Media Tech

Media Future in Computer World

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From the New York Times Columnist Gail Collins 8/12/23

“But on a more cosmic level, Bret, I worry and wonder all the time about the future of the media in a wireless world. Very hard to make money doing critical chores like covering state and local government. Or even just pursuing hard news.”

Now – What Was That Thing Called “Journalism” Again?

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Article in futurism.com,  5/11/23 Is Google getting ready to replace human journalists? From Futurism 5/11/23

Headline:  “Google Unveils Plan to Demolish the Journalism Industry Using AI”

https://futurism.com/google-ai-search-journalism


Chat GPT Future Journalist?

“The Silicon Valley giant has long claimed that its goal is to maximize access to information. SGE (AI-powered search interface, dubbed ‘Search Generative Experience’) though, seemingly seeks to do something quite different — and if the company doesn’t figure out a way to compensate publishers for the labor it’ll be gleaning from the journalists, the effects on the public’s actual access to information could be catastrophic.”

 

Is Twitter a News Medium or Just a Propaganda Outlet as Public Media Leave it in Droves?

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Artice from The Guardian by Guardian Staff,  4/14/23

Headline:  “PBS quits Twitter after being labeled ‘government-funded media’”

Sub-head:  “Broadcaster leaves platform a day after NPR’s exit over concerns labels undermine credibility as independent news outlets”


“The US’s Public Broadcasting Service, better known as PBS, has quit its use of Twitter after the platform labeled the organization as “government-funded media”.

“PBS’s announced its Twitter exit on Thursday, one day after National Public Radio also left the platform amid comments by the Twitter owner, Elon Musk, that NPR was “state-affiliated media” which should be defunded.

“The labels are shared by Russia Today and China’s Xinhua, whose editorial decisions are heavily influenced by their respective state regimes .. .”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/apr/14/pbs-quits-twitter-government-funded-media-label-npr

 

In Our Brave New World, Will News Be Delivered by Pre-programmed AI Journalist Robots?

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From the Guardian, 4/11/23:

Headline: “AI generated news presenter debuts in Kuwait media”

Sub-head:  “Kuwait News introduced Fedha, promising that it could read online news in the future”

“A Kuwaiti media outlet has unveiled a virtual news presenter generated using artificial intelligence, with plans for it to read online bulletins.

‘Fedha’ appeared on the Twitter account of the Kuwait News website on Saturday as an image of a woman, hair uncovered, wearing a black jacket and white T-shirt.

“’I’m Fedha, the first presenter in Kuwait who works with artificial intelligence at Kuwait News. What kind of news do you prefer? Let’s hear your opinions,’ she said in Arabic.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/11/ai-generated-news-presenter-debuts-in-kuwait-media

KEEP Net Neutrality on 12/12

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FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE WROTE:

We’re rolling out our plan to stop the FCC’s vote to repeal net neutrality and we need your help.

Today, we announced a *massive online day of action* for December 12th that we’re calling “Break the Internet,” and we need every website, app, and user to help us make it huge.

For December 12th, we’re asking you to get creative and do everything possible to interrupt everyday experience by symbolically “breaking” your site, app, or social media channel. We don’t actually want to break anything. We want to get people’s attention by showing what an Internet broken by censorship, throttling, and new fees would look like&madsh;then ask them to call Congress and demand lawmakers stop the FCC’s repeal.

If enough of the Internet takes action on December 12th, we can make Congress do the right thing and stop the FCC’s vote. Let’s go all out. Join us, and help save net neutrality.

With the day of action coming just 48 hours before the FCC’s December 14th vote,[1] it’s crucial that users from across the country call Congress and demand that they do everything in their power to stop the FCC.

There is huge momentum to save the open web. The BattleForTheNet.com campaign has driven 750,000 calls to Congress.[2] Tomorrow, over 600 protests are set to take place at Verizon stores across the country.[3] And huge music stars are speaking out in magazines like Rolling Stone.[4] But need to focus this energy to win.

If you run a website or have a large social media community, then your participation is extra important on December 12th.

Here are the most important things you can do right now:

  1. Sign up to ‘Break the Internet’ and hit REPLY to let us know if your site can do more.
  2. Share the protest on Facebook and Twitter. We need to reach as many people as possible.
  3. If you run a website, add a BattleForTheNet widget using this code. You just need to embed a bit of javascript, and your site will empower users to call Congress.
  4. Add a banner to your site or social media profile and link to BattleForTheNet.com.
  5. Blog about the December 12th Day of Action. Tell your followers why net neutrality matters to you, and then send us a link so we can share it!

Please do what you can to protest the FCC’s extreme net neutrality repeal by “breaking” your site, app, or social media profiles on December 12th. We need to get creative and help draw attention to the importance of net neutrality and the open Internet.

