Weekly Media News
If you read or watch one story, this is the story. Investigation: How TikTok's Algorithm Figures Out Your Deepest Desires - WSJ. We need to understand better the algorithms and the loss of privacy happening through social media. Meet Kentuck96, the WSJ bot on TikTok that spirals into a deluge of depressing videos after only a few clicks. What are we doing to our kids? What kind of society do we want, and how can we govern if people are siloed into these extreme content holes?
"A Wall Street Journal investigation found that TikTok only needs one important piece of information to figure out what you want: the amount of time you linger over a piece of content. Every second you hesitate or rewatch, the app is tracking you."
Gannett is selling some of its newspapers back to locals, China is smashing up its Tech industry, regulation of Section 230 is back on the table with Martha Minnow weighing in on saving the news, Facebook will stop advertising to under 18s while going big in the metaverse, and Disinformation for Hire, a Shadow Industry, Is Quietly Booming - The New York Times.
Happy Weekend,
Heidi
In Trump versus Big Tech, the Giants Are Vulnerable – Center for International Governance (funded by RIMM Jim Basille)
Canada’s MacLean’s magazine editor and former Harvard Nieman Fellow Stephen Maher. The tech giants have not demonstrated they can be trusted to responsibly handle the sword and shield Congress provided for them through the passing of Section 230 back in 1996.
The outcome will matter north of the border as well, because the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (the North American Free Trade Agreement’s replacement) requires Canada to adopt similar provisions in this country, which will have implications for our government’s legislation, including Bill C-10 and a promised law on online hate speech. That means that as our Parliament wrestles with new ways to regulate the online world, it will have to do so in a way that allows internet companies to do business here more or less as they do in the United States. If the Americans are also reassessing Section 230, there’s hope that we won’t have to live in a permanently disinformed hellscape, just to preserve access to our primary market for car parts, lobsters and cedar shingles.
A new bill would hold Facebook responsible for Covid-19 vaccine misinformation - Recode
Sen. Amy Klobuchar has proposed changing the internet law Section 230 in order to combat health misinformation. The bill, called the Health Misinformation Act and co-sponsored by Sen. Ray Luján (D-NM), would create an exception to the landmark internet law Section 230, which has always shielded tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter from being sued over almost any of the content people post on their platforms.
Klobuchar’s bill would change that — but only when a social media platform’s algorithm promotes health misinformation related to an “existing public health emergency.” The legislation tasks the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to define health misinformation in these scenarios.
Martha Minow on revising Section 230 and how to save the news - Washington Monthly
The framers of the Constitution wrote the First Amendment to shield the press from government control, in recognition of its critical role in a democracy. But today the biggest threat to journalism isn’t government, but economics, as technology upends the old print business model.
In her new book, Saving the News: Why the Constitution Calls for Government Action to Preserve Freedom of Speech, Harvard Law professor (and former dean) Martha Minow argues that government policies to keep media outlets afloat are not merely permitted under the Constitution, but mandated by it.
Minnow: Well, the adoption of Section 230 was well-meaning and may indeed have helped to spur the creation of terrific, creative, and innovative entities. During the early days of the internet, no one knew what would happen. So the creation of an immunity for fledgling organizations had some sense. The problem is that these are no longer fledgling organizations. They’re some of the largest private enterprises in the history of the planet. And they are now getting subsidized by the Section 230 immunity clause—and getting an advantage that traditional media don’t have. So I argue, at least, for modifying it. It may be best to make the immunity conditional on undertaking new responsibilities like having responsible content moderation, but I don’t think the justification exists for flat-out immunity anymore.
MARK IN THE METAVERSE – Casey Newton for The Verge
Facebook’s CEO on why the social network is becoming ‘a metaverse company’. The future of the company would go far beyond its current project of building a set of connected social apps and some hardware to support them. Instead, he said, Facebook would strive to build a maximalist, interconnected set of experiences straight out of sci-fi — a world known as the metaverse.
