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:
Davey Alba / Wired:
As internet firms receive more orders to remove content worldwide, experts worry the internet could be forced to comply globally with the strictest local laws — THE RULINGS ON online speech are coming down all over the world. Most recently, on June 30, Germany passed a law …
The World May Be Headed for a Fragmented ‘Splinternet’
https://www.wired.com/story/splinternet-global-court-rulings-google-facebook
The rulings on online speech are coming down all over the world. Most recently, on June 30, Germany passed a law that orders social media companies operating in the country to delete hate speech within 24 hours of it being posted, or face fines of up to $57 million per instance. That came two days after a Canada Supreme Court ruling that Google must scrub search results about pirated products. And in May a court in Austria ruled that Facebook must take down specific posts that were considered hateful toward the country’s Green party leader. Each of those rulings mandated that companies remove the content not just in the countries where it was posted, but globally. Currently, in France, the country’s privacy regulator is fighting Google in the courts to get the tech giant to apply Europe’s “right to be forgotten” laws worldwide. And, around the world, dozens of similar cases are pending.
The trend of courts applying country-specific social media laws worldwide could radically change what is allowed to be on the internet, setting a troubling precedent. What happens to the global internet when countries with different cultures have sharply diverging definitions of what is acceptable online speech?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Twitter lets you avoid trolls with new settings options to mute newly registered users, people you don’t follow, and people who don’t follow you
Twitter lets you avoid trolls by muting new users and strangers
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/10/twitter-mute/
When trolls barge into people’s notifications with offensive replies or user names, those legitimate users might not keep coming back to Twitter. So today the company rolled out new tools to help you silence the riff-raff. There are now options to mute notifications from newly registered accounts, people you don’t follow and people who don’t follow you. These can be configured in the Notifications -> Settings -> Advanced Filters section of Twitter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jim Rutenberg / New York Times:
News Media Alliance, with members including NYT, WaPo, and News Corp, seeks antitrust exemption from Congress to negotiate collectively with Google and Facebook
News Outlets to Seek Bargaining Rights Against Google and Facebook
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/business/media/google-facebook-news-media-alliance.html
Google and Facebook continue to gobble up the digital advertising market, siphoning away revenue that once paid for the quality journalism that Google and Facebook now offer for free.
They are gaining increasing control over digital distribution, so newspapers that once delivered their journalism with their own trucks increasingly have to rely on these big online platforms to get their articles in front of people, fighting for attention alongside fake news, websites that lift their content, and cat videos.
And for all of Google’s and Facebook’s efforts to support journalism by helping news organizations find new revenue streams — and survive in the new world that these sites helped create — they are, at the end of the day, the royals of the court. Quality news providers are the supplicants and the serfs.
It’s an uneasy alliance that has publishers chafing at the returns they receive from Google and Facebook, which rely on the free flow of premium news and information.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wall Street Journal:
As Google pays academics for research that often ends up justifying its controversial business practices, many academics fail to disclose their funding source
Paying Professors: Inside Google’s Academic Influence Campaign
https://www.wsj.com/articles/paying-professors-inside-googles-academic-influence-campaign-1499785286
Company pays stipends of $5,000 to $400,000 for research supporting business practices that face regulatory scrutiny; a ‘wish list’ of topics.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dustin Volz / Reuters:
Knight First Amendment Institute sues Trump for blocking Twitter users, alleging the practice amounts to an unconstitutional effort to suppress dissent
U.S. free-speech group sues Trump for blocking Twitter users
http://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-trump-twitter-idUKKBN19W1TY
A free-speech group said on Tuesday it sued U.S. President Donald Trump for blocking Twitter users from his @realDonaldTrump account, arguing the practice violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Trump’s blocking of those accounts amounts to an unconstitutional effort to suppress dissent, the lawsuit claims.
Because Trump frequently turns to Twitter to make policy statements, his account qualifies as a public forum from which the government cannot exclude people on the basis of their views, the suit alleges. Twitter users are unable to see or respond to tweets from accounts that block them.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here’s how trolls treat the women of CNET
The internet can be a hateful place for women. CNET’s comment section is no different.
https://www.cnet.com/news/cnet-women-hate-troll-comments/
We’ve received countless reader comments over the years. Usually, CNET readers are thoughtful and insightful. Their comments provide constructive criticism and move the conversation forward.
Usually, but not always. There is a small but vocal group of readers who regularly leave disturbing and hateful comments on our site. Sadly though predictably, these comments are often lobbed at the women of CNET.
This isn’t to say that our male colleagues don’t get nasty comments too.
It’s gone on for years and continues to do so.
Tomi Engdahl says:
12 companies who drove insane organic traffic to their website
https://www.zoho.com/salesiq/blog/12-companies-who-drove-insane-organic-traffic-to-their-website.html
As marketers, one of the most common questions we get time and time again is, “How do I get more traffic to my site?” It’s a valid question, but let me stop you right there. Why is website traffic so important for your business? For popularity? Sure, it would be nice to be able to brag and say, “I had almost 1,000,000 website visitors last year,” but that’s not the point is it?
Every website needs traffic. If you aren’t attracting the right visitors, your website is destined to get lost in the vastness of the internet, and that doesn’t help you generate qualified leads, more sales, or achieve your goals efficiently.
Fortunately, I’ve got you covered.
In this post, we’ll look at 12 case studies of companies who drove an astounding amount of traffic to their sites by making minor changes that cost little to nothing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adrienne LaFrance / The Atlantic:
New tech allows realistic superimposing of people’s mouth movements in video, making them appear to say something they didn’t, which could be used to deceive
The Technology That Will Make It Impossible for You to Believe What You See
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/07/what-do-you-do-when-you-cannot-believe-your-own-eyes/533154/
With these techniques, it’s difficult to discern between videos of real people and computerized impostors that can be programmed to say anything.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tom Ley / The Concourse:
Feeding Resistance hysteria: when a freelancer who is an assistant professor of creative writing piggybacks on NYT reporters’ work, ignore him — Yesterday, Donald Trump Jr., in an attempt to undercut a New York Times story that was minutes away from being published, tweeted out images …
Twitter Guy Wants You To Think He Was This Close To Bringing Down The Trump Regime
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/twitter-guy-wants-you-to-think-he-was-this-close-to-bri-1796855232
Yesterday, Donald Trump Jr., in an attempt to undercut a New York Times story that was minutes away from being published, tweeted out images of an email thread in which he agreed to meet with a “Russian government lawyer” who promised to give him damaging information about Hillary Clinton. The emails were sent in June 2016, and the desire to share the information was described as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Shortly after Trump Jr. sent his tweets, the Times published the same emails.
