Internet Media

Losing the Battle for Media

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Article in Raw Story by Thom Hartmann, 1/30/24

Headline:  “Fatal flaw: Democrats keep losing the media war — here’s why “

“Saturday afternoon, Donald Trump held a rally in Las Vegas. It was streamed and mentioned on social media millions of times within an hour of his repeating his “No tax on tips” mantra. By the time Facebook, Meta, X, TikTok, and Instagram were done with the weekend, using their now-heavily-tilted-to-Republicans algorithms, it’s safe to bet Trump’s rally got hundreds of millions of impressions.

“Senator Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, read the most boring speech ever on the floor of the Senate condemning Trump, evoking the Democratic version of the old “tree falls in the forest” question. I listened to it online (couldn’t find it on social media), but, frankly, it was so deadly tedious that I can’t remember a word he said.

“Being media savvy — and exploiting the hottest new media — isn’t a new thing. You’d think Democrats would have figured this out by now; they sure did in past generations.”

https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/fatal-flaw-democrats-keep-losing-the-media-war-here-s-why/

Tik Tok Media Clock Not Ticking Now

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Article in Mother Jones by Anna Merlan, 1/20/25

Headline:  “As TikTok Negotiates with Trump, Every Major Social Media Company Has Caved to the New President”

Subhead:  “Online life has “been taken over by the right wing,” warns Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez”


“. . . Over the weekend, Tik Tok very briefly died in the United States before being reborn some 12 hours later, bearing a jaunty new banner. ‘As a result of President Trump’s efforts,’ it read, in part, ‘ Tik Tok is back in the U.S.’ The biggest tech and social media companies have consolidated behind Trump. . .”

“Trump was not yet president on Sunday, when TikTok began restoring U.S. access despite a Supreme Court ruling Friday upholding a law meant to ban it. But the deeper message was unmistakable: the Chinese-owned company ByteDance and its CEO Shou Zi Chew would do anything to placate Trump and keep its most profitable app online for American users. . .”

“. . . A day after the app’s American resurrection, Chew came to Washington for Trump’s inauguration, along with two other social media giants, Twitter/X owner Elon Musk, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. Also present was Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Google cofounder Sergey Brin, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Apple’s Tim Cook. . .”

“All of this, of course, points to one simple fact: the total consolidation of the biggest tech and social media companies behind the new president. ‘What this effectively means is that every social media platform, mass social media platform in the United States, has been taken over by the right wing,’ Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez said in a Sunday video posted—ironically, but unavoidably—to Meta-owned Instagram.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/01/social-media-donald-trump/

EU Media Hate-Speech Ban

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Article in Reuters by Foo Yun Chee, 1/20/25

Headline:  “Facebook, X, YouTube to do more against online hate speech, EU says”

“Meta’s (META.O), Elon Musk’s X, Google’s (GOOGL.O), YouTube and other tech companies have agreed to do more to tackle online hate speech under an updated code of conduct that will now be integrated into EU tech rules, the European Commission said on Monday.

“Other signatories to the voluntary code set up in May 2016 are Dailymotion, Instagram, Jeuxvideo.com, LinkedIn, Microsoft (MSFT.O), hosted consumer services, Snapchat, Rakuten Viber, TikTok and Twitch.

” ‘In Europe there is no place for illegal hate, either offline or online. I welcome the stakeholders’ commitment to a strengthened Code of conduct under the Digital Services Act (DSA),’ EU tech commissioner Henna Virkkunen said in a statement.”

https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-x-youtube-do-more-against-online-hate-speech-eu-says-2025-01-20/

Social Media In/Out of Dumpster?

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Article in Vox by Adam Clark Extes, 1/17/25Headline:  “The bright side of TikTok’s downfall”

Subhead:  “The end of one wildly popular platform is a chance to overhaul the broken social media industry.”

“The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a law that would spell the end of TikTok as we know it in the United States, and now all parties involved are freaking out. Influencers are fleeing to rival platforms, including Xiaohongshu, a China-based app also known as RedNote. Politicians, even the ones who initially supported the ban, are trying to delay it. TikTok employees are surely wondering what they’ll do at work next week.

“Others, however, are wondering if a future without TikTok could actually be a great thing for America. The complete demise of TikTok would mean one of the largest social media-slash-entertainment platforms is effectively out of the picture. . .”

https://www.vox.com/technology/395541/tiktok-ban-trump-supreme-court-instagram-rednote

Indonesia Social Media Limit

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Article in Slashdot by Mismash, 1/17/25

Headline:  “Indonesia Plans Minimum Age for Social Media Use”

“Indonesia plans to issue a regulation to set a minimum age for users of social media, a move aimed at protecting children, its communications minister has said. From a report, ‘The plans follows Australia’s decision to ban children under 16 from accessing social media, with fines for tech giants from Instagram and Facebook owner Meta to TikTok if they failed to prevent children accessing their platforms. Minister Meutya Hafid did not say what the minimum age would be in Indonesia. Her remarks, made late on Jan 13, came after she discussed the plan with President Prabowo Subianto.’ ”

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/01/17/1116254/indonesia-plans-minimum-age-for-social-media-use

Apple A.I. Distorts the News

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Article in the New York Times by Tripp Mickle, 1/16/25

Headline:  “Apple Plans to Disable A.I. Features Summarizing News Notifications”

Subhead:  “The company’s Apple Intelligence system has erroneously characterized news stories, provoking a backlash from media companies.”

