Internet Media

Idiotic Medium buys Idiotic Website

by

latest post from Infowars


Update:

Article in The Guardian by Anna Betts and agency, 11/15/24

Headline:  “Judge orders hearing to review Onion’s purchase of Alex Jones’s InfoWars”

Subhead:  “Judge to audit if conspiracy theorist’s bankruptcy auction was fair, which could delay buying process for satire site”

“On Thursday morning, it was announced that the Onion had bought InfoWars at Jones’s bankruptcy auction.

“But later that day, the judge overseeing Jones’s bankruptcy case held an emergency hearing, during which lawyers representing Jones and a company affiliated with him expressed concerns about the auction process. The judge has ordered an evidentiary hearing for next week to determine if the auction was conducted fairly, which could delay the process.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/15/the-onion-infowars-bankruptcy

————————————————
Article in The Guardian by Anna Betts, 11/14/24

Headline: “The Onion buys rightwing conspiracy theory site Infowars with plans to make it ‘very funny, ‘very stupid’ ”

Subhead:  “Satirical news outlet purchases media platform run by Alex Jones at a court-ordered auction”

“The satirical news outlet The Onion has purchased Infowars, the rightwing media platform run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, at a court-ordered auction.”

“CEO Ben Collins confirmed this in a post on Bluesky on Thursday, writing: ‘The Onion, with the help of the Sandy Hook families, has purchased InfoWars. We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website. We have retained the services of some Onion and Clickhole Hall of Famers to pull this off.’ ”

“. . . The sale follows a judge’s order earlier this year for Jones to liquidate his personal assets, to help him to pay off the $1.4bn he was ordered to pay the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting that killed 20 first-graders and six educators when they took him to court for defamation after he falsely claimed that the shooting was a hoax, and that they were actors who staged the shooting as part of a government plot to seize Americans’ guns.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/14/onion-info-wars-alex-jones

——————————————

Article in Status News by Oliver Darcy, 11/14/24

Headline:  “Not Satire: The Onion acquires Infowars“

“As part of the deal, The Onion, owned by Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson and led by chief executive Ben Collins, acquired Infowars‘ website, product inventory, customers lists, social media accounts, and intellectual property.”

“. . . Owen Shroyer, a popular Infowars personality, expressed disbelief at the news The Onion had acquired the company.

“ ‘It’s almost like a satire of a satire,” Shroyer said on Infowars’ final broadcast. “It’s like a joke of a joke.’ ”

https://www.status.news/p/not-satire-the-onion-acquires-infowars

——————————————

Article in Common Dreams by Julia Conley, 11/14/24

Headline:  “Media Justice as The Onion Buys Infowars From ‘Hateful’ (and Bankrupt) Alex Jones”

Subhead:  ” ‘This is going to be our answer to this no-guardrails world where there are no gatekeepers and everything’s kind of insane,’ said the CEO of The Onion. “

“In what one journalist called an “insane twist” to the long saga of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ use of his online platform to spread rampant disinformation, satirical newspaper The Onion on Thursday announced it had won an auction to buy Infowars, Jones’ bankrupt publication. ”

“. . . ‘The Onion’s goal with the acquisition is to end Infowars’ relentless barrage of disinformation for the sake of selling supplements and replace it with The Onion’s relentless barrage of humor for good,’ said the company in a press release, which did not state how much The Onion paid for Infowars. ”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/infowars-auction

 

Techno Global Media Hegemony

by

Article in TechXplore by Lewis Mitchell, Jono Tuke and Melissa Humphries, 11/14/24

Headline: “Elon Musk has turned X into a globally influential media platform—and there’s more to come”

“During the recent United States presidential election campaign, tech billionaire Elon Musk’s social media platform X (formerly Twitter) saw record high usage.”

“. . . He aims to create a platform for messages, payments, video and more, similar to China’s WeChat . . . ”

“. . . Musk, and therefore X, is also poised to take a bigger role in day-to-day US politics—and not just in his newly announced role, which will see him in charge of cutting government spending.”