The company’s divisions focused on products for communities, creators, commerce, and virtual reality would increasingly work to realize this vision, he said in a remote address to employees. “What I think is most interesting is how these themes will come together into a bigger idea,” Zuckerberg said. “Our overarching goal across all of these initiatives is to help bring the metaverse to life.”
Disinformation for Hire, a Shadow Industry, Is Quietly Booming - The New York Times
Back-alley firms meddle in elections and promote falsehoods on behalf of clients who can claim deniability, escalating our era of unreality. A London-based public relations agency wanted to pay them to promote messages on behalf of a client. A polished three-page document detailed what to say and on which platforms to say it.
But it asked the influencers to push not beauty products or vacation packages, as is typical, but falsehoods tarring Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine. Stranger still, the agency, Fazze, claimed a London address where there is no evidence any such company exists.
Some recipients posted screenshots of the offer. Exposed, Fazze scrubbed its social media accounts. That same week, Brazilian and Indian influencers posted videos echoing Fazze’s script to hundreds of thousands of viewers.
The scheme appears to be part of a secretive industry that security analysts and American officials say is exploding in scale: disinformation for hire.
Facebook's "see no evil strategy” – Axios
Only Facebook knows for sure what's popular on its platform at any given moment. The rest of us, viewing our individual feeds and seeing only how our own posts fare, are left to guess. Facebook could change that by giving the world real-time windows onto the social network. But it has long resisted doing so — and new reports suggest it's afraid greater transparency will just make it look bad.
CrowdTangle measures only posts' engagement — whether people click on or react to them. Facebook regularly criticized Roose's posts by saying that more accurate lists could be compiled by looking at reach — how many people actually see a post.
One problem: Reach data is only available to Facebook's own staff. Advocates of sharing reach data with the public lost the debate inside Facebook, Roose reports, and now the company is splitting up the CrowdTangle team.
Why it matters: Facebook content shapes much of popular political opinion in the U.S. and globally. That has turned the social network into the information battlefield of our time — but it's shrouded by the fog of war, and only Facebook can change that.
Yes, but: Whatever controversies Facebook's transparency efforts provoke, Facebook still offers more engagement data than rivals like YouTube and TikTok provide.
Facebook's reluctance to publicize reach data, like Google's resistance to revealing details of its search algorithm formula, may also stem from fears that the more the public knows about how its platform works, the easier it is for bad actors to game it. Facebook also has a record of conflict and delays in efforts to provide academic researchers with data.
Why news media must re-think subscription model - Press Gazette
Only twenty-eight English-language news sites in the world have managed to get over 100,000 subscribers. Twenty-one of them are in the USA. Three of them account for more than half the total number of subscribers.
In other words, nearly everyone launching a subscription model now will be at the other end of that very long tail. The numbers have always been disheartening. Even successful subscription products only convert a small single-digit percentage of their audience to subscriptions. If the audience is 100m people that’s a pretty good business – but it’s a lot harder if you’re smaller.
6AM City: Fast-growing local newsletter firm aims to hit 50 US cities - Press Gazette
The local newsletter business that’s built up 450,000 subscribers by steering clear of politics and crime. The company started its ninth newsletter this week and plans to launch two more in August. It is hiring to expand into 24 cities by Thanksgiving and aims to hit 50 within a year or two.
Heafy expects 6AM’s revenues to surpass $5m this year. He says that, under the 6AM model, a newsletter operates at a 70% profit margin within 36 months of launch.
The state of the news media industry in 2020: 6 key takeaways | Pew Research
Every two years, Pew Research Center updates its series of fact sheets on the U.S. news media industry, tracking key audience and economic indicators for a variety of sectors. Here are some key findings of the state of the industry in 2020. The list includes trends like Political ad revenue at local TV stations was dramatically higher in 2020, and for the first time, newspapers made more money from circulation than from advertising. Read more here.
Alphabet stock spikes on Q2 revenue blowout, YouTube record - Axios
Gannett has sold 23 publications back to local owners - Poynter
Local owners’ strong presence in the community may be more important, according to Penny Abernathy, creator of the influential “news deserts” reports and visiting professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.
