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:
8chan Owner Jim Watkins Deflects Blame As Scrutiny Of Extremist-Linked Message Board Increases
https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2019/08/07/8chan-owner-jim-watkins-deflects-blame-as-scrutiny-of-extremist-linked-message-board-increases/?utm_source=FACEBOOK&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie/#676f7264696
Topline: Jim Watkins, the owner of extremist message board 8chan, has defended the site after increased scrutiny following the shooting in El Paso, Texas, and days after the site’s founder, Fredrick Brennan, called for the platform to be shut down.
Key background: 8chan has been a breeding ground for far-right extremism and has been recently linked to the Poway, California, synagogue shooting in April and the Christchurch mosque killings in New Zealand in March.
Experts and critics have warned that kicking 8chan offline will push it deeper underground. The controversy has also put a spotlight on the internet infrastructure companies hosting websites that share extremist content.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Banning 8chan Was So Hard for Cloudflare: ‘No One Should Have That Power’
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/technology/8chan-cloudflare-el-paso.html
Matthew Prince, Cloudflare’s chief executive. “It’s dangerous for infrastructure companies to be making what are editorial decisions,” he said.
the decision to take 8chan offline, at least temporarily, fell largely to Matthew Prince, the chief executive of the little-known San Francisco company Cloudflare.
Cloudflare’s service protects a large chunk of the internet, and for years, the decade-old company avoided making decisions about which sites deserved protection and which did not.
That changed in 2017, after white nationalists held a violent rally in Charlottesville, Va. After the rally, Mr. Prince was pressured to remove The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi hate site, from Cloudflare’s service.
It was a break from the company’s content-neutral stance, and Mr. Prince expressed reservations about his choice.
as one of several internet executives with control over the web’s most basic infrastructure
in the wake of the El Paso shooting, the calls for him to exercise it by revoking 8chan’s security protections grew louder
Banning 8chan “would make our lives a lot easier,” Mr. Prince said, “but it would make the job of law enforcement and controlling hate groups online harder.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
8chan Forced to Move to Obscure Dark Web Service
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjwe34/8chan-forced-to-move-to-obscure-dark-web-service?utm_source=mbfb
8chan is distributing a copy of its content over a decentralized platform that supporters of the Islamic State also tried to use.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://gizmodo.com/the-white-house-readies-draft-of-executive-order-that-c-1837110097
It appears the Trump administration is drafting an executive order that has the potential to radically change how the content posted on social networks are governed, stripping crucial protections from tech companies and inserting much more government oversight. This is being done under the guise of a popular political talking point claiming that social media networks are censoring conservatives.
Tomi Engdahl says:
”Bloomberg News says that almost one-third of its content is written with the help of robot reporters. The system it uses, known as Cyborg, can pull the essential facts out of routine financial statements and write basic news stories in double-quick time.”
https://www.ft.com/content/9e58989c-b835-11e9-96bd-8e884d3ea203?shareType=nongift
Tomi Engdahl says:
Linux Journal shuts down, because cheapskate Linux users don’t spend monen
https://betanews.com/2019/08/08/linux-journal-dies-again-rip/
Linux users are cheap as hell. Sorry, but it is largely the truth.
many people only choose Linux because it is free — not because they prefer it.
And look, that’s fine. There’s nothing really wrong with being averse to spending money. Quite frankly, not wasting money is a noble trait.
Eventually, when developers can’t pay their bills, that free software you love will disappear.
Sadly, it is not just software that will vanish because of cheap Linux users, but other aspects of the Linux community too — such as magazines. True, magazines across the board are becoming less popular, but unfortunately Linux Journal has abruptly shut down. This is actually the second time the publication has met its demise
Tomi Engdahl says:
Goodbye, Linux Journal
https://opensource.com/article/19/8/goodbye-linux-journal?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Linux Journal’s coverage from 1994 to 2019 highlighted Linux’s rise to an enterprise platform that runs a majority of the world’s servers and services.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reports say White House has drafted an order putting the FCC in charge of monitoring social media
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/09/reports-say-white-house-has-drafted-an-order-putting-the-fcc-in-charge-of-monitoring-social-media/
Tomi Engdahl says:
New York Times:
How YouTube radicalized Brazil, diverting users to conspiracy and far-right channels, elevating Bolsonaro’s party, and possibly creating a public health crisis
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/world/americas/youtube-brazil.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Unfortunately, this seems to require confidence in the provider(s) of the detection tools, in this case DARPA, ie. US military. What will happen when one of these providers decides to falsely declare a video a fake ?