Russian Dirt on Clinton? ‘I Love It,’ Donald Trump Jr. Said
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/us/politics/trump-russia-email-clinton.html?_r=0
The June 3, 2016, email sent to Donald Trump Jr. could hardly have been more explicit: One of his father’s former Russian business partners had been contacted by a senior Russian government official and was offering to provide the Trump campaign with dirt on Hillary Clinton.
The documents “would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father,” read the email, written by a trusted intermediary, who added, “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”
Donald Trump Jr. agreed, adding that he would most likely bring along “Paul Manafort (campaign boss)” and “my brother-in-law,” Jared Kushner, now one of the president’s closest White House advisers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Washington Post:
Sources: to defend Donald Trump Jr., GOP operatives are going to try and discredit the reporters covering the story, using conservative media to attack them — The White House has been thrust into chaos after days of ever-worsening revelations about a meeting between Donald Trump Jr …
‘Category 5 hurricane’: White House under siege by Trump Jr.’s Russia revelations
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/category-5-hurricane-white-house-under-siege-by-trump-jrs-russia-revelations/2017/07/11/1e091478-664d-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html?utm_term=.3482fa5c886f
The White House has been thrust into chaos after days of ever-worsening revelations about a meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a lawyer characterized as representing the Russian government, as the president fumes against his enemies and senior aides circle one another with suspicion, according to top White House officials and outside advisers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Sources: investigators are examining whether Trump’s digital operation, run by Jared Kushner, helped guide Russia’s fake news attacks on Clinton in 2016 — WASHINGTON — Investigators at the House and Senate Intelligence committees and the Justice Department are examining whether …
Trump-Russia investigators probe Jared Kushner-run digital operation
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article160803619.html
Investigators at the House and Senate Intelligence committees and the Justice Department are examining whether the Trump campaign’s digital operation – overseen by Jared Kushner – helped guide Russia’s sophisticated voter targeting and fake news attacks on Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article160803619.html#storylink=cpy
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jeremy Barr / Hollywood Reporter:
PR reps at news outlets like CNN and BuzzFeed explain how they deal with and respond to Trump’s attacks on social media
Sharing a bed and a beat on opposite sides of the news spectrum
https://www.cjr.org/the_profile/fox-npr-marriage-national-security-griffin-myre.php
Anyone who has been married for a long time knows that elasticity keeps a bond strong. Husbands and wives must compromise and agree on rules of the road. In this case, that means respecting each other’s political opinions and exclusive stories. Griffin and Myre now cover the same beat, national security, for media outlets widely perceived as being at opposite ends of the political spectrum. At a time of intense national polarization, their partnership has achieved a rare civility across the partisan divide.
They may withhold news or sources, but they are each other’s favorite sounding boards. They critique and edit each other’s stories. They bounce ideas around.
“We don’t always see the world the same way, but always debate and discuss,” says Griffin. “Our relationship is better for that.”
“Maybe there’s a recipe for our politics in that, given the decline of debate and recent tendency among Americans, including some journalists, to brand people they disagree with as dumb or racist or PC, without a sincere effort to understand why they think or vote the way they do,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Trust Attacks Pose Novel Challenge for Companies
http://www.securityweek.com/trust-attacks-pose-novel-challenge-companies
Novel cyber-attacks will ruin reputations and erode customer trust, but can humans keep up in the cyber arms race?
In April of 2013, the Associated Press tweeted that Barack Obama had been injured in a White House explosion. The press quickly realized that the account had been hacked, but in the few minutes that the tweet was up, the S&P plummeted to the tune of $130 billion in stock value. Though the market quickly recovered, the incident showed that saboteurs and cyber-criminals now have the tools to inflict disproportionate harm on public trust and financial institutions.
In a more recent case, fears of cyber meddling in the U.S. presidential election fostered a deep distrust in the democratic process. After the DNC hack and repeated email leaks, that distrust reached an all-time high. Using these attacks as a blueprint, sophisticated hackers are now engaged in long-term missions to undermine entire businesses and institutions, all under the cloak of the web’s anonymity.
In the face of advanced threats like these, words can only go so far to assuage the fears of clients and investors. At some point, they demand results, and in cyber security, the only result that matters is whether or not you’ve stayed safe from data breaches. Unless organizations start taking proactive security measures, they risk losing one of their most important commodities – public trust.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The juiciest leaks from the White House after the Trump Jr. emails
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/12/15958638/white-house-juciest-leaks-trump-jr-kushner-priebus
President Trump isn’t taking the Don Jr. story well. Neither is the White House staff.
A flurry of dramatic reports came out of the White House Tuesday night from the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Politico, as the Trump administration sought to handle the latest developments in the news that the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. had met with a Kremlin-linked attorney during the presidential campaign to get information from “Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” which he was told would “incriminate” Hillary Clinton.
According to Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker of the Washington Post, President Trump is “enraged” at media reports about his son but, importantly, not at his son
the story could not be dismissed as “conspiracy bullshit” by the White House as other stories had been. However, the Post did detail a new team in the White House designed to discredit the journalists behind the Trump Jr. stories by researching their previous work and providing any errors to conservative media.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CBS News:
CBS News and BBC News announce global editorial and newsgathering partnership, sharing video, editorial content, and other resources — CBS News and BBC News announced a new editorial and newsgathering relationship Thursday that will significantly enhance the global reporting capabilities of both organizations.
CBS News and BBC News join forces around the globe
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-bbc-join-forces/
CBS News and BBC News announced a new editorial and newsgathering relationship Thursday that will significantly enhance the global reporting capabilities of both organizations. The announcement was made by CBS News President David Rhodes and BBC Director of News and Current Affairs James Harding.
This new deal allows both organizations to share video, editorial content, and additional newsgathering resources in New York, London, Washington and around the world. The relationship between CBS News and BBC News will also allow for efficient planning of newsgathering resources to increase the content of each broadcaster’s coverage of world events.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jack Marshall / Wall Street Journal:
Online publishers like LittleThings and Dotdash are eliminating obtrusive ads to to boost overall revenue and improve user experience — LittleThings and Dotdash say they’re taking a ‘less is more’ approach with ads across their sites — For online publishers, more advertising typically means more revenue.