“All things being equal,” Abernathy said, “local ownership is always best for the community where the newspaper is located. That’s because a local owner is going to know that market and know the residents.”
Why is China smashing its tech industry? - by Noah Smith
Ma was only the most prominent target. The government is also going after other fintech companies, including those owned by Didi (China’s Uber) and Tencent (China’s biggest social media company). As Didi prepared to IPO in the U.S., Chinese regulators announced they were reviewing the company on “national security grounds”, and are now levying various penalties against it. The government has also embarked on an “antitrust” push, fining Tencent and Baidu — two other top Chinese internet companies — for various past deals. Leaders of top tech companies (also including ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok) were summoned before regulators and presumably berated. Various Chinese tech companies are now undergoing “rectification”.
NBC News adding 200+ jobs as part of major streaming push - Axios
Facebook users are more anti-vaccine than Fox News viewers, new data shows - The Washington Post
In the Covid States Project survey we conducted, we find a surprisingly strong relationship. If you rely on Facebook to get news and information about the coronavirus, you are substantially less likely than the average American to say you have been vaccinated. In fact, Facebook news consumers are less likely to be vaccinated than people who get their coronavirus information from Fox News.
BuzzFeed Is Going Public. Now What for Vox Media, Group Nine and Vice? - The New York Times
Investors poured billions into Vox Media, Vice Media, Group Nine and other upstart companies that employed writers fully at ease with the new digital culture and the increased velocity of online journalism. Valuations shot skyward, and the companies’ founders did victory laps with each round of funding.
The exuberance was based on what seemed like a surefire business model: Give readers web-native content free of charge and watch the money roll in from advertisers eager to connect with a young audience.
Now things have turned upside down.
Facebook will restrict ad targeting of under-18s | Reuters
Facebook Inc will stop allowing advertisers to target people under 18 on its platforms based on their interests or their activity on other sites, it said on Tuesday in a slew of announcements about young users.
The change means advertisers will soon be able to target under-18s only by age, gender or location on Facebook, its Messenger service, and its photo-sharing platform Instagram.
News Unchained: More Outlets Going Back to Local Ownership | Local News Initiative
Biden’s Antitrust Team Signals a Big Swing at Corporate Titans - The New York Times
What Facebook Can’t Fix - by Alex Kantrowitz - Big Technology
Americans’ faith in institutions is now falling across the board, according to Gallup. Confidence in organized religion, labor, big business, public schools, newspapers, the military, the presidency, the medical system, banks, TV news, the criminal justice system, the Supreme Court, and Congress all fell from 2020 to 2021. Covid and a certain ex-president’s attacks on institutions had something to do with it. But they don’t account for the entire decline.
While Facebook does help accelerate the spread of misinformation, it’s the absence of trust in institutions that helps it take root in the first place.
Biden Has to Play Hardball With Internet Platforms | WIRE
Why We Need Federal Assistance To Help Save Local News – WGBH
How would the bill work? Essentially, it would provide three tax credits that would expire after five years, giving media outlets some runway to move toward long-term sustainability.
•News consumers would be able to write off $250 a year that they spend on subscriptions or on donations to nonprofit news organizations.
•News organizations would receive tax benefits for hiring or retaining journalists.
•Local small businesses would receive tax credits for advertising in local newspapers and news websites and on television and radio stations.
The benefits would be restricted to small news organizations, defined as those with 750 employees or fewer in the House bill or fewer than 1,000 in the Senate bill.
Rebuild Local News coalition backs Senate bill to preserve community journalism — Rebuild Local News
Here is the full presser on the Sustainability in Journalism Bill.
Substack continues its acquisition streak with public correspondence startup Letter - Digiday
Letter allows people to send public notes to one another, giving audiences a look at the resulting exchange. Though it never turned into a breakout hit — the most popular exchanges on Letter have gathered just tens of thousands of views — Letter got a wide range of public intellectuals, ranging from Noam Chomsky to Yuval Noah Harari to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to at least try the service out.
