![OS POSITIVOS](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zKKfxaIfpU8/Wv1aApfmmBI/AAAAAAAARbk/X7F-ldyPjjE3TCXHeH3HZ2xeVNDugZDCgCKgBGAs/s1600/x_header-200.png")
Nos artigos anteriores preocupámo-nos com a influência das redes sociais sobre os media e a deturpação de factos –puta mentira mesmo- que nestas circulam, e, particularmente, nessa nota focámo-nos na reação da imprensa. Como notámos do rescaldo das eleições norte-americanas (período conhecido por gerações vindouras –as que sobreviverem ie- como o “advento do anti-cristo”), a imprensa fez então um sentido mea culpa antes de recuperar do choque e apontar baterias às redes sociais: particularmente ao Facebook e passando algo ao lado do Twitter – peculiaridade curiosa já que o presidente-eleito deu uma preferência óbvia ao segundo mas desculpa-se quando nos recordamos que nada desses temas é novidade ao mesmo vai para uma década.
Nessa reação, vimos surgir uma pequena linha de argumentação da qual fomos rápidos a suspeitar na altura:
A culpa é do algoritmo. Certo e voltaremos a este ponto adiante.
In Real Nós
Aquilo dos algoritmos - começas a perceber a tendência?
In Real Nós
A culpa é do algoritmo. E essa é apenas a deixa.
In Real Nós
...e que tendo entretanto feito o seu percurso de maturação entre os dizeres dos 4th State fez o seu assalto final nos editoriais do fim-de-semana passado. A mensagem?
This is a job for people, not algorithms.
Ou, como o suspeitávamos das nossas notas anteriores, a César o que é de César, e este insiste na exclusividade de único gatekeeper legítimo. Como dizíamos:
Essencialmente, rescrever o algoritmo, ou, melhor ainda, substitui-lo por pessoas. Talvez, pessoas qualificadas na avaliação do que é digno ou indigno de nota e notícia. Assim que, por exemplo, jornalistas encartados? Afinal, é bom para o Facebook e para o jornalismo. Senhoras e senhores, o FB é o sewer da idade digital, o pior que aconteceu ao jornalismo, mas, e já que o jornalismo está nas lonas e não o podes vencer – eles não o dizem mas ressalta na leitura de toda a desarmonia- e porque não te juntares a ele?
In Real Nós
Como resolver o problema das notícias falsas do Facebook e afins? A resposta –do lado dos media- parece ser “mais jornalistas”. A felicidade de solução não passa despercebida mas voltaremos à crise da imprensa às mãos do digital – outra vez- adiante. Para já, uma pequena-longa sequência de excertos que confrontam o debate:
What's certain is that fake news on Facebook is a symptom of a larger problem: the company is trying to play contradictory roles as both trustworthy news publisher and fun social media platform for personal sharing. The problem is that it cannot be both
in "It’s time to get rid of the Facebook “news feed,” because it’s not news" 19 nov 2016
Primeiro, que algoritmos?
When you log into your Facebook account, your default page is dominated by a cascading "news feed," automatically selected for your pleasure (...) The company uses a mix of secret-sauce algorithms to choose which pieces of news you see.
in "It’s time to get rid of the Facebook “news feed,” because it’s not news" 19 nov 2016
Algorithms identify that a user likes one particular page and suggest others, creating an echo-chamber effect that can lead to some pretty scary places. For instance, after a user likes the Australian United Patriots Front page, Facebook suggests more pages to like, such as the National Democratic Party of Australia and Stop The Mosque In Narre Warren. The Britain First page lists Christian Fightback News and Donald Trump as pages you should like next. Facebook’s recommendation engines appear to promote political ideology like any other kind of content, pushing users even deeper.
in "This Is How Facebook Is Radicalizing You" 16 nov 2016
Facebook in particular faces a more fundamental issue given the ways in which its algorithm selects posts: if users engage more with fake news than real news, as seems possible, then Facebook’s algorithm will promote the fake news.