Online Publishers Try Reducing Ads to Boost Revenue
LittleThings and Dotdash say they’re taking a ‘less is more’ approach with ads across their sites
https://www.wsj.com/articles/online-publishers-try-reducing-ads-to-boost-revenue-1499940061
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jeremy Barr / Hollywood Reporter:
PR reps at news outlets like CNN and BuzzFeed explain how they deal with and respond to Trump’s attacks on social media — “We respond to correct the record,” explains a CNN spokesman about the need to push back against the president’s attacks. — When Donald Trump lobs a Twitter attack …
Why More Media Companies Are Punching Back at Trump
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/how-trumps-tweets-are-reported-by-cnn-new-york-times-more-1020013
When Donald Trump lobs a Twitter attack (again) at the news outlet you work for, what’s the best way to respond? For those working in corporate communications for major news brands, the answer has become: push back — and keep it quick, punchy and fact-based.
On June 27, Trump tweeted, “Fake News CNN is looking at big management changes now that they got caught falsely pushing their phony Russian stories. Ratings way down!” Twenty minutes later, CNN’s dedicated PR Twitter account replied: “CNN just posted it’s [sic] most-watched second quarter in history. Those are the facts.” The network’s response relied on Nielsen ratings data to counter the President’s narrative.
“I think it’s incredibly important to do it in the moment,” explains Matt Dornic, a CNN spokesman. “I get frustrated if it takes more than 30 minutes.”
The challenge is one of resource management — if media companies spend all their time monitoring social media slights, they might not get much work done. “They’ve had to employ rapid response teams to hit back and, yes, put themselves in the story,”
Responding also can backfire — or escalate — quickly. “To engage is to play into the White House’s strategy of discrediting the media,”
Twitter is the president’s platform of choice, and his barbs travel at warp speed, often generating headlines within minutes.
“We respond to correct the record,” says Dornic. “We supply facts to counter misinformation.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Can Verst take on WordPress and Medium?
Online publishing platform Verst adds tools for paywalls and prettier websites
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/12/verst-2-0/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
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Online publishing platform Verst adds tools for paywalls and prettier websites
Posted 19 hours ago by Anthony Ha (@anthonyha)
Recently launched publishing platform Verst released a big update today, with new features like a homepage builder, new pricing and support for subscription paywalls.
CEO AJ Frank told us that his team’s goal was to create a blogging platform with optimization and analytics already built in. So there’s the core editing interface, but also tools that allow you to do things like A/B test headlines and get notifications when an old post is seeing a spike in traffic.
As for the paywall feature, Frank said Verst should make it easy for publishers to implement their subscription strategy by designating which articles are available for free and which ones are only accessible to subscribers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
American Tech Companies Are So Afraid Of Offending Indians That They’re Censoring All Their Products
https://www.buzzfeed.com/pranavdixit/why-silicon-valley-is-censoring-itself-as-it-expands-in?utm_term=.qyazG293LN#.gn5aeyj3xB
In the world’s largest democracy, Amazon Prime Video deletes most nudity and profanity, Google bans retailers from buying ads for erotica, Amazon and Flipkart refuse to sell adult products, and Tinder suggests its users should get parental approval for their dates.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BuzzFeed:
In a familiar pattern, right-wing personalities and media spread false claims about a Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr., with one claim amplified by Trump — Pro-Trump media figures have gone as far as to falsely suggest that the Russian attorney may have planted a listening device for the Obama administration.
How A False Conspiracy Theory About The Russian Lawyer Who Met With Don Jr. Spread To Trump
https://www.buzzfeed.com/salvadorhernandez/veselnitskaya-conspiracy-theory?utm_term=.of5EXWlAKr#.xb3B1b0NPo
Pro-Trump media figures have gone as far as to falsely suggest that the Russian attorney may have planted a listening device for the Obama administration.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lucia Moses / Digiday:
Publishers like Hearst, Bustle, TechCrunch, BBC News, and Mic are shifting their enthusiasm from Snapchat to Instagram — Hearst’s Kate Lewis can easily rattle off the company’s Instagram stats. Half the company’s brands have more than 1 million followers. Harper’s Bazaar has 3 million.
Publishers are switching affections from Snapchat to Instagram
https://digiday.com/media/publishers-switching-affections-snapchat-instagram/
Nothing is forever in the world of platforms. Two years ago, publishers that didn’t have a coveted slot in the Snapchat Discover section were scrambling to use individual accounts on Snapchat to connect with millennials in a raw, personal way, sometimes posting as often as several times a day there.
Today, parent company Snap is facing questions about user growth and retention, with all the moves Facebook’s Instagram is making to copy Snapchat’s features, as its declining stock price shows. Instagram’s moves are paying off with publishers, many of whom have shifted their enthusiasm to Instagram.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alexandra Ellerbeck / Committee to Protect Journalists:
Recent US Senate report on leaks and national security used unscientific methodology, created false paradigm between national security and press freedom, more
US Senate report on leaks and national security is deeply flawed
https://cpj.org/blog/2017/07/us-senate-report-on-leaks-and-national-security-is-1.php
Last week, Republicans on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs released a report on leaks to the media. The report, which was led by Chairman Ron Johnson, asserts that “an avalanche” of leaks under the Trump Administration is harming national security. It lists at least 125 news articles and their bylines – meaning a group of Senators has publicized the names over 100 reporters whom they allege have harmed U.S national security.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sara Fischer / Axios:
BBC’s partnership with CBS ends its deal with ABC, as CBS ends its deal with Sky
CBS, BBC announce editorial partnership
https://www.axios.com/cbs-bbc-announce-editorial-partnership-2458717672.html
BBC News is ending its decades-long editorial partnership with ABC news to team up with rival CBS.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gerry Smith / Bloomberg:
Local papers have struggled to capitalize on subscription surges seen at national outlets in the age of Trump
Trump Bump for President’s Media Archenemies Eludes Local Papers
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-10/trump-bump-for-president-s-media-archenemies-eludes-local-papers
President Donald Trump loves to hurl his Twitter-ready insult at the New York Times: #failingnytimes.
