facebook and YouTube were designed as secure rooms. Employees can work only on designated “production floors” that they must badge in and out of. They are not allowed to bring in any personal devices, lest they take surreptitious photos or attempt to smuggle out data another way. This can create havoc for workers — they are often fired for inadvertently bringing phones onto the production floor, and many of them have complained to me about the way that the divide separates them from their support networks during the day. But no company has been willing to relax those restrictions for fear of the public-relations crisis a high-profile data loss might spark.
Fast-forward to today, when a pandemic is spreading around the world at frightening speed. We still need just as many moderators working to police social networks, if not more — usage is clearly surging. If you bring them to the production floor to continue working normally, you almost certainly contribute to the spread of the disease. And yet if you let them work from home, you invite in a privacy disaster at a time when people (especially sick people) will be hyper-sensitive to misuses of their personal data.
Say you’re Facebook. What do you do?
In fairness, Facebook was far from alone in not having deployed a full plan for its contractors last Thursday. Some American companies are still debating what to do with their full-time workforces this week. But as Biddle notes, Facebook wasn’t one of those: it was already encouraging employees to work from home.
On Monday night, Facebook did act. As of Tuesday, it began to inform all contract moderators that they should not come into the office. Commendably, Facebook will continue to pay them during the disruption.
The news followed a similar announcement from Google on Sunday. It was followed by a joint announcement from Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube that they “are working closely together on COVID-19 response efforts,” including a commitment to remove fraud and misinformation related to the virus and promote “authoritative content.”
OK, so the content moderators have mostly been sent home. How does stuff get … moderated? Facebook allowed some moderators who work on less sensitive content — helping to train machine-learning systems for labeling content, for example — to work from home. More sensitive work is being shifted to full-time employees. But the company will also begin to lean more heavily on those machine-learning systems in an effort to automate content moderation.
It’s the long-term goal of every social network to put artificial intelligence in charge. But as recently as December, Google was telling me that the day when such a thing would be possible was still quite far away. And yet on Monday the company — out of necessity — changed its tune.
At global scale, the companies were making plenty of mistakes even with the benefit of human judgment. As of Tuesday, they will be entrusting significantly more to the machines. The day one result was not great.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
Researchers say Facebook’s content moderation policies aren’t enough because the core problem stems from ad targeting and algorithmically optimized content — In the face of the coronavirus outbreak, Facebook’s misinformation problem has taken on new urgency.
Facebook’s misinformation problem goes deeper than you think
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/17/21183341/facebook-misinformation-report-nathalie-marechal
In a new report, researchers at Ranking Digital Rights lay out a prescription for fixing Facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Russell Brandom / The Verge:
Researchers say Facebook’s content moderation policies aren’t enough because the core problem stems from ad targeting and algorithmically optimized content — In the face of the coronavirus outbreak, Facebook’s misinformation problem has taken on new urgency.
Facebook’s misinformation problem goes deeper than you think
In a new report, researchers at Ranking Digital Rights lay out a prescription for fixing Facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Washington Post:
Coronavirus misinformation, the sources of which elude authorities, spreads rapidly across WhatsApp, TikTok, texts, and emails, mediums lacking oversight
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/16/disnfo-texts-trump-quarantine/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube say they’re working with each other and healthcare agencies to tackle misinfo about COVID-19
Internet’s largest social networks issue joint statement on COVID-19 misinformation
https://www.zdnet.com/article/internets-largest-social-networks-issue-joint-statement-on-covid-19/
Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube put out joint statement promising to fight COVID-19 fraud and curb misinformation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Roger Sollenberger / Wired:
A look at print-on-demand companies that let users upload any design for products like T-shirts and the challenges of policing IP violations
The Freewheeling, Copyright-Infringing World of Custom-Printed Tees
https://www.wired.com/story/freewheeling-copyright-infringing-world-custom-printed-tees/
A New, Web-Enabled Industry
Companies like TeeChip are known as print-on-demand shops. They allow users to upload and market designs; when a customer places an order—say, for a T-shirt—the company arranges the printing, often done in-house, and the item is shipped to the customer. The technology gives anyone with an idea and an internet connection the ability to monetize their creativity and start a global merchandising line with no overhead, no inventory, and no risk.
Here’s the rub: The owners of copyrights and trademarks say that by allowing anyone to upload any design, print-on-demand companies make it too easy to infringe on their intellectual property rights. They say print-on-demand shops have siphoned off tens, possibly hundreds, of millions of dollars a year in unauthorized sales, making it next to impossible to exercise control over how their property is used or who profits from it.
The explosive growth of print-on-demand technology is quietly challenging the decades-old laws that govern the use of intellectual property on the internet. A 1998 law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) shields online platforms from liability for copyright infringement for merely hosting user-uploaded digital content. That means rights holders typically must request platforms remove each item they believe infringes on their intellectual property. Moreover, print-on-demand companies often transform—or help transform—digital files into physical products such as T-shirts and coffee mugs. Some experts say that places them in a legal gray zone. And the DMCA doesn’t apply to trademarks, which cover names, word marks, and other proprietary symbols, such as the Nike swoosh.