in "Facebook and Google move to kick fake news sites off their ad networks" 15 nov 2016
E aqui introduzimos o primeiro grande senão. Estes automatismos não são o resultado de uma AI godsen de intenções benevolentes. O drive é o de sempre:
While Facebook’s algorithm appears to emphasize newness and popularity, it has also done everything to make sure users stay within the app for as long as possible. (…) Facebook doesn’t want to challenge you, they don’t want to upset you, because they know that if you’re challenged on their platform, you wouldn’t want to use it as much
in "This Is How Facebook Is Radicalizing You" 16 nov 2016
Given that Facebook's main goal is to serve you ads and get you to buy things, their number-one priority is keeping you glued to your feed. If you see a bunch of things you hate in your feed, you're going to stop looking at it and take your clicks elsewhere. Common sense dictates that Facebook should avoid showing you news that will upset you or make you angry. (…) Their business depends on it.
in "It’s time to get rid of the Facebook “news feed,” because it’s not news" 19 nov 2016
…Com um twist para o dark. Por um lado, essa manipulação combina diferentes fontes sem distinção, na prática equiparando-as, descaracterizando-as, dificultando a sua verificação. O que o teu avô racista e o conglomerado de empresas do Roberto Murdoc dizem vale o mesmo:
Though there's something ineffably creepy about Facebook manipulating our emotions, the site is no different than any other ad-driven business. (…) Facebook's big innovation was the discovery that it could sell ads against people's friendship networks. (...) The problem is that Facebook decided to go beyond friendship networks. For several years now, the company has courted professional news outlets, ranging from the New York Times and BuzzFeed to Breitbart and FOX News, promising them prominent placement in users' feeds. (…) But then, earlier this year, Facebook announced that it would no longer be giving special weight to news coming from pages that belong to media outlets. From that point on, they would be weighting news from "friends and family" more heavily than from news outlets. Your news feed would not discriminate between stuff your friends passed along and news sources.
in "It’s time to get rid of the Facebook “news feed,” because it’s not news" 19 nov 2016
Por outro lado eleva a destaque um subconjunto dessas escolhas:
This rule had one exception. To the right of the news feed on your default Facebook page is the "trending" module. For a while, Facebook had a team of human editors who curated trending news from a long list of reputable sources. But Facebook fired them and set up an algorithm to take their places. With no human checks on it, that algorithm immediately started posting fake news. Facebook's algorithms are great at keeping people glued to their screens, but they are terrible at distinguishing real news from fake.
in "It’s time to get rid of the Facebook “news feed,” because it’s not news" 19 nov 2016
Independentemente do que o FB admita ou como o entenda, em ambos os casos é feita uma selecção que obedece a critérios definidos que se escusam atrás do tal algoritmo. Sobre a “objectividade” * deste, um longo resumo, suficientemente claro no humans do it best mas sem entrar na histeria do jornalista encartado:
* Tal como já falamos da objectividade dos jornalistas.
In its early days, Google was bombarded with complaints about its search-ranking: the proprietors of low-ranked sites insisted that Google had insulted them by not ranking them higher, and wanted to know how they could improve their ranking and thus make more money, command more attention, and increase their influence. (…) Google's initial response was to hide behind machine objectivity: "Our algorithm has downranked you because your site does not have the mathematical correlates of quality and relevance. You can't argue with math. If you want a higher ranking, make a better site." (…) This, of course, was not true. The decisions that Google makes to assign high scores to certain metrics (lots of inbound links, or lots of clicks, or certain properties of language) and downrank others (slow loading, inbound links from known "bad" sites, etc) reflects human, editorial judgment. (… )True or not, it gave Google a readymade and unassailable response to people who didn't like their search results (…) But this position had a serious flaw: if Google's results are the product of math, not human expression, then there is no free speech interest in protecting those results. The entertainment industry was the first to advance this argument -- to governments, not Google -- demanding that their sites be top-ranked for searches, and that "pirate" sites be downranked.
