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.
2,357 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Confessions of a Social Constructionist
https://quillette.com/2019/09/17/i-basically-just-made-it-up-confessions-of-a-social-constructionist/
When the American Historical Association surveyed the trends among major fields of specialization in 2007, and then again in 2015, the single largest field was women’s and gender history. This was right up there with social history, cultural history, and the history of race and sexuality. Each of these fields shared the same worldview as I did—that just about every identity was a social construction. And, that identity was all about power.
Back then, quite a few people disagreed with me. Almost nobody who hadn’t been exposed to such theories at a university could bring themselves to believe that sex was wholly a social construct, because such beliefs went against common sense. That’s what makes it so amazing that the cultural turnaround on this issue has happened so quickly. Reasonable people might readily admit that some—and maybe a lot—of gender identity is socially constructed, but did this really mean that sex doesn’t matter at all? Was gender solely based on culture? Yes, I would insist. And then I would insist some more. There’s nothing so certain as a graduate student armed with precious little life experience and a big idea.
And now my big idea is everywhere. It shows up especially in the talking points about trans rights, and policy regarding trans athletes in sports. It is being written into laws that essentially threaten repercussions for anyone who suggests that sex might be a biological reality. Such a statement, for many activists, is tantamount to hate speech. If you take the position that many of my ’90s-era debating opponents took—that gender is at least partly based on sex, and that there really are two sexes (male and female), as biologists have known since the dawn of their science—uber-progressives will claim you are denying a trans person’s identity, which is to say, wishing ontological harm upon another human being.
The problem is: I was wrong. Or, to be a bit more accurate, I got things partly right. But then, for the rest, I basically just made it up.
In my defence, I wasn’t alone. Everyone was (and is) making it up. That’s how the gender-studies field works. But it’s not much of a defence.
My methodology worked like this: First, I would point out that, as a historian, I knew that there was a great deal of cultural and historical variability. Gender had not always been defined in the same way at all times and in all places.
Second, I would argue that whenever you came across someone saying that something was masculine or something was feminine, it was never just about gender. It was always, simultaneously, about power. And power was, and remains, a kind of magical word in academia—especially to a graduate student first reading Michel Foucault.
And then, thirdly, I went looking for some explanation in the historical context that showed, at a particular historical moment, why people in the past talked about something as either masculine or feminine. History is a big place. And so there was always something to find. I wrote about the years after the Second World War, so you could always say that people were anxious about a return to normalcy after the war. Women had served in the military and had worked in “men’s” jobs. So the focus on gender distinctions was about getting women back into the home after their work during the war. It was all about control and oppression.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tuukka Tervosen kolumni: Elämme hevonpaskan aikakautta
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11079762
Hevonpaskaa valuu korviimme ja silmiimme jokaisesta mahdollisesta mediasta ja mikä pahinta, me tykkäämme siitä, kirjoittaa Tuukka Tervonen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tuukka Tervosen kolumni: Elämme hevonpaskan aikakautta
Hevonpaskaa valuu korviimme ja silmiimme jokaisesta mahdollisesta mediasta ja mikä pahinta, me tykkäämme siitä, kirjoittaa Tuukka Tervonen.
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11079762
Tomi Engdahl says:
Valheenpaljastaja: Mitä valeuutiset ovat ja mitä ne eivät ole
https://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2017/01/26/valheenpaljastaja-mita-valeuutiset-ovat-ja-mita-ne-eivat-ole
Kahdeksan keinoa tunnistaa valeuutinen
https://www.helmet.fi/fi-FI/Tapahtumat_ja_vinkit/Vinkit/Kahdeksan_keinoa_tunnistaa_valeuutinen(127227)
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Case Against WikiLeaks: a direct threat to our community
How to understand this historic challenge and what we can do to defend ourselves
https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-11090-the_case_against_wikileaks_a_direct_threat_to_our_community
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google has little choice to be evil or not in today’s fractured internet
https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/02/google-has-little-choice-to-be-evil-or-not-in-todays-fractured-internet/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Disinformaatio ja valemedia: lähteet ja lukemisto
https://www.koulukino.fi/disinformaatio-vihapuhe-ja-mediakasvatuksen-keinot-tyokaluja-teemojen-kasittelyyn/disinformaatio-ja-valemedia-lahteet-ja-lukemisto
Tomi Engdahl says:
Turning fake news against itself: AI tool can detect disinformation with 92% accuracy
https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/turning-fake-news-against-itself-ai-tool-can-detect-disinformation-with-92-accuracy/
Fake news is already a massive problem worldwide and with continuing improvements in content generation tools powered by artificial intelligence we are not far from the era of neural fake news i.e., fake news generated by AI. That would make it an even more formidable challenge for publishers.