The New Arms Race: Deep Fakes and Their Impact on Information
https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=18390
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ursula Perano / Axios:
WordPress.com owner Automattic says it will buy Tumblr from Verizon, take on ~200 staffers, and keep the porn ban; source says Automattic paid less than $10M — Verizon is set to sell the social network Tumblr to Automattic Inc, the owner of blog site and publishing tool WordPress, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Verizon agrees to sell Tumblr to owner of WordPress
https://www.axios.com/verizon-tumblr-wordpress-automattic-e6645edd-bc73-45c2-9380-9fe8ca34291f.html
Verizon is set to sell the social network Tumblr to Automattic Inc, the owner of online publishing tool WordPress. A source familiar with the deal puts the price-tag “well below” $20 million, while another source puts it below $10 million.
The big picture: Tumblr, while unprofitable, hosts more than 450 million blogs and was once considered a major player in the social media space. The network was acquired by Yahoo for $1.1 billion in 2013
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube lets biggest stars off the hook for breaking rules, moderators say
https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/youtube-lets-biggest-stars-off-the-hook-for-breaking-rules-moderators-say/%3famp=1
If it feels like certain high-profile YouTubers get way more lenience when it comes to content moderation than everyone else does, that’s apparently because they really do, according to a new report.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Yahoo derailed Tumblr
https://mashable.com/2016/06/15/how-yahoo-derailed-tumblr/?europe=true
After Marissa Mayer promised
‘not to screw it up’
The biggest acquisition of Mayer’s tenure as Yahoo CEO, Tumblr was supposed to revive Yahoo by broadening its audience and bolstering its long declining advertising business.
Tumblr launched in 2007 to make it easier for people to write, share and discover blogs about anything. Literally anything.
Tumblr built strong communities, launched Internet memes, led to countless book deals and helped shape the culture, online and offline. It remains an incredibly vibrant network with hundreds of millions of accounts
But the team behind Tumblr was derailed for a year by mass staff departures, internal politics with its parent company, Mayer’s questionable executive appointments and a flawed attempt to integrate Tumblr’s ad sales team with Yahoo
Tomi Engdahl says:
Knight Foundation:
Survey: Americans are “very” (66%) or “somewhat” (26%) concerned that if a large company bought their local news org, the owners’ views would influence coverage
When it comes to local news mergers, bias top concern
https://www.knightfoundation.org/articles/when-it-comes-to-local-news-mergers-bias-top-concern
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
YouTube changes policy: copyright owners will no longer be able to monetize creator videos with very short or unintentional uses of music via its manual tool — YouTube is making a change to its copyright enforcement policies around music used in videos, which may result in an increased number …
YouTube shuts down music companies’ use of manual copyright claims to steal creator revenue
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/16/youtube-shuts-down-music-companies-use-of-manual-copyright-claims-to-steal-creator-revenue/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Czech Play That Gave Us the Word ‘Robot’
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/origin-word-robot-rur/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How New Technology Affects Our Consumption Of Art And Media
https://www.forbes.com/sites/julianvigo/2019/08/14/how-new-technology-affects-our-consumption-of-art-and-media/?utm_source=FBPAGE&utm_medium=social&utm_content=2563098051&utm_campaign=sprinklrForbesMainFB#2157f4076eb2
Despite the growth of AI and machine learning in the fields of insurance and business, the one sector where we are not fully exploring new technology’s possibilities is that of art and media. Sure, the potential of streaming media has been explored to a large degree with the availability of films on Netflix and Amazon, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Other forms of digital art have become more popularized with the internet, especially in the realm of graphic design
In terms of media exposure, the internet has given birth to an entirely new genre of media innovation
Tomi Engdahl says:
WSJ, WaPo, NYT Spread False Internet Law Claims
https://www.cato.org/blog/newspapers-are-spreading-section-230-misinformation
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google “Machine Learning Fairness” Whistleblower Goes Public, says: “burden lifted off of my soul”
https://www.projectveritas.com/2019/08/14/google-machine-learning-fairness-whistleblower-goes-public-says-burden-lifted-off-of-my-soul/
Google Insider Wants More Insiders to Blow Whistle: “people have been waiting for this Google Snowden moment where somebody comes out and explains what everybody already knows to be true”
“I felt that our entire election system was going to be compromised forever, by this company that told the American public that it was not going to do any evil”
Tomi Engdahl says:
China Pays Twitter To Promote ‘Fake News’ Attacks On Hong Kong Protesters
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/08/19/twitter-under-fire-for-running-chinese-ads-attacking-hong-kong-protesters/?utm_source=FACEBOOK&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Bonnie/#626f6e6e696
Twitter has been allowing promoted tweets—essentially targeted ads— to be placed by China’s state media, attacking pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong and blaming those campaigners for the escalating violence and civil unrest.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook And Twitter Say China Is Spreading Disinformation About Hong Kong Protesters
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2019/08/19/facebook-twitter-say-china-is-spreading-disinformation-about-hong-kong-protesters/?utm_source=FACEBOOK&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie/#676f7264696
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hong Kong protests: Twitter and Facebook remove Chinese accounts
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49402222
Twitter and Facebook have taken steps to block what they described as a state-backed Chinese misinformation campaign.