But in the stock market, the New York Times Co. has been looking like a roaring success lately, particularly by the standards of the beleaguered newspaper industry. Since Trump won the presidency in November, the publisher’s share price has soared 57 percent. Online subscriptions are up, bigly — about 19 percent in the first quarter alone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Julia Boorstin / CNBC:
At Sun Valley, CBS CEO Les Moonves says the company isn’t looking for deals but would consider CNN if it were available
At Sun Valley, media CEOs expect a big new wave of M&A in the industry
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/13/sun-valley-barry-diller-michael-eisner-media-consolidation.html
CBS CEO Les Moonves said the company isn’t looking for deals now, but would consider CNN if it became available: “CNN is a very worthy news organization.”
IAC’s Barry Diller: “I think consolidation is necessary but that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily smart.”
Discovery CEO David Zaslav expects distributors, such as cable companies and telcos, to keep making deals with content creators.
Tomi Engdahl says:
President Donald Trump sued for blocking Twitter users
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/07/12/president-donald-trump-sued-for-blocking-twitter-users.html#
President Donald Trump has been sued by a free-speech group, which claims his practice of blocking Twitter users violates the First Amendment.
Trump, who uses the @realDonaldTrump account in office, has been sued by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in New York, along with seven individual Twitter users.
“President Trump’s Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, has become an important source of news and information about the government, and an important public forum for speech by, to, and about the President,” the lawsuit reads. “In an effort to suppress dissent in this forum, Defendants have excluded— ‘blocked’ —Twitter users who have criticized the President or his policies. This practice is unconstitutional, and this suit seeks to end it.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will Oremus / Slate:
The push for an antitrust exemption highlights the contradiction between the civic purpose and for-profit motive of newspapers
Newspapers’ Stand Against Tech Giants Won’t Save Them
But it could help them resolve their existential crisis.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2017/07/newspapers_stand_against_facebook_is_the_right_hill_to_die_on.html
The current news economy holds much more opportunity for national and special-interest publications than it does for the local, general-interest papers.
Newspapers’ business models have been taking on water for years thanks to the rise of Google and online advertising, and they’re continuing to gradually sink as their readers find more of their news on Facebook. The social network and the omnipresent search engine steer some online traffic to publishers’ story pages, but they siphon much of the ad money along the way. Meanwhile, their free, ultraconvenient aggregation of stories from all over the internet discourages users from even visiting a newspaper’s home page, let alone paying for a subscription. So newsrooms across the country continue to jettison jobs, clinging ever tighter to Facebook even as it undermines their ability to stay afloat.
Understandably, newspapers are resorting to some desperate measures.
negotiate with Facebook and Google over ad-revenue deals and other issues collectively rather than individually
The bid is a long shot, for several reasons. Even if an anti-media Congress were to grant the papers an exemption from antitrust laws, Facebook and Google would still hold the leverage in negotiations. And any concessions they win seem unlikely to do much to secure newspapers’ long-term future.
For newspaper companies, asking Congress for help with their businesses would have been anathema even a decade ago. It runs against their fierce sense of independence from government interference and bespeaks weakness bordering on desperation. Yet weakness bordering on desperation is exactly the position in which many of them now find themselves, and even some modest short-term gains would buy them much-needed runway to keep trying to figure things out.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CNN Clotheslined Itself
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2017/07/cnn_s_crime_wasn_t_blackmail_it_was_petty_self_righteousness.html
The network may not have “blackmailed” a Reddit user, but it managed to look foolish, self-righteous, and petty.
To say that CNN blackmailed a man over a wrestling GIF he posted on Reddit is probably an exaggeration. But the fact that I’m even writing such a sentence is a sign that something went quite wrong in the network’s approach to what was not, in the scheme of things, a particularly consequential story.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Benedict Evans:
As tech platforms experiment with TV content, a look at how corporations controlling music and ebooks lost their strategic value to tech companies — People in tech and media have been saying that ‘content is king’ for a long time – perhaps since the VHS/Betamax battle of the early 1980s, and perhaps longer.
Content isn’t king
http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/7/13/content-isnt-king
People in tech and media have been saying that ‘content is king’ for a long time – perhaps since the VHS/Betamax battle of the early 1980s, and perhaps longer. Content and access to content was a strategic lever for technology. I’m not sure how much this is true anymore. Music and books don’t matter much to tech anymore, and TV probably won’t matter much either.
Most obviously, subscription streaming has more or less ended the strategic importance of music to tech companies.
Since music no longer stops people from switching between platforms, it’s gone from being a moat (especially for Apple, the one platform company that actually had a strong position) to a low-margin check-box feature. That doesn’t mean that these services are exactly commodities – each builds its own recommendation tools, some experiment with routes to market (with mobile operators, for example), and some try exclusive early access to new pop songs. But they all have roughly the same underlying library of tens of millions of tracks, and the differences between them are fundamentally tactics, not strategies, just as music itself is a tactic: it is now merely marketing, not a moat.
Something similar applies to ebooks. Like Spotify, the Kindle app is on any platform, so it doesn’t stop you switching devices. Unlike music, your books are still bought (mostly: there are some subscription services but they don’t cover mainstream titles), and locked with DR
Meanwhile, whenever I talk to music people or book people, very quickly the conversation becomes a music industry conversation or a book industry conversation.
All of this of course takes us to TV, the industry that’s next on the tech industry’s content journey. Just as new technology unlocked massive change in music and (rather less so) in books, it is now about to break apart the bundled, linear channel model of the TV industry (this is especially the case in the USA, which has a hugely over-served pay TV market). As this happens, there are all sorts of questions that follow on: what happens to channels that might be able to make more going direct to consumer (HBO, perhaps); what happens to channels that might benefit from being in a bundle and lose from having to go direct (ESPN, perhaps), where the syndication model goes, and so on, and so on. One thing that does seem very likely, deterministically, is that the curve of viewing distribution will get steeper: the shows that are watched mainly because they’re broadcast at 8pm on Saturday will suffer, and so will the channels that are watched because they’re high up on the program guide. Channel brands, shows and episodes are unbundled. We’ve been talking about this in theory for over a decade, but finally, praxis is here.
Just as for music or books, though, these are all fundamentally TV industry questions.
A question here, though, is how well a TV service, perhaps with a stand-alone monthly subscription, as for Apple Music, maps to an 18-30 month handset replacement cycle.