Currently, bots are being used to spread fake news, advanced AI models that are capable of consistently generating convincing pieces of disinformation are not yet available.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NewsBot AI: An AI for detecting fake news
https://www.unslanted.net/newsbot/
Full Pipeline Project: Python AI for detecting fake news
https://towardsdatascience.com/full-pipeline-project-python-ai-for-detecting-fake-news-with-nlp-bbb1eec4936d
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kontrolloi sanoja, kontrolloi kulttuuria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-58HoTHWQk
Tomi Engdahl says:
Analyysi: Tervetuloa 2020-luvulle! Olemme siirtymässä postnormaaliin aikaan, jossa tulevaisuus on erilainen mutta voi olla parempi
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11139608
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fox News hits highest viewership in network’s 23-year history
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/476220-fox-news-hits-record-high-viewership-in-networks-23-year-history
Tomi Engdahl says:
15 PHOTOS THAT PROVE THAT EVERYTHING ON INSTAGRAM IS A LIE
https://inspiredot.net/entertainment/585-15-photos-that-prove-that-everything-on-instagram-is-a-lie/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/20-internet-giants-rule-web/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cody Toombs / Android Police:
Google is ending its print-replica magazine service, launched in 2012 as the Play Magazines app, and is refunding payments to users
Google News is killing off digital magazines, refunds all active subscriptions
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/01/03/google-news-killing-digital-magazines-refunds-subscriptions/
The venerable Egon Spangler once said, “print is dead.” The statement may have been premature, but today it feels a little more on point because Google has begun the process of retiring its print-replica magazine service. Emails are going out to Google News users with active subscriptions to inform them that full refunds are being processed and there will be no new issues coming.
If you have an outstanding subscription, the full amount will be refunded to you somewhere during the next month or so, depending on payment method. Even though your collection of issues won’t be growing any larger, that don’t mean you’ll lose access to those you’ve already purchased.
The email suggests re-subscribing with each magazine independently and links to the websites for each of your active subscriptions. Of course, not all magazines are available in digital-only subscriptions, or even necessarily with a digital offering of any kind outside of the collaborations with online stores like the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
This brings to an end a fairly tumultuous history for magazine content that began in 2012 with the launch of the Play Magazines app. Google later renamed it to Play Newsstand to give more focus to newspapers, and eventually merged everything (including the News and Weather app) into Google News. To be fair, most of us expected this after the magazine section disappeared from the Play Store web interface just over a year ago.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amy He / eMarketer:
eMarketer: in 2019, Instagram’s US user growth rate dropped to single digits for the first time to 6.7%, down from 10.1% in 2018, a trend likely to continue
Instagram User Growth in the US Will Drop to Single Digits For the First Time
https://www.emarketer.com/content/instagram-user-growth-in-the-us-will-drop-to-single-digits-for-the-first-time
Tomi Engdahl says:
Allison Schiff / AdExchanger:
Walmart launches a self-serve ad platform to let advertisers buy on-site search and sponsored product ads on Walmart.com
https://www.adexchanger.com/search-2/walmart-launches-self-serve-ad-platform-but-retail-and-audience-data-isnt-available-yet/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Online hate speech could be contained like a computer virus, say researchers
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/online-hate-speech-could-be-contained-like-a-computer-virus-say-researchers
Artificial intelligence is being developed that will allow advisory ‘quarantining’ of hate speech in a manner akin to malware filters – offering users a way to control exposure to ‘hateful content’ without resorting to censorship.