Twitter said it removed 936 accounts it said were being used to “sow political discord in Hong Kong”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bianca Devins: The teenager whose murder was exploited for clicks
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49002486
In the days since, her story has spread across the world – as have the violent images of her death.
Her murder, which played out so publicly, is the latest case to place scrutiny on how social media companies police extreme content.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google says China used YouTube to meddle in Hong Kong protests
https://tcrn.ch/320RxAT
Google has disabled 210 YouTube accounts after it said China used the video platform to sow discord among protesters in Hong Kong.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rick Perry Fell For An Obvious Internet Hoax And Everyone Is Making The Same Horrifying Point
https://www.iflscience.com/technology/rick-perry-fell-for-an-obvious-internet-hoax-and-everyone-is-making-the-same-horrifying-point/
Well, it appears the US’s nuclear arsenal is in the hands of a man who shared the same obvious Instagram hoax your grandpa did, under the supervision of a man who just attempted and failed to buy Greenland.
The message he reposted to his 24,800 followers claimed that Instagram is about to impose a new rule where it can use all your photos, messages, and deleted messages and photos, and make them public.
The post is of course nonsense and appeared on Facebook almost word for word in 2012, when it was also nonsense.
The governor isn’t the only high-profile person to get taken in by the hoax.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Study relates Facebook addiction to snorting cocaine
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/facebook-dopamine-addiction/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Claire Wardle / Scientific American:
Misinformation, spread by exploiting our eagerness to share content without thinking, has created a “new world disorder” that we need to safeguard against
Misinformation Has Created a New World Disorder
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/misinformation-has-created-a-new-world-disorder/
Our willingness to share content without thinking is exploited to spread disinformation
Many types of information disorder exist online, from fabricated videos to impersonated accounts to memes designed to manipulate genuine content.
Automation and microtargeting tactics have made it easier for agents of disinformation to weaponize regular users of the social web to spread harmful messages.
Much research is needed to understand the effects of disinformation and build safeguards against it.
Stress testing technology in the context of the worst moments in history might have illuminated what social scientists and propagandists have long known: that humans are wired to respond to emotional triggers and share misinformation if it reinforces existing beliefs and prejudices. Instead designers of the social platforms fervently believed that connection would drive tolerance and counteract hate. They failed to see how technology would not change who we are fundamentally—it could only map onto existing human characteristics.
Online misinformation has been around since the mid-1990s. But in 2016 several events made it broadly clear that darker forces had emerged: automation, microtargeting and coordination were fueling information campaigns designed to manipulate public opinion at scale.
Trust in institutions is falling because of political and economic upheaval, most notably through ever widening income inequality. The effects of climate change are becoming more pronounced. Global migration trends spark concern that communities will change irrevocably. The rise of automation makes people fear for their jobs and their privacy.
Bad actors who want to deepen existing tensions understand these societal trends, designing content that they hope will so anger or excite targeted users that the audience will become the messenger. The goal is that users will use their own social capital to reinforce and give credibility to that original message.
Most of this content is designed not to persuade people in any particular direction but to cause confusion, to overwhelm and to undermine trust in democratic institutions from the electoral system to journalism.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jordan Peterson: The deepfake artists must be stopped before we no longer know what’s real
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-deep-fake
It’s hard to imagine a technology with more power to disrupt
media companies such as Forbes and Motherboard (a division of Vice) noting that the machine learning technology only required six hours of original audio (that is, actually generated by me) to produce its credible fakes, matching rhythm, stress, sound and prose intonation.