Governments were fairly receptive to this argument, and that opened the floodgates. Soon, everyone was in on the act: there is literally no end to the constituencies who feel like they have a legitimate interest in tweaking Google's search results. (…) In 2012, Google had had enough. They commissioned Eugen Volokh, the famed First Amendment legal scholar, to write a legal white-paper explaining that search results were indeed the result of human judgment, and had been all along. The government doesn't barge into the New York Times editorial meeting and dictate which stories will go above the fold of tomorrow's edition -- they have no more business telling Google which results come first in search results.Facebook is now edging into the same territory, by much the same route. Since its first blush of popularity, Facebook has maintained that its algorithm was assembling your feed based on some objective notion of "relevance," not the human judgment of its human masters. Now, with governments rattling their sabers, and the election-haunted public howling for blood, Facebook is moving through the journey Google began in 2012. A few days ago, Zuckerberg was saying, "Facebook can't be the arbiter of truth," and now the company is signalling that it will be just that. I am just as worried as can be that Facebook's war on "fake news" will end up catching a lot of important stories that are not fake -- stories that are urgent, like the North Dakota pipeline tragedy, which keeps getting worse, and which requires realtime access to attention at key moments lest it become a massacre. But Facebook isn't moving from "not exercising editorial judgment" to "adding editorial to the algorithm." The algorithm is editorial, and it has been since the first time a programmer looked at the results of a test suite and found them satisfying.
Machine learning is in a crisis. The illusion of algorithmic objectivity is driving racist policing and incarceration under the guise of empirical, evidence-based crime-fighting. Like Facebook's algorithm, like Google's search ranking, predictive policing, automated sentencing reviews, and other systems of computer-aided judgment can be programmed to make good judgments or bad ones, and ultimately, the difference is something that humans, not computers, will have to determine. Facebook could get it horribly wrong with its "fake news" filter, but the problem won't be that Facebook has decided to filter based on content, it will be that its content filter sucks.
Facebook, like Google, is a content filter.
in "Google and Facebook's 'fake news' ban is a welcome nail in the coffin of 'software objectivity'" 15 nov 2016
E agora com mais fervor nas opiniões: porque o FB não se pode dar ao luxo de se desposar da defesa de supostos automatismos nem admitir ao mesmo tempo que pratica algum tipo de linha editoral.
If those publications post articles that are libelous, infringing, obscene, or otherwise unlawful, they can be held liable in a court of law for what they've published.Think about two rules that the US legal system uses to regulate the news media. One is the First Amendment, which has been interpreted to mean that a publisher has the right to publish lawful information without interference from the government. The other is a rather obscure section of the Communications Decency Act known as "CDA 230." (…) Section 230 offers immunity from legal prosecution to "intermediaries" or "interactive computer services" who publish things created by other people. The classic example of a person protected by CDA 230 is a blogger who allows open comments on their stories. Under CDA 230, the blogger cannot be sued if a commenter says something libelous or posts an infringing movie. The blogger is merely an "intermediary" and thus does not bear responsibility for what commenters say. (…) Facebook enjoys the protection of both the First Amendment and CDA 230, but CDA 230 is key to its survival. It means that Facebook cannot be held liable for anything posted on Facebook (…) But CDA 230 may not protect Facebook if the company continues to use algorithms (…) If Facebook starts acting too much like a publisher, or what CDA 230 calls an "information content provider," it may open itself up to liability. (…) Given that one of the traditional roles of publishers is to choose which stories to show their readers, a court might possibly decide that Facebook is actually a publisher. (…) CDA 230 provides immunity for "interactive computer services," drawing a line between that category and "information content providers." But it's not entirely clear when the former becomes the latter; in other words, it's not clear when an intermediary engages in enough editing of third-party content that it becomes an "information content provider"
Facebook wants to have it both ways, both ethically and legally.