Perhaps a deeper question, setting aside the purely strategic calculations
If and when Apple does go back to southern California, meanwhile, it does so with nothing like the kind of negotiating power that it had in iPod days – Amazon and Netflix (if not also Google and Facebook) have seen to that. But that doesn’t mean that content companies have much more power either. Part of ‘content is king’ was the idea that (at least in theory) content companies can withhold access to their libraries entirely, and in the past one might have presumed that that meant they had the power to kill any new service at birth. In reality, rights-holders have always had too strong a need for short-term revenue to forgo broad distribution, and few of them individually had a strong enough brand to extract a fee that was high enough to justify exclusivity. They always have to take the cheques – individually to meet their bonus targets, and collectively to meet their earnings estimates.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Google’s search app on Android and iOS gets an algorithmic news feed of articles, videos, and other links; feed allows topic follows and other customizations
Google introduces the feed, a personalized stream of news on iOS and Android
Searching for relevance
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/19/15994156/google-feed-personalized-news-stream-android-ios-app
Google today is rolling out its take on the news feed, a personalized stream of articles, videos, and other content. The feed will appear in its flagship app for Android and iOS, simply called Google. The feed, which includes items drawn from your search history and topics you choose to follow, is designed to turn Google’s app into a destination for browsing as well as search. Google is hoping you’ll begin opening its app the way you do Facebook or Twitter, checking it reflexively throughout the day for quick hits of news and information.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jay Rosen / PressThink:
Why Trump’s campaign to discredit the press is a permanent feature of his political style: display of dominance, the need for an enemy, his base loves it — Donald Trump’s so-called “war with the media” is a good example of what philosophers mean by an over-determined effect: multiple causes …
His campaign to discredit the press is a permanent feature of Trump’s political style
It’s all they know. They aren’t prepared for anything else.
http://pressthink.org/2017/07/campaign-discredit-press-permanent-feature-trumps-political-style/
Donald Trump’s so-called “war with the media” is a good example of what philosophers mean by an over-determined effect: multiple causes, any one of which would be enough to support it.
Which is to say this “war” (terrible term, clumsy and lazy) will almost certainly continue, despite the periodic discovery by journalists that Trump loves to banter with reporters, and that he lives and dies by the very media coverage that he poisonously calls fake.
The campaign to discredit mainstream journalism is thus a permanent feature of Trump’s political style. Why? I have some ideas. But I probably missed a few.
1. Because it’s a base-only presidency with a niche, not a broadcasting strategy.
Attacking the national press corps makes good sense, what with the Republican base in a permanent state of rage at “cognitive elites.”
2. Because this is what they have; they don’t have much else. The Trump presidency is a shambolic mess. As Charlie Warzel and Adrian Carrasquillo of Buzzfeed observed, hating on the media is its most consistent theme.
3. Because Trump is a creature of media— and its creation. Josh Marshall recently pointed this out: “For all the purported hatred of ‘the media’, the main Trumpers are almost all fundamentally media creatures. They think in media terms. They are media creations.” He’s right about that.
4. Because people in the White House think “media” warring is governing.
5. Because turning reporters into ritualized hate objects is easy to do, supporters love it, and it meets Trump’s need for public displays of dominance.
6. Because it’s the one campaign promise he can definitely keep.
7. Because with the Federal government in Republican hands there is an “enemy gap.”
8. Because it binds him to the base, which has been tutored in this resentment since 1969.
9. Because they know a lot of bad news has yet to emerge.
10. Because the sheer ugliness of the spectacle repels the uncommitted, persuading them that there’s no point in paying attention.
11. Because his fantasy claims during the campaign pre-ordained critical coverage if Trump won.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:
Even after Trump Jr.’s emails, President Trump’s fake-news defense will persist because it works among Trump’s base — Shouldn’t President Trump’s “fake news” defense be dead by now? — For months, he has relentlessly branded the possible Russian-collusion story a hoax and denigrated the reporters who dig into it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/trump-jrs-emails-should-have-killed-the-presidents-fake-news-rants-heres-why-they-wont/2017/07/14/f53f5464-67ee-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Leon Lazaroff / TheStreet:
Facebook says it will start testing a subscription service with publishers in October, offering 10 articles free before prompting users to buy subscriptions — Facebook Inc’s (FB) Campbell Brown says the world’s largest social media platform has heard the cries of news publishers, and it’s taking action.
Facebook Exec Campbell Brown: We Are Launching a News Subscription Product
https://www.thestreet.com/story/14233293/1/facebook-s-campbell-brown-we-are-launching-a-news-subscription-product.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Marissa Lang / San Francisco Chronicle:
Inside San Francisco’s KQED as it operates in low-tech mode after a June ransomware attack — The journalists at San Francisco’s public TV and radio station, KQED, have been stuck in a time warp. — All Internet-connected devices, tools and machinery have been cut off in an attempt …
Ransomware attack puts KQED in low-tech mode
http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Ransomware-attack-puts-KQED-in-low-tech-mode-11295175.php
The journalists at San Francisco’s public TV and radio station, KQED, have been stuck in a time warp.
All Internet-connected devices, tools and machinery have been cut off in an attempt to isolate and contain a ransomware attack that infected the station’s computers June 15. More than a month later, many remain offline.
Though the stations’ broadcasts have been largely uninterrupted — minus a half-day loss of the online stream on the first day of the attack — KQED journalists said every day has brought new challenges and revealed the immeasurable ways the station, like many businesses today, has become dependent on Internet-connected devices.
“It’s like we’ve been bombed back to 20 years ago, technology-wise,” said Queena Kim, a senior editor at KQED. “You rely on technology for so many things, so when it doesn’t work, everything takes three to five times longer just to do the same job.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ginny Marvin / Marketing Land:
Google Analytics users can now ask natural-language questions about their data — With natural language, users can quickly get data without having to dig for it from both desktop and Google Analytics’ mobile apps. — A little over a year ago, Google teased using natural language to get data from Google Analytics just by asking.
Google Analytics rolling out ‘ask a question’ to get answers instantaneously
With natural language, users can quickly get data without having to dig for it from both desktop and Google Analytics’ mobile apps.
http://marketingland.com/google-analytics-ask-questions-intelligence-219961
Tomi Engdahl says:
Daniel Funke / Poynter:
Facebook launches tool that lets publishers compare Instant Articles traffic to traditional links that point to mobile pages
This new Facebook analytics tool lets publishers compare their mobile and Instant Articles traffic
http://www.poynter.org/2017/this-new-facebook-analytics-tool-lets-publishers-compare-their-mobile-and-instant-articles-traffic/467425/
Facebook today released a new developer’s tool for publishers to see how their stories are doing on the social media platform.