The spread of hate speech via social media could be tackled using the same ‘quarantine’ approach deployed to combat malicious software, according to University of Cambridge researchers.
Definitions of hate speech vary depending on nation, law and platform, and just blocking keywords is ineffectual: graphic descriptions of violence need not contain obvious ethnic slurs to constitute racist death threats, for example
This approach is akin to spam and malware filters, and researchers from the ‘Giving Voice to Digital Democracies’ project believe it could dramatically reduce the amount of hate speech people are forced to experience. They are aiming to have a prototype ready in early 2020.
“Hate speech is a form of intentional online harm, like malware, and can therefore be handled by means of quarantining,” said co-author and linguist Dr Stefanie Ullman. “In fact, a lot of hate speech is actually generated by software such as Twitter bots.”
Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told a UK audience that hate speech posed a “threat to democracies”, in the wake of many women MPs citing online abuse as part of the reason they will no longer stand for election.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This Is How Google Will Collapse
Reporting on Google’s future with today’s facts
https://medium.com/forwardtick/how-google-collapsed-b6ffa82198ee
Tomi Engdahl says:
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
YouTube officially rolls out changes to children’s content on its main site following FTC settlement and also begins running promotions for YouTube Kids — ‘These changes will have significant impact’ — YouTube executives have warned creators over the last few months that changes …
YouTube officially rolls out changes to children’s content following FTC settlement
‘These changes will have significant impact’
https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/6/21051465/youtube-coppa-children-content-gaming-toys-monetization-ads
YouTube executives have warned creators over the last few months that changes are coming to the platform to comply with a federal children’s privacy law. Today, those changes enter full effect: targeted ads will now be restricted from running on kids’ videos, and kids’ videos will lose access to comments and some other community features. YouTube has said kid-focused channels will see “a significant business impact” due to reduced ad revenue.
YouTube told creators back in September that they’ll soon be required to “designate their content as made for kids or not made for kids.” The changes come as part of a $170 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over alleged violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Anyone watching a video that’s been designated as made for children will now be seen as a viewer under the age of 13 years old, regardless of how old the user actually is. Targeted advertising won’t be run on videos designated as children’s content, and certain features including being able to send push notifications will be disabled.
“Many creators around the world have created quality kids content for their audiences, and these changes will have significant impact,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Finland’s fake four-day week became a ‘fact’ in Europe’s media
https://newsnowfinland.fi/politics/how-finlands-fake-four-day-week-became-a-fact-in-europes-media
We take a look at how media outlets in the UK – and in Europe, Asia, Australia and USA – were all caught out by a Finland story that was just too good to be true. Because it wasn’t.
So how did this fake news story begin, and how did the misinformation spread so quickly?
At one point during the discussion Sanna Marin floated the idea that Finland’s productivity could benefit from either a four-day working week, or a six-hour working day (she never suggested both).
Marin also tweeted about it at the time, noting plainly that it was an SDP party goal to reduce working hours – but to be clear, again, this was never official government policy.
The comment got some modest media attention in Finland but the news cycle soon moved on.
Four months after the Turku event, on 16th December 2019, Austrian news outlet Kontrast picked up the story.
Journalist Patricia Huber quoted Marin as saying that day: “A 4-day week and a 6-hour work day. Why shouldn’t that be our next step? Are eight hours really the last truth? I think people deserve to spend more time with their family, loved ones, hobbies and other aspects of their lives – like culture. That could be the next step in our working life.”
It’s the key quote to follow here, and it matches almost exactly to what Finnish media quoted Marin as saying at the time. So in that sense it’s accurate.
How should the government respond to fake news?
This is not the most damaging piece of fake news, but the way it’s been picked up, adapted, and crucially not fact-checked by so many otherwise credible media outlets is worrying in an era where people are quick to spread information without verifying its veracity.