“. . . Since the election, alternative social media platform Bluesky has reportedly gained 1 million members as some users of X attempt to flee the perceived far-right platform.”

https://techxplore.com/news/2024-11-elon-musk-globally-influential-media.html

Media Called “X” is Ghosted

by

Article in Raw Story by Agence France-Presse, 11/13/24

 

” ‘We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives,’ the left-leaning newspaper, which has nearly 11 million followers on X, said in a statement on its website.

“It added that its “resources could be better used promoting our journalism elsewhere

.”This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism,” the statement noted.

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/guardian-quits-x-social-media-platform-citing-racism-conspiracy-theories-2024-11-13/

———————————————

Article In Al Jazerra, 11/13/24

Headline:  “The Guardian to no longer post on ‘toxic media platform’ X”

Subhead:  “The British news outlet quits X citing ‘disturbing content’ on the platform, including racism and conspiracy theories.”

“British news outlet The Guardian has announced it will no longer post content on X due to the ‘disturbing content’ on the ‘toxic media platform’, including racism and conspiracy theories.

“The Guardian wrote on its website on Wednesday that it had been considering the decision to stop posting on the social media outlet for a while, but the US election earlier in November “underlined” its decision.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/13/the-guardian-to-no-longer-post-on-toxic-media-platform-x

Technofascism and the Media

by

Article in The Guardian by Joan Donovan, 11/11/24

Headline: “First came the bots, then came the bosses – we’re entering Musk and Zuck’s new era of disinformation”

Subhead: “Tech leaders’ politics are encoded into their platforms – and with Trump’s ascent, they have direct access to the Oval Office”

“. . . When tech CEOs encode their political beliefs into the design of platforms, it’s a form of technofascism, where technology is used for political suppression of speech and to repress the organization of resistance to the state or capitalism.

“Content moderation at these platforms now reflects the principles of the CEO and what that person believes is in the public’s interest. The political opinions of tech’s overlords, like Musk and Zuckerberg, are now directly embedded in their algorithms.”

“. . .Whether it’s Musk’s strategy of overloading users with posts from himself and Trump, or Zuckerberg’s silencing of political discussion, it’s citizens who suffer from such chilling of speech.”

“If we are to disarm disinformers, we need a whole of society approach that values real Talk (Timely, Accurate Local Knowledge) and community safety. . . .  But most of all, it’s going to require that you and I do something quickly to protect those already in the crosshairs of Trump’s new world order, by donating to or joining community organizations tackling issues such as women’s rights and immigration. Even subscribing to a local news outlet is a profound political act these days. Let that sink in.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/12/elon-musk-mark-zuckerberg-disinformation

Conspiracies and the media

by

Article in The Guardian by Steve Rose, 11/8./24

Headline:  “A reporter down the rabbit hole: Gabriel Gatehouse on edgelords, conspiracy theories and Trump’s America”

Subhead:  “The former BBC journalist has spent four years considering the misfits, misinformation and manipulation that are now central to US politics. In his new book, The Coming Storm, he weaves a terrifying narrative”

“. . . The parallels between media reporting and conspiracy theory manufacturing are uncomfortably close, especially now that “the media” is itself fragmented into different camps, each pushing its own conflicting version of reality. ‘If some people take this series as a sort of critique of establishment media, then we’ll be happy about that,’ he says. Bias is unavoidable: ‘You’re not just putting facts in there in a random order; you are crafting a narrative, so obviously you are choosing what to include and what to leave out.’ As a conspiracist, you can be more cavalier, but as a journalist, “You’ve got to do that in as honest a way as possible, but you can’t help but go into a story with some kind of preconceived idea of what the story is.”

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/nov/08/gabriel-gatehouse-coming-storm-conspiracy-theories-trump-america

Alternative Media Changed Things

by

Article in The Washington Post by Manuel Roig-Franzia, Elahe Izadi, 11/8/24

Headline:  “As Trump joined the podcast revolution, legacy media got left out”

Subhead:  “The 2024 election result makes clear how much alternative forms of news have changed the game.”