The analytics tool, which is located under the “Publishing Tools” tab on Facebook pages, allows news outlets to compare the traffic of their regular mobile articles with that of the social platform’s Instant Articles.
“This insight provides an important signal publishers can use to make informed business decisions about how they share content on Facebook,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shan Wang / Nieman Lab:
Maria Ressa, CEO of Philippines-based news org Rappler, says Facebook “broke democracy” in 2016, discusses impact of platforms on elections, more — “It’s still an empowering platform. I will not take that away from them. But people who deal with the algorithms have to work hand …
Facebook rules the Internet in the Philippines. Rappler walks the line between partnership and criticism
http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/07/facebook-rules-the-internet-in-the-philippines-rappler-walks-the-line-between-partnership-and-criticism/
What’s it like to have a presidential election where misinformation on Facebook clouds what’s informing at least some voters’ decisions? The Philippines found out about half a year before the United States, according to Maria Ressa, CEO of the Philippines-based, social media-savvy news outlet Rappler.
Shan Wang: The U.S. went through that little thing in November, which has really sparked new interest in misinformation and disinformation. I wonder what we can learn from what Rappler has been dealing with in the Philippines, when it comes to social media and news and possibly diverging realities.
Maria Ressa: The way I see it: Countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, or Myanmar are countries that very quickly came online. Myanmar went from a few percent Internet penetration to maybe 65 percent or more in just a few years, via mobile phones. What all these countries have in common is that our telcos essentially make the Internet — when you get a cellphone, Facebook, for instance, is already there.
In the Philippines, of the more than 52 million people who access the Internet — I think 97 percent are on Facebook. That gives the platform tremendous power. People who are not sophisticated about media to begin with do not realize they’re walking into a curated space and that there are echo chambers formed in those places well before you get there.
“It’s still an empowering platform. I will not take that away from them. But people who deal with the algorithms have to work hand in hand with people who have responsibilities in the public space.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook tries to prove Instant Articles beat mobile web
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/19/facebook-instant-articles-comparison/
One-third of all link clicks on Facebook already go to its self-hosted Instant Articles. Facebook claims they drive more referral traffic click-for-click because people don’t abandon them mid-click as they do with slow-loading mobile websites. Now Facebook is teaming up with Nielsen to prove that individual publishers benefit when they post with the Instant Articles format.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Twitter says it’s taking action on 10x the number of abusive accounts as it did last year, and 65% of disciplined accounts don’t commit second infraction
Twitter says its anti-abuse efforts are working, citing internal data
But real data is in short supply
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/20/16000834/twitter-anti-abuse-tools-data-update
A sustained push to reduce abuse on Twitter has shown promising results, the company said, citing internal data suggesting the company is taking action on significantly more hostile accounts while reducing the amount of vitriol seen by users. The majority of disciplined user accounts do not commit a second infraction, Twitter said, suggesting it has had success in reshaping some users’ behavior. But Twitter did not share the hard numbers behind its data
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mike Shields / Business Insider:
Sources describe efforts by Google and big publishers to combat the ad fraud practice called spoofing on major ad exchanges, via ads.txt initiative
Google’s been running a secret test to detect bogus ads — and its findings should make the industry nervous
http://nordic.businessinsider.com/google-bogus-ads-programmatic-exchanges-2017-7?op=1&r=US&IR=T
The ad industry is trying to root out fraudulent digital ads. Google has quietly been running tests with media companies such as CBS to gauge how bad the problem is. Industry leaders are banking on a new technical solution, ads.txt, to tackle the issue.
The digital-advertising industry is looking to stamp out bogus ad inventory, like websites that claim to be premium brands but are actually sites the average person hardly ever visits. Google, with help from some media giants, is taking the lead. The company is pushing an industry initiative called ads.txt that’s aimed at wiping out fraud that’s dubbed ‘spoofing’ by the industry. Spoofing encompasses the variety of ways ad buyers can be tricked into paying for space they’re not getting.
Yet spoofing is even starting to affect publishers that don’t even sell ads via programmatic channels.
The Google tests
To get a sense of the scope of this problem, Google has been quietly conducting tests with a handful of major media properties, including NBCU, CBS, and The New York Times, people familiar with the matter told Business Insider.
During these tests, Google and the partners shut off all of their programmatic ad inventory for brief periods, say, 10 to 15 minutes, and then scour the ad exchanges to see what’s listed. Google and its partners found thousands if not millions of video and display ad spots still available on multiple ad exchanges, despite no ads actually being for sale at that time
Google also discovered fraudsters claiming to be able to sell YouTube ad inventory on various exchanges, one of the people said.
Google’s not alone in these findings. An ad-tech executive from a different company went looking for some spoofed ads on exchanges
The fake-Rolex problem
Marketers are expected to shell out $83 billion on digital ads in the US in 2017, according to eMarketer. And the more that advertisers spend, the bigger the opportunity for fraudsters. By some estimates, sophisticated ad-fraud perpetrators could cost the ad business over $16 billion globally this year.
There are lots of ways that ad fraud can happen. Often hackers from outside the US sell ads on fake websites using computer programs called “bots” that can mimic human behavior – making it look as though real people are visiting websites or clicking on ads.
Then, there’s spoofing, which has been around for years.
“There’s quite a bit of mislabeling of traffic,” said Mike Baker, CEO of the ad-tech firm DataXu. “It’s become somewhat pervasive over the last few years. It could account for 20 to 30% of the traffic on some secondary and tertiary [ad exchanges].”
Ads.txt was borne out of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Tech Lab with support from the trade group TAG (Trustworthy Accountability Group).
By inserting a text file on their sites, web publishers can make it clear who is allowed to sell their ad space and who isn’t. Assuming enough publishers implement the ads.txt solution – and enough ad buyers make an effort to purchase ads only from authorized sellers – this could go a long way toward weeding out spoofing.
“There’s always been spoofing in the market, and with video it is [more prevalent],”
A number of major developments have combined to dial up the scrutiny on the online-advertising business, causing marketers to scrutinize where their ads run to how they pay for them and who gets a piece of every dollar they spend on the web.