The company wants to be seen as a source of news. The company offers media outlets a chance to use Facebook Instant, because having native content from the New York Times enhances Facebook's credibility. And yet it also wants to retreat into the safe harbor of being a mere intermediary that does not distinguish between Uncle Tommy's rants and a Washington Post investigation. That's why Zuckerberg has responded to criticisms of fake news by saying Facebook's job is not to determine what's true. The company just officially banned fake news sources from buying ads. Clearly, Zuckerberg et al know how to distinguish real from fake, but are choosing to feign ignorance when it suits them.
Almost nothing would get posted to Facebook if the company had to take full legal responsibility for everything in the feed.
in "It’s time to get rid of the Facebook “news feed,” because it’s not news" 19 nov 2016
Ou, claro, “aquela solução”:
Or, Facebook could keep walking the line, but in a much more honest fashion. It might do this by creating a separate news section, curated in part by humans and perhaps by better algorithms. This section could draw from a vast array of professional media organizations, the same way Google News does.
in "It’s time to get rid of the Facebook “news feed,” because it’s not news" 19 nov 2016
Os editoriais de dois grandes jornais norte-americas não deixam dúvidas sobre essa solução. Segue-se o apontar de dedo pelo NY Times e a feliz e inocente sugestão que se insinua:
A big part of the responsibility for this scourge rests with internet companies like Facebook and Google, which have made it possible for fake news to be shared nearly instantly with millions of users and have been slow to block it from their sites.Facebook says it is working on weeding out such fabrications. It said last Monday that it would no longer place Facebook-powered ads on fake news websites, a move that could cost Facebook and those fake news sites a lucrative source of revenue. Earlier on the same day, Google said it would stop letting those sites use its ad placement network. These steps would help, but Facebook, in particular, owes its users, and democracy itself, far more.
Facebook has demonstrated that it can effectively block content like click-bait articles and spam from its platform by tweaking its algorithms, which determine what links, photos and ads users see in their news feeds. Nobody outside the company knows exactly how its software works and why you might see posts shared by some of your friends frequently and others rarely. Recently, the company acknowledged that it had allowed businesses to target or exclude users for ads for housing, employment and credit based on their ethnicity, in apparent violation of anti-discrimination laws. It has said it will stop that practice.
Facebook managers are constantly changing and refining the algorithms, which means the system is malleable and subject to human judgment.
in "Facebook and the Digital Virus Called Fake News" 19 nov 2016
Na eventualidade de passar despercebido, o Washington Post é francamente mais assertivo sobre essa sugestão:
The social media companies must not duck this issue.It wasn’t all that long ago that the Internet was a wild west, where information ran free. As Facebook, Google and Twitter grew, they celebrated this as a virtue, insisting they were technology companies built on algorithms and not news media outlets. But on the road to becoming true global giants, Facebook and the others took on enormous new power to shape the information that people consume.
A distinction must be drawn between personal posts, which are best left largely unfettered, and the news feed posts that can quickly go viral, accelerated by algorithms that respond to user engagement. When these posts suddenly explode and reach millions of people, social media essentially become news media.
Fake news is dangerous mischief and takes advantage of the fact that social media generally rely on rapid-fire algorithms and not deliberate human editing. The social media services must adjust to the reality that they now are news media outlets to some extent; that means relying more on human editors to weed out the fake news. The task is delicate and requires balanced judgment. The aim must be not to censor free expression or favor certain political views, but to guard against deception and fraud.
This is a job for people, not algorithms.
in "Social media sites can’t allow fake news to take over" 18 nov 2016
Do mesmo editorial, diz o roto ao nu:
It goes to the heart of an open society, and also is the key to their own credibility and survival.
Parece-nos que a imprensa do antigamente deveria preocupar-se com a sua própria credibilidade e sobrevivencia. Mas já ficamos felizes por tranquilamente aceitarem o óbvio agora:
The Internet has become a vital forum for democratic debate; it is essential that that interchange not be warped by propaganda and lies.
- é o de subliminarmente admitem que o futuro da imprensa está online.