Many print-on-demand companies are fully integrated ecommerce platforms, allowing designers to manage easy-to-use web stores—similar to user pages on Etsy or Amazon. Some platforms, such as GearLaunch, allow designers to operate pages under unique domain names and integrate with popular ecommerce services such as Shopify, while providing marketing and inventory tools, production, delivery, and customer service.
Like many startups, print-on-demand companies tend to coat themselves in munificent techno-marketing clichés. SunFrog is a “community” of artists and customers, where visitors can shop for “creative and custom designs as unique as you are.” Redbubble describes itself as “a global marketplace, with unique, original art offered for sale by awesome, independent artists on high-quality products.”
But the marketing lingo distracts from what some rights holders and intellectual property lawyers believe is a cornerstone of the business model: counterfeit sales. Sites allow users to upload whatever designs they like; on larger sites, uploads can number tens of thousands daily. The sites are under no obligation to review the design unless someone claims the words or image infringe on a copyright or trademark. Each such claim typically involves filing a separate notice. Critics say that fosters rights infringement, both conscious and unwitting.
“The industry has grown so exponentially that, in turn, infringement has exploded,”
There’s big money involved.
As a result, the rise of print-on-demand has also brought a wave of lawsuits by rights holders ranging from independent graphic artists to multinational brands.
The costs to print-on-demand companies can be steep.
“SunFrog pleads ignorance while sitting atop a mountain of resources that could be deployed to develop effective technology, review procedures, or training that would help combat infringement,”
When it comes to copyright, print-on-demand companies’ role in turning digital files into physical products can make a difference in the eyes of the law, says Lemley, of Stanford. If the companies make and sell products directly, he says, they might not receive DMCA protections, “regardless of knowledge and regardless of the reasonable steps they take to take down infringing material when they find out about it.”
But that might not be the case if manufacturing is handled by a third party, allowing print-on-demand sites to claim they are merely marketplaces the way Amazon is.
Rights holders often ask to take down items that are legally protected, such as parody, she says. Some press unreasonable demands: One asked Redbubble to block the search term “man.”
“Not only is it impossible to recognize every copyright or trademark that exists and will exist,” Davis said in an email, but “not all rights holders handle protection of their IP in the same way.” Some want zero tolerance, she said, but others think the designs, even if they infringe, generate more demand. “In some instances,” Davis said, “rights holders have come to us with a takedown notice and then the artist files a counter-notice, and the rights holder comes back and says, ‘Actually, we’re OK with that. Leave it up.’”
The challenges create what Goldman, the Santa Clara professor, calls “impossible expectations” for compliance. “You could task everyone in the world with vetting these designs, and it still wouldn’t be enough,” Goldman says in an interview.
Kent says the complexity and the lawsuits pushed SunFrog away from print-on-demand to “a safer, more predictable space.”
Rights holders say their burden—identifying infringing products and tracking them to their source—is equally demanding. “It’s essentially a full-time job,”
Trademark enforcement is especially demanding. Owners of copyrights can enforce their rights as tightly or loosely as they see fit, but rights holders must show they’re regularly enforcing their trademarks. If consumers no longer associate a trademark with a brand, the mark becomes generic. (Escalator, kerosene, videotape, trampoline, and flip phone all lost their trademarks this way.)
The music industry may provide a hint. Long before Napster, the industry faced a similar crisis with royalties: With so much music played in so many places, how should artists get their due? Licensing groups such as ASCAP stepped in, establishing broad revenue-sharing agreements to broker royalties.
For an industry arguably larger and more diverse than the music business, it won’t be simple. Goldman says some rights holders may not want to strike deals; among those willing to join, some may want to retain control over certain designs, the equivalent of the Eagles vetting every cover band that wants to play Hotel California. “If the industry moves that direction,” Goldman said, “it will be far less dynamic and much more expensive than it currently is.”
“Brands have to protect their image, their integrity,” he said. “Right now this funnel of content coming in every which way is just unmanageable.”
And that’s where the artists, lawyers, courts, companies, and rights holders seem to align. That in the end, the responsibility seems to fall with the most famously change-averse industry of them all: the federal government.
Print-on-demand companies allow anyone to upload designs for T-shirts, mugs, and other items. But many images violate intellectual property rights.
Tomi Engdahl says:
One whole day: That’s how long Facebook’s COVID-19 content moderation
went without a mess
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/18/facebook_covid_ai_content_moderation_mistakes/
One whole day after telling the world it was going to do its very best
to ensure that only high-quality COVID-19 content from proper sources
would spread on Facebook, The Social Network has mistakenly identified
just such content as violating its community standards. This one
seemingly started with Mike Godwin, a US-based lawyer and activist who
coined Godwin’s Law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the
probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches.”.
Read also:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/reputable-sites-swept-up-in-fbs-latest-coronavirus-minded-spam-cleanse/
and
https://www.tivi.fi/uutiset/tv/40324751-df09-48e0-b107-e0918d93a1b1.