Who’s responsible?
When it comes to supply-chain hygiene, there’s plenty of blame laid on the ad-tech companies – especially since so many programmatic exchanges have made big public pledges to keep out bad sellers. But as one ad-tech insider said, big media companies often don’t even know who is and isn’t allowed to sell their ads on the web.
‘They should take responsibility,” he said. For example, one publisher said it was working with just three exchanges, but they were really running ads on 17.
So it’s up to media companies to make the most out of ads.txt.
Media sellers “are being directly harmed,”
“When there is twice as much inventory being sold out there than actually exists, that leads to deals you never get, bad prices, and the watering down of your brand,” Zaneis said. “That has a direct financial impact.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chris Welch / The Verge:
YouTube collaborates with Jigsaw to launch Redirect Method, responding to certain keyword searches with videos that discredit extremist recruiting narratives
YouTube now responds to searches for terrorist videos with playlists that debunk extremism
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/20/16003296/youtube-redirect-method-anti-terrorist-videos-search
YouTube is taking its next step in countering extremism and terrorist content on its platform. Today the company announced that effective immediately, YouTube will respond to certain English-language keyword searches by displaying playlists of pre-existing videos on the site that debunk and discredit “violent extremist recruiting narratives” from the Islamic State and other groups.
This strategy is called the Redirect Method, and the goal is to reach those people who might be feeling isolated and who are at risk of being radicalized through hours of absorbing violent extremist messaging and propaganda online. Jigsaw, a subsidiary of Alphabet, collaborated with Moonshot CVE to develop the counter-messaging approach as a means of applying technology to imperative global threats.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Joseph Lichterman / Nieman Lab:
Reuters study: less than 50% of UK news consumers who got a story from social media or search could correctly name the news org that published it
People who get news from social or search usually don’t remember the news org that published it, survey finds
http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/07/people-who-get-news-from-social-or-search-usually-dont-remember-the-news-org-that-published-it-survey-finds/
British news consumers who get news via social media or search platforms are more likely to remember the platform where they accessed a particular story rather than the outlet that originally published it, according to a study out Wednesday from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.
Just 37 percent of users who came from search, and 47 percent of those who found a story via social media, could correctly name the news organization that published it (2 days later). By comparison, 81 percent of users who directly arrived on a story could later recall where it was published.
Meanwhile, 57 percent of users could remember that they found a story via search and 67 percent recalled accessing stories from social sources — with 70 percent of those who found a story on Facebook recalling their path and 60 percent for Twitter.
“The finding that people are more likely to remember the platform where they found the content (e.g. Facebook), rather than the news brand that created the content, will be troubling for many publishers,”
“Some weaker brands may be forced to re-evaluate the use of these platforms for marketing — or click-through — and develop alternative approaches. Others may be reassured that their strong brands do already cut through in a distributed world, giving greater confidence in future negotiations with platforms around existing and new models.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Paula Dwyer / Bloomberg:
Some economists say US tech giants are becoming harmful monopolies, need to be broken up; regulators need to consider alternatives to classic antitrust theory
Should America’s Tech Giants Be Broken Up?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-20/should-america-s-tech-giants-be-broken-up
Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook may be contributing to the U.S. economy’s most persistent ailments.
As a former tour manager for Bob Dylan and The Band, Jonathan Taplin isn’t your typical academic. Lately, though, he’s been busy writing somber tomes about market shares, monopolies, and online platforms. His conclusion: Amazon.com, Facebook, and Google have become too big and too powerful and, if not stopped, may need to be broken up.
He has a point, judging by market-research figures. Alphabet Inc.’s Google gets about 77 percent of U.S. search advertising revenue. Google and Facebook Inc. together control about 56 percent of the mobile ad market. Amazon takes about 70 percent of all e-book sales and 30 percent of all U.S. e-commerce. Taplin pegs Facebook’s share of mobile social media traffic, including the company’s WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram units, at 75 percent.
Economists have noticed these monopoly-size numbers and drawn even bigger conclusions: They see market concentration as the culprit behind some of the U.S. economy’s most persistent ailments—the decline of workers’ share of national income, the rise of inequality, the decrease in business startups, the dearth of job creation, and the fall in research and development spending.
Can Big Tech really be behind all that? Economists are starting to provide the evidence.
A recent paper he co-wrote argues that prestigious technology brands, using the internet’s global reach, are able to push out rivals and become winner-take-all “superstar” companies. They’re highly profitable, and their lucky employees generally earn higher salaries to boot.
They don’t engage in the predatory behavior of yore, such as selling goods below the cost of production to steal market share and cripple competitors. After all, the services that Facebook and Google offer are free (if you don’t consider giving up your personal data and privacy rights to be a cost). However, academics have documented how these companies employ far fewer people than the largest companies of decades past while taking a disproportionate share of national profits.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Deeply reported features provide technology insight for engineers
Posted Jul 20, 2017 at 6:44 pm
https://www.eeweb.com/blog/victor_gao/deeply-reported-features-provide-technology-insight-for-engineers
At AspenCore (owner of EEWeb), we believe that good technical journalism is vital to technological progress, and rather than degrading journalism to fit an online strategy of ever more clicks and page views, our first and preeminent concern is to present the best technical data, tools, and reporting to you, in the most succinct language possible, whenever and wherever you look for insight.
According to AspenCore’s Mind of the Engineer, the largest, longest-running, and most trusted behavioral study of its kind, the number-one concern for engineers worldwide is that they struggle to keep up with technology change. When asked how they coped, they unanimously answered that they turned to industry media publications, such as Electronic Products, to read and self-train.
Which brings me to why, at AspenCore (owner of EEWeb), we believe that good technical journalism is vital to technological progress, and rather than degrading journalism to fit an online strategy of ever more clicks and page views, our first and preeminent concern is to present the best technical data, tools, and reporting to you, in the most succinct language possible, whenever and wherever you look for insight.
In addition to EE Times and EDN, you can find these articles on other AspenCore sites, such as here on EEWeb, Electronic Products, Planet Analog or EBN, among others.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Daniel Funke / Poynter:
Fact-checking website Snopes publishes an appeal for donations to help it avoid shutting down, amid its legal dispute with digital services company Proper Media — It seems that the ongoing legal battle between Snopes and one of its former contractors is beginning to take a toll.