“Less than six months after rolling out a series of artificial intelligence features, Apple is disabling one of its signature capabilities: aggregating and summarizing news notifications.

“The company revealed the change on Thursday in a software update for developers. It followed an outcry from British media outlets that Apple’s software was misrepresenting news reports.

“In December, the BBC was among the first to urge Apple to change its software. The call came after the BBC sent readers a notification about Luigi Mangione, the man arrested in the killing of Brian Thompson, the health insurance executive, in New York City. Some iPhones summarized BBC news stories by saying, “Luigi Mangione shoots himself.” He had not.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/technology/apple-ai-news-notifications.html

 

Some Media Destroying Democracy?

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Article in Common Dreams by Thom Hartman, 1/15/25

Headlline: “Right-Wing Control of Media Has Crushed the Promise of US Democracy”

Subhead:  “If progressives want to slow this speeding train heading toward single-party rule of America, they must get with the program and begin to support existing and build out new and powerful policy think tanks and media operations.”

“Republicans are using their massive structural media and social media advantage to try to destroy Gavin Newsom, Karen Bass, and the California Democratic Party.

It follows an old script, that’s recently been played out in Russia and Hungary, among other nations: Want to seize control of a nation and turn it into a neofascist state with the consent of the people? Just take control of the channels of public information and news, and then turn lies about your opponents and their supporters into a perceived reality. ”

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/right-wing-control-of-media

META – No Friend to Journalism

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Article in Reporters Without Borders by Staff, 1/9/25

Headline:  “Mark Zuckerberg takes Meta’s hostility toward journalism to new level”

“In a five-minute video, Mark Zuckerberg has confirmed his social media empire’s subjugation to the future Trump administration in a radical shift to “Musk-style” policies on its platforms. In his new Meta purged of fact-checkers, journalism is portrayed as the enemy of free speech. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appalled by this dramatic surge in hostility toward the right to information.

“No more room for journalism. In a video posted on Facebook on January 7, Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his company’s new policy on political information and debate. The billionaire says Meta will “get rid of fact-checkers” – who have been accused of helping destroy online trust rather than repairing it. Instead, they will be replaced with a system derived from X’s “Community Notes,” leaving it to users to verify the reliability of information themselves.”

https://rsf.org/en/mark-zuckerberg-takes-meta-s-hostility-toward-journalism-new-level

Clawing Back Net Neutrality

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Mathew Ingram, 1/9/25

Headline:  “Net Neutrality Is Dead (Again). Journalism Could Suffer.”

Subhead:  “What a new court ruling might mean for independent local news.”

“Net neutrality—or the idea that all digital information should flow through the internet unencumbered by restrictions and without internet companies showing favoritism toward some types and sources of content over others—sometimes feels like an immutable law of the modern world, like gravity or magnetic attraction. But in reality, it’s a political football that has been tossed back and forth for decades between open-internet advocates and free-market conservatives, who feel that neutrality rules are unnecessary and a brake on innovation and growth. Last week, the opponents of net neutrality won a significant victory when judges on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission didn’t have the right to impose such rules when it did so last year. Now critics say that the death of the rules could allow the internet to become distorted by partisan political and corporate interests. It could also make existing online even more difficult for news publishers and journalism in general.”

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/net_neutrality_repeal_journalism.php

Media Attrition, Like Hungary?

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Article in The Guardian by Owen Jones, 1/7/25

Headline:  “To see how Trump will control the US media, look at Viktor Orbán’s Hungary”

Subhead:  “Nick Clegg’s departure is likely to see Meta following X’s tilt towards the right. It leaves the way open for an insidious hollowing out of democracy”

“Will democracy survive a second Trump presidency? A change of senior personnel at a social media company involving a former British deputy prime minister may not seem all too relevant to this heated discussion. But Nick Clegg’s decision to leave Meta as head of global affairs, and the choice of his successor, may point to how western democracy dies: not with fireworks, but through quiet attrition.

“Clegg’s job will be taken over by his deputy, Joel Kaplan – a Republican who worked in George W Bush’s administration. He is someone who, according to a Washington Post report from 2020, pushed to block Meta taking action against “dozens of pages that had peddled false news reports” before the 2020 election, arguing it would ‘disproportionately affect conservatives’. As a columnist at MSNBC put it, his elevation is another sign that Meta is getting a ‘Maga-friendly makeover’ “.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/07/donald-trump-control-us-media-viktor-orban-hungary-nick-clegg-meta-x