Access to a technology that would allow Substack’s authors to connect and collaborate more topped Substack’s reasons for acquiring the startup, cofounder Hamish McKenzie said.
“We’re big believers in general of writers collaborating together and networking together,” McKenzie said.
What the Fight Over Facebook Misses - The New York Times
Shira Ovid points out that the fundamental problem is that we have so little common ground. We don’t all agree on how much to focus on a virus that has killed more than 600,000 Americans or how to balance prevention measures that have disrupted people’s lives and the economy. We can’t agree on whether or how to slow climate change, and are not prepared to deal collectively with the consequences. It seems the only thing we can agree on is that the other side can’t be trusted.
Is this the fault of social media companies’ business models and algorithms, people trying to make a fast buck, irresponsible politicians who play on our emotions, or our fears of becoming sick or destitute? Yes.
Biden is misdiagnosing Facebook and YouTube’s vaccine misinformation problem - The Washington Post
As the Biden administration struggles to find the words to confront social platforms, a better understanding of their algorithms could help. Untangling exactly who’s at fault, and to what degree, is nigh impossible, especially because the companies carefully guard the data that would help researchers understand the problem. But there is at least one critical element of social media’s misinformation problem that’s quite simple, once you grasp it — and that helps to explain why none of their interventions so far have solved it. It’s that the recommendation and ranking software that decides what people see on social platforms is inherently conducive to spreading falsehoods, propaganda and conspiracy theories.
NPR Ethics Policy: It's OK For Journalists To Demonstrate (Sometimes) - NPR
NPR rolled out a substantial update to its ethics policy earlier this month, expressly stating that journalists may participate in activities that advocate for "the freedom and dignity of human beings" on both social media and in real life.
The new policy eliminates the blanket prohibition from participating in "marches, rallies and public events," as well as vague language that directed NPR journalists to avoid personally advocating for "controversial" or "polarizing" issues.
NPR's current ethics policy was first drafted in the early 2000s and then given an overhaul in 2010-2011.
The new NPR policy reads, "NPR editorial staff may express support for democratic, civic values that are core to NPR's work, such as, but not limited to: the freedom and dignity of human beings, the rights of a free and independent press, the right to thrive in society without facing discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, disability, or religion."
WSJ Head of Digital Strategy and Tech Steps Down – NYT
Louise Story, who oversaw digital strategy and technology at The Wall Street Journal, has decided to leave the paper after less than three years. Ms. Story, a seasoned journalist who joined The Journal as one of the most senior women in its newsroom after a decade at The New York Times, had been entangled in a power struggle between Mr. Murray and the newly appointed publisher, Almar Latour. Mr. Murray hired Ms. Story with the aim of updating The Journal for the digital age, but Mr. Latour had his own vision.
Ms. Story had amassed a large team that over the course of a year assessed the newsroom’s workings, resulting in a 209-page report, “The Content Review.” It was more than just an audit — it made sweeping recommendations for how the paper should operate.
It noted that “in the past five years, we have had six quarters where we lost more subscribers than we gained,” and it said addressing the paper’s slow-growing audience called for significant changes in everything from social media strategy to which subjects were deemed newsworthy.
Newspapers are dying; long live local news | by Chris Krewson, LION Publishers
Microsoft Escapes Antitrust Scrutiny - The Atlantic
Right now, it’s not illegal to be big. It’s not illegal to be really big. In fact, it’s not even illegal to be a monopoly. Current antitrust law allows for the possibility that you might be the sole player in your industry because you’re just that well managed and your product is just that good, or it’s just cost-prohibitive for any other company to compete with you. Think power utilities, such as Duke Energy, or the TV and internet giant Comcast. Antitrust law comes into play only if you use your monopoly to suppress competition or to charge unfairly high prices. (If this feels like a legal tautology, it sort of is: Who’s to know what’s a fair price if there isn’t any competition? Nevertheless, here we are.)
(As always, this is not original reporting and most of the content is cut and pasted verbatim from the link source.)