Recently, however, a company called notjordanpeterson.com put an AI engine online that allows anyone to type anything and have it reproduced in my voice. It’s hard to get access to or use the site, at the moment, presumably because it is currently attracting more traffic than its servers can handle.
It’s hard to imagine a technology with more power to disrupt. I’m already in the position (as many of you soon will be as well) where anyone can produce a believable audio and perhaps video of me saying absolutely anything they want me to say. How can that possibly be fought? More to the point: how are we going to trust anything electronically mediated in the very near future (say, during the next presidential election)? We’re already concerned, rightly or wrongly, with “fake news” — and that’s only news that has been slanted, arguably, by the bias of the reporter or editor or news organization. What do we do when “fake news” is just as real as “real news”? What do we do when anyone can imitate anyone else, for any reason that suits them?
Tomi Engdahl says:
The new new web
https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/22/the-new-new-web/?tpcc=ECFB2019
How old web technologies are being replaced by scalable and simpler new technology stacks
Programming like the pro that
Over the last five years, almost everything about web development has changed. Oh, the old tech still works, your WordPress and Ruby On Rails sites still function just fine — but they’re increasingly being supplanted by radical new approaches. The contents of your browser are being sliced, diced, rendered, and processed in wholly new ways nowadays, and the state of art is currently in serious flux.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Trump’s Tweets Cost Investors Over $500 Billion
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2019/08/24/unpacking-trumps-tweets-about-the-fed-and-china/?utm_source=FACEBOOK&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Valerie/#76616c657269
USA and China trade war.
In the course of 2 minutes on Friday President Trump unleashed 6 tweets about Fed Chairman Powell’s speech at the central bank’s Jackson Hole annual economic policy symposium and China announcing that it would impose 5% to 10% tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. exports to China. The stock market reacted immediately and intensely negatively to Trump’s first set of tweets sending the Dow Jones 30 Industrials down about 400 points in 15 minutes and 500 points within an hour.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Megan Greenwell / Deadspin:
On her last day, Deadspin EIC Megan Greenwell describes the tragedy of digital media, where execs know less about making money than do ignored employees
https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/the-adults-in-the-room-1837487584
There is a version of the story of this company in which idealistic journalists, unconcerned with profit, are posed against ruthless business-doers, concerned about profit above all else. That would be a convenient story, pitching me and my colleagues and friends as people who just care too much about The Truth to yield before the gale-force winds of Capitalism, but it wouldn’t be a true one.
The real and less romantic story is this: The journalists at Deadspin and its sister sites, like most journalists I know, are eager to do work that makes money; we are even willing to compromise for it, knowing that our jobs and futures rest on it. An ever-growing number of media owners, meanwhile, are so exceedingly unwilling to reckon with the particulars of their own business that they refuse to accept our eagerness to help them make money. They’re speaking a language no one else does, proud of their own inability not just to not fail, but to not understand the terms on which they’re failing. The tragedy of digital media isn’t that it’s run by ruthless, profiteering guys in ill-fitting suits; it’s that the people posing as the experts know less about how to make money than their employees, to whom they won’t listen.
“It’s still a killer business,”
The question I hear the most about the owners of this company is “Why did they buy a bunch of publications they seem to hate?”
Tomi Engdahl says:
While Amazon is burning, people are distributing old and unrelated photos of Amazon, or other forests, saying or implying they are of the current fires. Some photos are from 1980s, or from United States or Ecuador. (And on unrelated note, many also claim there is absolutely no media coverage of the fires.) This phenomenon happens with major world events .
Many of Those Viral Amazon Rainforest Fire Photos Are Outdated or Unrelated
https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/08/23/viral-amazon-fire-photos/
Is it raining in the Amazon? Is the rainforest on fire? Sometimes viral photographs don’t tell an accurate story.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Everything They Say About The Amazon, Including That It’s The “Lungs Of The World,” Is Wrong
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/08/26/why-everything-they-say-about-the-amazon-including-that-its-the-lungs-of-the-world-is-wrong/?utm_source=FACEBOOK&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Valerie/#76616c657269
The increase in fires burning in Brazil set off a storm of international outrage last week. Celebrities, environmentalists, and political leaders blame Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, for destroying the world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon, which they say is the “lungs of the world.”