And if you have a great idea, share it with us! We want to see what you come up with.

We’re counting on you,

Josh, Evan, Tiff & Holmes and the team at Fight for the Future.

Footnotes:

[1] Techcrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/21/fcc-officially-moves-to-unwind-net-neutrality-rules/

[2] Fight for the Future: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2017-12-05-former-verizon-lawyer-turned-fcc-chairman-ajit-pai/

[3] Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/net-neutrality-protests-start-thursday-how-to-find-one-near-you/

[4] Rolling Stone: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/michael-stipe-tom-morello-support-net-neutrality-in-letter-w513448

 

Fight for the Future works to protect your rights in the digital age.

PO Box 55071 #95005 Boston, MA 02205

Media Awareness Webinar Coming Up!

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FCM Forum this Saturday, Sept. 16, 4-5:30 PM KKFI Annex Room, 39th & Main Rear Door.  Spencer Graves has set up an agenda which will include two items:  

1.  Reports back from people’s efforts to contact their representatives in the US House and Senate regarding net neutrality.

2.  Planning for a monthly webinar series on media and democracy to be cosponsored by the Friends of Community Media (FCM) and the United Minority Media Association (UMMA).  Per the draft minutes of an UMMA meeting earlier today (below), UMMA may meet on the third Saturdays at 10 AM in the KKFI Annex.  This webinar / Forum series might be scheduled to begin after that, e.g. at noon or 11 AM or 11:30 AM.  In July and August, we met later in the day.  These webinars could be live streamed on Facebook and subsequently offered on WorkingJournalistPress.com, broadcasted on KKFI and offered to the Pacifica network of ~200 listener-sponsored radio stations.  With luck, we may be able to get FreePress.net and other groups concerned with media reform to co-sponsor later episodes of the webinar series.  We have expressions of interest from the following three, who could do webinars for us Oct. 21, Nov. 18, and Dec. 16, not necessarily in this order:

2.1.  Lewis Friedland, professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin and author of important publications on media and democracy (https://journalism.wisc.edu/sjmc_profile/lewis-a-friedland/).

2.2.  Rev. Timothy Hayes, Jr., the Interim President of the United Minority Media Association (UMMA), who is 25 years old and has built a church on social media and can likely help us replicate that success in improving media and democracy here in the greater Kansas City area — and the world.

2.3. David Barsamian, founder and director of Alternative Radio, a Boulder, Colorado-based syndicated weekly public affairs program heard on some 250 radio stations worldwide. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Barsamian).

For more on Spencer Graves’ thoughts on the webinar series, see “https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Webinars_on_media_and_democracy”.  For more on my thoughts regarding the afflictions that humanity inflicts upon itself, see“https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_and_%27Restoring_Internet_freedom%27” and “https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Winning_the_War_on_Terror”.

Net Neutrality Links

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What is Net Neutrality?

When people use the Internet, they expect something called “net neutrality” This is keeps telecommunications companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from slowing down or blocking any content or websites they don’t like.

In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted net neutrality rules that keep these companies from censoring the Internet.  A decade earlier, Comcast was caught doing that.  When this was revealed, in 2014, it contributed to activism that generated 3.7 million comments to the FCC about this issue.

On May 18, 2017 President Trump’s FCC approved a “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM)” “on restoring Internet freedom” to restore the “freedom” of telecoms to censor your Internet.  The deadline for original comments on that NPRM was July 17 with a deadline for “reply comments” of August 16.

No matter what a person’s Internet concerns are, preserving it should be important.   If the new FCC rules are allowed to stand, progress on many issues facing our nation will be blocked.  Net neutrality threatens many of the world’s elites because their attempted control over the media is threatened.

On July 15, FCM hosted a Forum that featured Ernesto Falcon, an attorney and Legislative Council with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a leading citizen advocacy group focused on the law of the Internet.  Falcon was interviewed by FCM’s Spencer Graves and Tom Crane with additional comments Gordon Elliott.

On August 5, FCM will update the audience on the arguments presented on both sides and what they might do to better protect their interest. 

Interesting links about Net Neutrality:

Battle For The Net (Coalition of Freepress.net, Demand Progress, and Fight for the Future)

https://www.battleforthenet.com/    (This has some excellent videos.)

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/11/activists_plan_mass_day_of_action

FCC Head Not Amused

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/ajit-pai-not-concerned-about-number-of-pro-net-neutrality-comments/

Internet Service Providers also not Amused

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2017/07/14/internet_service_providers_were_not_amused_by_the_net_neutrality_day_of.html

Electronic Frontier Foundation and Net Neutrality

https://www.eff.org/issues/net-neutrality