“If the misinformation is harmful then you should really attempt to address it as soon as possible. But always consider that the misinformation is likely to travel faster than the truth, so you are looking more at damage limitation rather than anything more effective” says Fergus Bell, CEO of Fathm, a consultancy for the news industry with a specific focus on countering misinformation in media.
“It is useful to have a communications team that know how to spot stories that might be surfacing – this is going to be the quickest way to put out a correction as quickly as possible” he advises.
“Because of the way misinformation can spread a rebuttal might only fan the flames of the misinformation and give it life. Drawing additional attention to it isn’t going to make it go away any faster.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
About Facebook:
Facebook says it is tightening its policies around misleading manipulated media by banning videos that are either heavily edited or are deep fakes
Enforcing Against Manipulated Media
https://about.fb.com/news/2020/01/enforcing-against-manipulated-media/
People share millions of photos and videos on Facebook every day, creating some of the most compelling and creative visuals on our platform. Some of that content is manipulated, often for benign reasons, like making a video sharper or audio more clear. But there are people who engage in media manipulation in order to mislead.
Manipulations can be made through simple technology like Photoshop or through sophisticated tools that use artificial intelligence or “deep learning” techniques to create videos that distort reality – usually called “deepfakes.” While these videos are still rare on the internet, they present a significant challenge for our industry and society as their use increases.
As a result of these partnerships and discussions, we are strengthening our policy toward misleading manipulated videos that have been identified as deepfakes. Going forward, we will remove misleading manipulated media if it meets the following criteria:
It has been edited or synthesized – beyond adjustments for clarity or quality – in ways that aren’t apparent to an average person and would likely mislead someone into thinking that a subject of the video said words that they did not actually say. And:
It is the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning that merges, replaces or superimposes content onto a video, making it appear to be authentic.
This policy does not extend to content that is parody or satire, or video that has been edited solely to omit or change the order of words.
Consistent with our existing policies, audio, photos or videos, whether a deepfake or not, will be removed from Facebook if they violate any of our other Community Standards including those governing nudity, graphic violence, voter suppression and hate speech.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Former Monty Python star Terry Gilliam slams #MeToo as a witch hunt, complains he’s ‘tired of white men being blamed for everything’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7852267/Terry-Gilliam-slams-MeToo-complains-hes-tired-white-men-blamed-everything.html?ito=facebook_share_article-aboverelatedarticles
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why the world must pay attention to the fight against disinformation and fake news in Taiwan
https://tcrn.ch/37N77TT
On Saturday, Taiwan will hold its presidential election. This year, the outcome is even more important than usual because it will signal in which direction the country’s people want its relationship with China, which claims Taiwan as its territory, to move. Also crucial are efforts against fake news. Taiwan has one of the worst disinformation problems in the world, and how it is handled is an important case study for other countries.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Global Disinformation Order – 2019 Global Inventory of Organised
Social Media Manipulation
https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/93/2019/09/CyberTroop-Report19.pdf
Over the past three years, we have monitored the global organization
of social media manipulation by governments and political parties. Our
2019 report analyses the trends of computational propaganda and the
evolving tools, capacities, strategies, and resources.
Fresh Cambridge Analytica leak shows global manipulation is out of
control
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/04/cambridge-analytica-data-leak-global-election-manipulation
The release of documents began on New Years Day on an anonymous
Twitter account, @HindsightFiles, with links to material on elections
in Malaysia, Kenya and Brazil..
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top Facebook Exec Says Trump’s Ad Strategy Won Him The Election — And Could Do It In 2020
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/01/07/facebook-executive-says-trumps-facebook-ad-strategy-won-him-the-2016-election/?utm_source=FACEBOOK&utm_medium=social&utm_term=Gordie/#676f7264696
Topline: A longtime Facebook executive said in an internal memo released Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s Facebook ad operation—not Russian misinformation—won him the 2016 election and warned employees not to interfere to prevent the president from getting reelected.