And yet the photos weren’t actually of the fires and many weren’t even of the Amazon.
I was curious to hear what one of the world’s leading Amazon forest experts, Dan Nepstad, had to say about the “lungs” claim.
“It’s bullshit,” he said. “There’s no science behind that. The Amazon produces a lot of oxygen but it uses the same amount of oxygen through respiration so it’s a wash.”
Plants use respiration to convert nutrients from the soil into energy. They use photosynthesis to convert light into chemical energy, which can later be used in respiration.
“The Amazon produces a lot of
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook will start hiding spam public posts from users sharing ‘vast amounts per day’
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/facebook-hiding-spam-public-posts-users-news-feed-informative-a7818071.html
Facebook is due to start hiding posts from people who spam users’ news feed with clickbait, sensationalised and misinformative articles.
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube begins to label videos by publishers with government or public funding
https://tcrn.ch/322IeAH
Days after Googlesaid YouTube was used in a coordinated effort to spread misinformation about protesters in Hong Kong, the platform has begun labeling videos uploaded by media organizations that receive government or public funding.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Those who succeed in business, politics, sports and even science are winners because they know how to turn themselves into a brand.
Self-Marketing Geniuses: The Wisdom Of Albert Einstein And Stephen Hawking
http://on.forbes.com/6183E42u3
Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking were both brilliant physicists, and they were also self-marketing geniuses. In today’s world, via the media and internet, people are bombarded with more information than ever before. No matter the field, anyone who wants to be successful needs to draw attention to themselves—to build a personal brand. It’s not enough to be great at something and simply hope that people will hear about it. It takes hard work.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hamilton Nolan / Splinter:
Journalists should not claim it’s unfair to publish their tweets, even if done in bad faith, as they are not qualitatively different from the average person
Media
Journalismism
Journalism Is an Action
https://splinternews.com/journalism-is-an-action-1837575893
Many journalists are very indignant that Trump allies are reportedly combing through social media to identify embarrassing things they may have posted long ago that can be used to discredit them. In this case, I’m afraid, the outrage seems to be missing the point.
What exactly is happening here? According to the New York Times, a “loose network of conservative operatives allied with the White House” has “compiled dossiers of potentially embarrassing social media posts and other public statements” by lots of people who work at major media outlets. They plan to release these tidbits at politically advantageous times in order to discredit the employees and the media outlets themselves.
There is a name for this that political reporters are all familiar with: opposition research.
But there is another name for this that is also accurate: media reporting.
Twitter is public. Journalists, who work in the publishing business, can hardly claim that it is unfair to publish things that they published. “Laughing at bad tweets by New York Times reporters” is a time-honored and, I would say, honorable activity. There is little meaningful difference between what this shadowy group of “conservative operatives” is doing and what media reporters at Gawker or the New York Observer did for many years, save for the motivation.
The media reporters were mostly motivated by laughs and kicks and a belief in editorial transparency, whereas the conservatives are motivated by, you know
So what is really at the heart of the respectable media’s panicked and outraged reaction to the news that right wingers are searching their social media for things to troll them with? Well, clearly the right wingers can be expected to weaponize this information in bad faith—rather than saying “ha, look at this dumbass bad tweet,” they will be saying “The New York Times is not a credible news outlet because someone on its staff made this bad tweet, and therefore you should disregard that huge feature on Trump’s tax evasion and whatnot.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Alison Bevege / Reuters:
Australia will block access to internet domains hosting terrorist material during crisis events; sites to be censored will be determined on a case-by-case basis
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-security-internet/australia-to-block-internet-domains-hosting-extremist-content-during-terror-attacks-idUSKCN1VF05G
Tomi Engdahl says:
US border officials are increasingly denying entry to travelers over others’ social media
https://tcrn.ch/2zuIvzT
Travelers are increasingly being denied entry to the United States as border officials hold them accountable for messages, images and video on their devices sent by other people.