Snopes turns to readers to avoid shutting down: ‘we need your help’
http://www.poynter.org/2017/snopes-turns-to-readers-to-avoid-shutting-down-we-need-your-help2/467956/
It seems that the ongoing legal battle between Snopes and one of its former contractors is beginning to take a toll.
The popular debunking site published a plea to its readers Monday requesting they donate money to help keep its doors open amid a legal fight against Proper Media, a small digital services company that owns, operates and represents web properties.
Snopes’ parent company, Bardav, Inc. and Proper Media both filed complaints against each other earlier this summer following the contentious termination of a contract between the two.
“Dear readers,” begins the plea. “Snopes.com, which began as a small one-person effort in 1994 and has since become one of the Internet’s oldest and most popular fact-checking sites, is in danger of closing its doors. So, for the first time in our history, we are turning to you, our readership, for help.”
The call for support is the latest development in a back-and-forth that goes back to fall 2015, when Bardav entered into a deal with Proper Media to manage Snopes’ content and advertising accounts in exchange for a share of the site’s revenue. However, Bardav terminated that contract in spring 2017 because “it was highly disadvantageous to us,” Mikkelson previously told Poynter in an email.
Now, Snopes alleges Proper Media is holding its website hostage.
“Although we maintain editorial control (for now), the vendor will not relinquish the site’s hosting to our control, so we cannot modify the site, develop it, or — most crucially — place advertising on it,”
In its complaint, Proper Media alleges that it still has a valid agreement with Bardav and that the company breached the contract by terminating it. Bardav claims in its cross-complaint that Proper Media “failed to perform its contractual and legal obligations”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Maya Kosoff / Vanity Fair:
Stricter standards for verifying users like Louise Mensch may help Twitter solve its fake news problem
Fixing Twitter’s Louise Mensch Problem
How do you stop fake news on Twitter? Start by not endorsing the people who spread it
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/twitter-verification-problem
Twitter has likely never seen itself as a more important part of the public dialogue than right now. Donald Trump, the president of the United States of America, uses the service most mornings to broadcast semi-coherent thoughts on everything from Republicans’ botched health-care bill to Mika Brzezinski’s face. Instead of F.D.R.’s fireside chats or Barack Obama’s regular press conferences, we’ve got Trump bleating nonsense at us through our phones at all hours of the day in sporadic, 140-character bursts.
While Mensch has occasionally broken real news, the tweet about Bannon was obviously somewhat unhinged. It also instantly raised questions about Twitter’s verification process: by establishing Mensch as an authority with her 264,000 followers, is the platform also facilitating the spread of misinformation?
Twitter, which has historically been quick to verify accounts belonging to journalists and public figures, officially describes the blue checkmark as nothing more than a symbol that an account is authentic—meaning that it belongs to the person they claim to be and not an imposter. In reality, it means much more: once invite-only, now anyone can apply to become verified. The blue checkmark reads as a status symbol, and creates a sense of legitimacy. You may be more likely to trust a verified account simply because it’s been “verified,” even though the designation signifies nothing more than an account belonging to a person “of public interest.”
According to Twitter, “a verified badge does not imply an endorsement,” but the service has not been particularly forthcoming in explaining who it does and does not decide to verify; Julian Assange tried in vain to get verified earlier this year, despite being one of the most public figures in the world. The only way to have your verification removed, it would seem, is by changing your username or having Twitter intervene personally.
Still, there is more the company could do—starting with re-evaluating its criteria for verification. One of the easiest ways to fight misinformation might be to withhold the sheen of legitimacy from people who have a history of spreading falsehoods to large audiences on the platform.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sunlight Foundation:
Sunlight Foundation report concludes that Trump administration is “secretive”, “allergic to transparency”, and “ethically compromised”
On Trump, transparency and democracy
https://sunlightfoundation.com/2017/07/20/trump-administration-open-government-record/
Over the first six months of this young presidency, President Donald J. Trump’s approach to the office has been characterized by self-interest, defiance of basic democratic norms, and often incoherent or self-contradictory communications and priorities.
In the face of historic lows in public trust in government and an increasingly polarized electorate, we’ve seen a regression to secrecy in both Congress and the White House. The change has not gone unnoticed around the globe, as our nation’s standing to defend democracy and our government’s ability to advocate for anti-corruption efforts has been precipitously eroded.
Our conclusion on the Trump administration’s record on open government at six months is inescapable: this is a secretive administration, allergic to transparency, ethically compromised, and hostile to the essential role that journalism plays in a democracy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Julia Fioretti / Reuters:
EU sets July 20 date for new proposals from Facebook, Google, Twitter to bring their user terms into compliance, after deeming earlier proposals insufficient
EU increases pressure on Facebook, Google and Twitter over user terms
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-socialmedia-eu-consumers-idUSKBN1A92D4
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union authorities have increased pressure on Facebook, Google and Twitter to amend their user terms to bring them in line with EU law after proposals submitted by the tech giants were considered insufficient.
The authorities’ concerns center mainly on procedures the social media companies proposed to set up for the removal of illegal content on their websites, terms limiting their liability and terms allowing them unilaterally to remove content posted by users.
U.S. technology companies have faced tight scrutiny in Europe for the way they do business, from privacy issues to how quickly they remove illegal or threatening content.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed:
Companies are increasingly paying Facebook to promote positive press, steering ad dollars away from publishers
Paying To Promote News Stories On Facebook Is The Ad World’s Favorite New Tactic
https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/media-companies-lose-out-again-as-advertisers-promote-their?utm_term=.wmWYKAR3D2#.pvwqZBa3A8
Ad dollars once earmarked for publishers are now being used to promote favorable news coverage on Facebook.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Four Scientific Journals Accept Fake Study About “Midi-Chlorians” From Star War
http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/four-scientific-journals-accept-fake-study-about-midichlorians-from-star-wars/
The peer-review system is a process used to weed out weak scientific research using independent peers to check whether the study is legit, credible, and of decent quality. But recent years have seen a rise in so-called “predatory journals”, where it’s significantly easier to get past the reviewing process and have research quickly published (often for a small price, of course).
To highlight the flaws of “predatory journals”, a blogging neuroscientist writing under the alias Neuroskeptic managed to trick multiple scientific journals into publishing a nonsensical piece of research, dotted with massive factual errors, plagiarism, and Star Wars references.