Bosworth said that Facebook was responsible for Trump winning in 2016 but it wasn’t due to Facebook’s well-publicized mistakes, which have drawn criticism from Democrats. “So was Facebook responsible for Donald Trump getting elected? I think the answer is yes, but not for the reasons anyone thinks. He didn’t get elected because of Russia or misinformation or Cambridge Analytica. He got elected because he ran the single best digital ad campaign I’ve ever seen from any advertiser. Period,” he wrote.
He went on to say that Facebook employees shouldn’t be tempted to change the company’s advertising rules to prevent Trump from winning again. He doesn’t think Facebook should limit the reach of large publications with content he disagrees with, for example, “as distasteful as their content may be.”
The wide-ranging memo also compares Facebook to sugar, saying it is better in moderation and that the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where Facebook came under fire allowing the data firm to use improperly obtained data for pro-Trump ads, was a “non-event.” “They were snake oil salespeople. The tools they used didn’t work, and the scale they used them at wasn’t meaningful. Every claim they have made about themselves is garbage,” Bosworth said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BuzzFeed News:
A look at the worldwide industry of PR and marketing firms offering disinformation services including fake accounts, false narratives, and pseudo news sites
Disinformation For Hire: How A New Breed Of PR Firms Is Selling Lies Online
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/disinformation-for-hire-black-pr-firms
One firm promised to “use every tool and take every advantage available in order to change reality according to our client’s wishes.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Deepfakes: The Looming Threat Of 2020
Deepfakes have been lurking on the internet for years now. But in 2020 the AI technology will become a powerful weapon for misinformation, fraud, and other crimes.
https://www.designnews.com/artificial-intelligence/deepfakes-looming-threat-2020/109800999062105?ADTRK=InformaMarkets&elq_mid=11716&elq_cid=876648
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook says group used AI-generated faces to push pro-Trump, anti-Chinese government messages
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3043186/facebook-says-group-used-ai-generated-faces-push-pro-trump-anti
Facebook says it has taken down a well-financed campaign that used artificially generated faces to spread pro-Trump and anti-Chinese government messages
Researchers said the first time they had seen the large-scale use of computer-generated faces to spread disinformation on social media
The researchers said in a report that while telltale signs such as misshapen ears and distorted backgrounds had helped them identify the fakes, “this technology is rapidly evolving toward generating more believable pictures.”
Facebook said 610 Facebook accounts, 89 Pages, 156 Groups and 72 Instagram accounts were involved in the network. The social media giant said those behind the operation had spent upwards of US$9 million on advertising to promote their content
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Some Heroes Wear Nothing”
https://slate.com/technology/2020/01/naked-for-australia-campaign-nude-fundraiser-wildfires.html
How online nudes became the most fashionable currency in the fight against the Australian wildfires.
This week, Kaylen Ward came up with an ingenious way to motivate people to donate to Australian wildfire relief: She promised to send nude photos of herself to anyone who could document a $10 contribution to related charities like the Australian Red Cross.
Her plan worked: Within days, she claimed to have raised more than $1 million, though she told the New York Times that she couldn’t verify all the donations because of the high quantity.
calls herself “the Naked Philanthropist” on Twitter, where she now has more than 385,000 followers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 followers
Which tech stack should a microinfluencer use?
https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/10/in-the-future-everyone-will-be-famous-for-15-followers/
Many investors — including me — spend most of our day doing the same things people have always done in our job: in my case, due diligence, deal execution, etc. However, being a “microinfluencer” is now part of the job description.
In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 followers. Traditional celebrities or influencers with millions of followers have a large service industry and tech stack to serve their needs. But the standard toolkit of a microinfluencer is still evolving.