It’s a bizarre set of circumstances that has seen countless number of foreign nationals rejected from the U.S. after friends, family or even strangers send messages, images or videos over social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp, which are then downloaded to the traveler’s phone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
YouTube to reduce conspiracy theory recommendations in the UK
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/28/youtube-to-reduce-conspiracy-theory-recommendations-in-the-uk/?tpcc=ECFB2019
YouTube is expanding an experimental tweak to its recommendation engine that’s intended to reduce the amplification of conspiracy theories to the UK market.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fake News Can Lead to False Memories
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/fake-news-can-lead-to-false-memories.html
Voters may form false memories after seeing fabricated news stories, especially if those stories align with their political beliefs, according to research in Psychological Science.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Who Needs Censorship Resistance? Not Most Of Us
https://www.forbes.com/sites/yayafanusie/2019/08/28/who-needs-censorship-resistance-not-most-of-us/?utm_source=FACEBOOK&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Jennie/#6a656e6e696
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook Cracks Down On U.S. Political Advertisers Ahead of 2020 Election
http://on.forbes.com/6183EfViU
Tomi Engdahl says:
RationalWiki: A Troll’s Pseudoscience Project?
https://www.winterwatch.net/2018/02/rationalwiki-a-lonely-trolls-pseudoscience-project/
folks at Winter Watch have noticed the presence of a slick-sounding website named RationalWiki.org positioned near the top of the first results page when searching truther topics on Google.
The site most resembles Salon, another moronic, one-trick-pony publication [see “Salon Magazine: Church of Political Correctness About Everything“].
Trent Toulouse started RationalWiki.org in 2007, perhaps as part of class project toward his graduate degree in psychology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BangBros Acquires, Shuts Down PornWikiLeaks Site
https://avn.com/business/articles/technology/bangbros-acquires-shuts-down-pornwikileaks-site-845158.html
BangBros has acquired PornWikiLeaks.com—which has become notorious for posting personal information about adult performers and their families—with the sole purpose of shutting it down
Tomi Engdahl says:
Faking It: Why Deepfakes Pose Specific Challenges Under Copyright & Privacy Laws
https://abovethelaw.com/2019/07/faking-it-why-deepfakes-pose-specific-challenges-under-copyright-privacy-laws/
Whether we like it or not, deepfakes are here to stay, and will need to be handled in more solid ways than through the existing copyright framework or patchwork of state laws
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Influencer Posts Her Outtakes to Show that Instagram Isn’t Reality
https://petapixel.com/2019/08/21/this-influencer-posts-her-outtakes-to-show-that-instagram-isnt-reality/
On occasion, Meijer posts a series of “reality check” images that put outtakes right next to glamour shots, revealing how social media and reality aren’t one and the same.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s Twitter account was hacked to send out racist tweets with the n-word and phrases like ‘Hitler is innocent’
https://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-account-hacked-n-word-hitler-innocent-2019-8
“The hacked tweets were apparently sent using an SMS messaging service called Cloudhopper. Twitter acquired Cloudhopper in 2010 but the service is no longer available to the public. However, Dorsey apparently used a version of the service earlier this year, though most of his tweets are sent from an iPhone.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet of Hate
https://slate.com/technology/2017/08/the-alt-right-wants-to-build-its-own-internet.html
After Charlottesville, Nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right have become a lot less welcome on the web. So they’re building their own.
The internet’s gatekeepers are now kicking out whole organizations.
Gab, and a growing number of its compatriots in the “alt-tech” movement, want to build their own internet, one that can be a haven for hate.
If the alt-right wants to escape the web that the rest of us live on, the platforms of the alt-tech movement that Gab has ignited will, for one, need to find domain name registries that will work with them. But already major companies like GoDaddy and Namecheap have decided to refuse service to sites like the Daily Stormer—a change from these companies’ long-running stance of generally not interfering with what customers decide to run on their websites.
Alt-right sites have other, more underground options, like using an unnamed, raw numerical address, or trying to find sympathetic managers of top-level domains outside the U.S., or going to the dark web
Utsav Sanduja, the chief operating officer of Gab, described the “Free Speech Tech Alliance” to me as “a group of 100 engineers plus from Silicon Valley who are working with us behind the scenes to create an alternative infrastructure.” The movement’s goal is to own its own servers and run its own web hosting, domain registrar, DDoS protection software, cloud storage services, and encryption technology, not to mention social networks like Gab and other “free-speech”–centric alternatives, like a YouTube replacement called PewTube.
Browsing Gab itself reveals a constant daily stream of posts from self-identified engineers asking how they can get involved.
The easiest way to describe Gab is as Facebook but with more racism.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shutting anyone or any group out of the internet is a very bad and worrisome trend. Today they shut down people you despise and stop their voices from being found on the very internet that gave communication and information to all.
Tomorrow they may shut down you or groups we like. This is wrong. It will not end well.