As well as: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51940076,
https://www.is.fi/digitoday/art-2000006443779.html and
https://www.zdnet.com/article/was-your-facebook-post-on-the-coronavirus-deleted-this-is-why/
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/100-little-ideas/
Fact-Check Scarcity Principle: This article is called 100 Little Ideas but there are fewer than 100 ideas. 99% of readers won’t notice because they’re not checking, and most of those who notice won’t say anything. Don’t believe everything you read.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Over a thousand ‘local news sources’ for all your news and disinformation needs!
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/PublicInformation/index.html?appid=f2c7a0b099c042cfb0151766ded255d7
Tomi Engdahl says:
Voisiko tuota slogania vaihtaa vaikka muotoon: “Sinulla on oikeus muodostaa mielipiteesi luotettavan tiedon pohjalta jos annamme sinun muodostaa mielipidettäsi. Yleensä emme anna.”Melkoinen kato käynyt mielipiteen ilmaisemisosioille. Jännä juttu.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vaccine opponents are gaining in Facebook ‘battle for hearts and minds,’ new map shows
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/vaccine-opponents-are-gaining-facebook-battle-hearts-and-minds-new-map-shows
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hidden cameras capture misinformation, fundraising tactics used by anti-vaxx movement
Social Sharing
‘Their goal is to create noise, to create uncertainty,’ says one public health expert
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/marketplace-anti-vaccination-hidden-camera-washington-1.5429805
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/11-fake-photos-the-entire-internet-believed-were-real-697310/
Tomi Engdahl says:
100-Year-Old Photos of the Most Beautiful Women of the Last Century
https://brightside.me/wonder-people/100-year-old-photos-of-the-most-beautiful-women-of-the-last-century-606110/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why are people who cite videos always wrong?
https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/17/why-are-people-who-cite-videos-always-wrong/
I’m sure you’ve experienced it too. Some kind of discussion — perhaps a dispute, perhaps just a friendly exchange of ideas — arises online. People regurgitate what they know, or what they think they know. A few admirable souls even include links to sources. Those people tend to be more correct — unless their citation is a link to a video longer than a couple of minutes. In which case, they are, almost invariably, completely wrong and often far more wrong than even the wrongest of the people who cited nothing at all.
There’s no intrinsic reason for this. Video is as good a medium as any for supporting a viewpoint. Longer videos should, if anything, provide better material support. So why are such online citations always, almost without exception, made of ridiculously brittle clay?
a sixty-second clip to illustrate a particular concrete point? Often easily worth a thousand words.
But when you’re linked to something ten minutes longer or more, especially with an exhortation to “watch the whole thing!”, you already know you’re entering the land of illogic and unreason.
Is this because videos are a “hot” medium, connected straight(er) to our limbic system, and therefore unusually well suited to covering up half-truths and specious arguments? Are people instinctively more inclined to give the benefit of any doubt to an impassioned or confident person or voice?
Or do people who link to long videos know that essentially no one has enough time and interest to actually wade their way through them? Are they just using their “citation” as a bad-faith smokescreen to pretend that they’re serious thinkers who have done their research? That strikes me as extremely plausible, a lot of the time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
People with extreme political views have trouble thinking about their own thinking
https://www.popsci.com/radical-politics-metacognition/
Your super liberal and super conservative relatives might all have one thing in common.
Radical political views of all sorts seem to shape our lives to an almost unprecedented extent. But what attracts people to the fringes? A new study from researchers at University College London offers some insight into one characteristic of those who hold extreme beliefs—their metacognition, or ability to evaluate whether or not they might be wrong.
“It’s been known for some time now that in studies of people holding radical beliefs, that they tend to… express higher confidence in their beliefs than others,”
People with radical political opinions completed this exercise with pretty much the same accuracy as moderate participants. But “after incorrect decisions, the radicals were less likely to decrease their confidence,” Fleming says.
Unlike political beliefs, which often have no right or wrong answer per se, one group of dots was unquestionably more numerous than the other. But regardless of whether or not there was an objective answer, the radicals were more likely to trust their opinion was correct than to question whether they might have gotten it wrong.
This finding—which the team replicated with tests on the second group of participants—suggests that the metacognition of radicals plays a part in shaping their beliefs. In other words, they actually can’t question their own ideas the same way more moderate individuals can.
It’s not currently known whether radical beliefs help shape metacognition, or metacognition helps shape radical beliefs, Fleming says.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Psychology Behind Why People Dislike Ads (And How to Make Better Ones)
https://wistia.com/learn/marketing/the-psychology-behind-why-people-dislike-ads
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.eetimes.com/this-is-a-trade-pub-what-does-that-mean/
A good trade journalist often has an advantage in fact-gathering against mainstream colleagues, whose attention is necessarily stretched over a wider range of industries, topics and territories.
Dave Barry stated the dilemma ironically: “We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics. This is how we stay objective.”
I write for EET because I trust its journalists, who are among the best — among many — with whom I’ve worked throughout in my checkered career.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_pen_is_mightier_than_the_sword