The challenge is that my time and money budget for “influencing”–content creation and marketing– is minimal.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pro-Soleimani messaging immediately floods Twitter following general’s death in drone strike
https://www.cyberscoop.com/soleimani-twitter-revenge-campaign-disinformation/
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Say it again louder for the people in the back: Filters cannot understand context … Content recognition technologies are only capable of matching files and cannot recognise copyright exceptions such as caricature or parody”
https://edri.org/copyright-open-letter-asking-for-transparency-in-implementing-guidelines/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://edri.org/copyright-open-letter-asking-for-transparency-in-implementing-guidelines/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://edri.org/ethical-web-dev/
We’ve finally published our new guide for ethical website development and maintenance, Ethical Web Dev! It’s aimed at web developers and maintainers who have a strong understanding of technical concepts, to assist them in bringing the web back to its roots – a decentralised tool that can enhance fundamental rights, democracy and freedom of expression.
https://edri.org/files/ethical_web_dev_web.pdf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will Advertisers Of The Future Need To Pay Consumers To See Ads?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/charlesrtaylor/2019/04/01/will-advertisers-of-the-future-need-to-pay-consumers-to-see-ads/
A major concern facing digital advertising today is how to balance privacy concerns with sending consumers messages that are relevant to them. On the one hand, most of us prefer to receive ads that hold some interest for us.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cookies crumbling as Google phases them out
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51106526
Google is to restrict the number of advertising cookies on websites accessed via its Chrome browser, in response to calls for greater privacy controls.
It said that it would phase out third-party cookies within the next two years,
Cookies are small text files that are used to track users across the web.
It comes as a study suggests that many cookie consent pop-ups are flouting EU privacy laws.
Cookie consent forms pop up whenever someone visits a website but could their days be numbered?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nathaniel Popper / New York Times:
An analysis of 40 studies finds that the link between social media use and both depression and anxiety among adolescents is small and inconsistent
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/17/technology/kids-smartphones-depression.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yle Uutiset luopuu tekoälystä verkkokeskustelujen moderoijana – “Vain ihmissilmä pystyy hahmottamaan keskustelun sävyjä”
Yle ostaa jatkossa moderointipalvelut STT:ltä
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11158701
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Laws Against Hate Speech Are Dangerous
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15256/hate-speech-laws
There is a tendency, to censor certain viewpoints because they might “offend” others. The problem is, it is not the inoffensive things that need protecting; it is only the offensive things that do…. Freedom of speech exists precisely to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
“[T]he freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.” — US President George Washington, 1783.
Restrictions against “hate speech” often do not really ban hate speech; instead they may actually be protecting certain forms of hate speech against legitimate inquiry.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tässäkö menevät sananvapauden rajat? Yle selvitti, miten viranomaiset ovat kohdelleet vihapuheina ilmiannettuja nettikirjoituksia
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11122379
Eikö mitään saa enää sanoa? Syyttäjän ja poliisin aiemmin julkaisemattomat ratkaisut osoittavat, että saa – paljonkin.
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘I Tried Listening To Podcasts at 3x and Broke My Brain’
https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/01/27/1945258/i-tried-listening-to-podcasts-at-3x-and-broke-my-brain?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Bumping the speed up to 1.5x was initially jarring. People were talking so quickly that I had to stop what I was doing and focus on the audio to keep it from falling into background chatter. After about 20 minutes of this intentional listening, however, it felt like my brain had adjusted.
I bumped up the speed another notch to the 2x barrier. Like the previous jump in speed, the first 15 to 20 minutes required an additional level of focus to get my brain to match the cadence of the conversation.
In our discussion of breaking 2x, Uri Hasson, director of Princeton’s Hasson Lab, brought up one population that handles sped-up speech much better than the rest of us: the visually impaired.
Visually impaired subjects, however, vastly outperformed sighted subjects at speeds past 2x, demonstrating comprehension at rates even approaching 3x.
I crossed the threshold into 3x. It took every ounce of concentration to just register what was being said. After 20 minutes, my brain couldn’t settle into the rhythm of the conversation. I sat there for an hour, with my eyes closed, hoping that my brain would eventually “click” like it did before, but it refused.