” . . .There is no question that this election was probably a breaking point in terms of the role legacy media plays in political campaigns,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a co-host of the popular liberal podcast, “Pod Save America.” Trump “paid no price” for mostly ignoring legacy media — appearances on Fox News aside — in the final month-and-a-half of the campaign, something that would have been unheard of in elections past, said Pfeiffer, who was communications director in Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

“. . . At the same time, traditional legacy media audiences, particularly for news, have eroded over the decades. Daily newspaper circulation, digital traffic to newspaper websites and local television news ratings are all down, per Pew. About 15 years ago, as many as 90 percent of households paid to get TV channels; now, it’s barely half. Television is still the single most common way Americans get their political news, according to Pew, but it’s way more popular among older Americans than those younger than 29, whose most common source is social media.”

“. . . “They don’t need the legacy media,” she said. “They know they can sit in a room full of podcasters and whatever else you want to call the influencers that lead his base and they will write down his every word, even if it’s spelled backwards.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/11/08/podcasts-joe-rogan-trump/

Australia’s Social Media Action

by


Article in the New York Times by By Eve Sampson, 11/7/24

Headline:  “Australia Moves to Ban Young Teens From Social Media”

Subhead:  “The proposed legislation would put the country at the forefront of regulating social media access for children.”

“Far-reaching legislation announced on Thursday would make the platforms that are the lifeblood of many teenagers — among them TikTok — off limits to anyone under 16.

“Social media is doing harm to our kids and I’m calling time on it,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared at a news conference. “I’ve spoken to thousands of parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles. They, like me, are worried sick about the safety of our kids online.”

The proposed legislation, which puts Australia at the forefront of regulating social media access for children, would hold platforms accountable for enforcing the new rules, Mr. Albanese said. There will be no exemptions for children with parental permission, he said, but neither underage users nor their parents will face punishment for violations.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/world/australia/australia-teens-social-media.html

From AP:

” The Australian government announced on Thursday what it described as world-leading legislation that would institute an age limit of 16 years for children to start using social media, and hold platforms responsible for ensuring compliance.”

https://apnews.com/article/australia-social-media-age-limit-e8259408c0b1456f41967decd474782a

From UPI:

“Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Thursday his government will introduce legislation to ban children under 16 years of age from social media.”

Defending Legacy Media Over Internet Media?

by

Article in The Washington Post by Catherine Rampell, 11/5/24

Headline:  “Opinion:  This election year, legacy media consumers came out on top”

Subhead:  “We’ve made our share of mistakes, but readers of traditional media understand the stakes of this election.”

“. . . If you had consumed all your election news this year exclusively from The Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or other journalistic dinosaurs, you’d probably be well-informed. You’d have a sense of what the stakes are this election. You might even know what the candidates stand for! The same cannot be said if you instead primarily relied on TikTok influencers, random bros with podcasts or Discord streams, and Elon Musk’s X platform.”

“. . . We traditional journalists don’t get things right all the time. We have biases we’re often blind to. We make errors of omission, commission and emphasis. But we are (usually) embarrassed when we get stuff wrong, and we have procedures for transparently correcting our mistakes.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/05/media-2024-presidential-election/

Social Media Also Influence Climate

by


Article in Techxplore by by Domenico Vicinanza

Headline: “Social media and generative AI can have a large climate impact—here’s how to reduce yours”

“. . . Every time we read an article, see an advertisement, watch a photo or video, that content needs to be transferred from the social media platform’s servers to our device. The larger the file, the more data needs to be transferred. And high-resolution images or long videos involve lots of data.”

“. . . But there are things we can do to reduce the carbon footprint of our internet use, involving a combination of individual actions and systemic changes.”

https://techxplore.com/news/2024-11-social-media-generative-ai-large.html