I Tried Listening to Podcasts at 3x and Broke My Brain
‘Podfasters’ listen to their favorite pods at 1.5x, even 2x speed. But how fast is too fast?
https://onezero.medium.com/i-tried-listening-to-podcasts-at-3x-and-broke-my-brain-d8823edecb7c
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Finland starts its fight against fake news in primary schools
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/28/fact-from-fiction-finlands-new-lessons-in-combating-fake-news
Country on frontline of information war teaches everyone from school pupils to politicians how to spot slippery information
Tomi Engdahl says:
Deepfake technology will make you question what’s real | CNBC Reports
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKU2EZQvK1c
Tomi Engdahl says:
Use IEEE DataPort to Share Your Research Data Sets
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-institute/ieee-products-services/use-ieee-dataport-to-share-your-research-data-sets
IEEE DataPort made its debut to the public last year, and to date more than 200,000 people have used the Web-based platform, uploading more than 1,000 data sets. Developed and supported by IEEE, the product allows researchers to store, share, access, and manage their research data sets in a single trusted location.
https://ieee-dataport.org/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Danielle Abril / Fortune:
Survey of 12,043 US adults: 59% distrust Facebook for political and election news, including 62% of Republicans and 59% of Democrats, while 48% distrust Twitter — Facebook and Twitter are a long way from instilling confidence after letting misinformation flood their services during recent elections, according to a new survey.
Facebook and Twitter are least trusted in social media for political news
https://fortune.com/2020/01/29/facebook-twitter-political-news-pew/
Facebook and Twitter are a long way from instilling confidence after letting misinformation flood their services during recent elections, according to a new survey. Most Americans still don’t trust social media as a source of political news.
The findings come as social media companies struggle to control misinformation, spam, and propaganda on their sites. They’ve also been scrutinized for allowing Russians to disseminate political propaganda during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Additionally, the social media has taken a scattershot approach to policing political ads that include false information. Facebook, most notably, has taken the controversial position that politicians can lie all they want in ads.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
YouTube shows how it’s cracking down on election disinformation: removing doctored and misleading videos, as well as those questioning a candidate’s eligibility — Just in time for the Iowa caucuses, YouTube this morning clarified how it’s cracking down on videos spreading falsehoods related to elections …
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-technology-202/2020/02/03/the-technology-202-youtube-explains-how-it-will-moderate-political-falsehoods-just-in-time-for-iowa/5e370f6888e0fa7f82542786/
Tomi Engdahl says:
People will not trust unkind science
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00269-0?utm_source=fbk_nnc&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=naturenews&utm_medium=social&utm_content=organic&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=NatureNews_&sf229548078=1
A mean and aggressive research working culture threatens the public’s respect for scientists and their expertise, says Gail Cardew.
Earlier this month, a survey from Wellcome in London confirmed that unkindness, and worse, is pervasive in science (see go.nature.com/2sanh3i). Academic leaders expressed alarm — both for the health of young researchers and for how such pressure could erode the quality of science. I think there is more to worry about.
What hope is there for those in science to build a trusting and respectful relationship with the public when so many scientists are schooled in a culture lacking these qualities?
The need for trust and respect is particularly acute now, when people, as the British politician Michael Gove infamously put it, “have had enough of experts”.
According to a 2019 report by public-opinion research firm Ipsos Mori, the way people behave, especially their ability to think of others’ interests, influences their trustworthiness. Competence is not enough (go.nature.com/37lydga). This is backed up by a survey of people living on potentially contaminated land, which found that citizens who said they did not trust the science were not questioning scientists’ expertise, but whether scientists shared the public’s interest
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://demokraatti.fi/stt-moderoi-nyt-myos-yle-uutisten-kommenttiosioita/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Instagram tekee enemmän rahaa kuin Youtube eikä jaa tekijöille mitään, mutta on todennäköistä, että tämä muuttuu, sanoo asiantuntija
Instagram tuottaa rahaa yli kolmanneksen enemmän kuin Youtube.
https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11197282?utm_source=facebook-share&utm_medium=social
Google kertoi muutama päivä sitten, että Youtuben mainostulot olivat vuonna 2019 vajaat 13,8 miljardia euroa(siirryt toiseen palveluun). Kun yhtiö oli saanut tämän kerrottua, Bloomberg-uutistoimisto raportoi(siirryt toiseen palveluun), että Facebook panee paremmaksi ja nettoaa Instagramilla yli 18,2 miljardia dollaria.