São demasiadas vertentes para apurar de uma só vez e faremos o tal post à parte para as nossas conclusões. A terminar esta exposição só mais duas notas. Primeiro, é mais do que o Facebook. Apesar de se lançarem sobre este em particular pela particularidade da relação entre ambos por via do ascendente que o FB tem sobre os media, é-nos claro que este é um debate que deve ser feito no seio da Tecnologia, não de uma qualquer companhia. By no means, um Google é de forma alguma diferente, e ainda que os media não o possam acusar de falsidades e outras distorções óbvias, não é necessário retroceder muito no tempo para encontrar evidências dos arrufos entre ambos. Filtros, bolhas, gatekeeping e censura são apenas um dos muitos tópicos que extravasam a difícil relação de publishing houses a perder o controlo dos seus conteúdos.
Facebook is not alone in this. Google also filters the search results based on your location and previous searches and clicks. The social bubbles that Facebook and Google have designed for us are shaping the reality
in "Your Filter Bubble is Destroying Democracy" 18 nov 2016
Sobre essa perda de controlo falaremos nessa próxima entrada. Esta mais não reflecte do que a inadequação da imprensa dos old ways a acompanhar os new ways. A avalanche de notícias falsas é a sua prova: os habituais modelos de legitimação não só não cumpriram a sua função como estavam totalmente ignorantes da discussão que se desenrolava num universo que ainda lhes é estranho. Do CJR:
Here in the gap between the speed of the tech transformation and the recalcitrance of changing media there are gleeful trolls spreading manic, entertaining garbage.Fake news—that is, hoaxes and false and misleading stories from hyper-partisan and other sites—took advantage of the widening gap between the booming platforms and legacy media companies. (…) Most media companies are still spending the vast bulk of their reporting resources on print, broadcast, or paywalled digital distribution that isn’t made for those spaces. Filling that gap is now a central challenge for media and tech companies: How can media companies do professional journalism that reaches audiences on the major platforms?
in "How tech and media can fight fake news" 17 nov 2016
E a sentença final:
Mark Zuckerberg recently wrote that “identifying the ‘truth’ is complicated.” Maybe for algorithms and epistemologists. But it’s something that professional journalists are asked to do every day
in "How tech and media can fight fake news" 17 nov 2016
Apesar da hesitação o FB fez uma pequena inversão no discurso e já admite que tomará medidas no sentido de limitar a proliferação de notícias falsas – sem, no entanto, deixar antever a recriação da tal equipa editorial humanoide: o algoritmo reigns supreme no que lhes importa – e como também veremos, o mesmo se aplica ao Google. Por via do habitual :)
Cutting off the revenue to such sites by limiting the amount of money they can make from advertising may help limit their proliferation.
in "Facebook and Google move to kick fake news sites off their ad networks" 15 nov 2016
Mas, como o mesmo artigo salienta, essa solução depende do mesmo jogo de gato e rato de sempre, e só aborda o drive porco-capitalista, não ataca o troll puro e duro. Para o bem ou para o mal, fora da ganância do $$ a resistência é sempre maior.
Even if sites can’t make revenue through advertising, the possibility of other revenue sources, or even just notoriety, may serve to provide enough motivation.
in "Facebook and Google move to kick fake news sites off their ad networks" 15 nov 2016
Last and not least. Este apontar do dedo? Todas estas acusações…? Não podiam ter chegado no melhor momento –vide: Real Nós, comics, media, digital, punx!- e não podiam ser mais hipócritas também:
Let me get this out of the way first: There is fake news in mainstream media, too.
in "Fake News: Be Careful What You Wish For" 14 nov 2016
Para dizer o mínimo. Mais aquilo da voz do dono também. Mas no mais imediato–
Did we learn nothing about bad information from dealing with junk rising in Google search results? Censorious and offensive-to-free-speech-and-history European “right to be forgotten” aside, bad information cannot be stomped out. The solution, we’ve long since learned, is to flood the zone with good information. (…) Media left the platform of social media and the device of the meme to the fake-news factories (…) Instead of complaining that Facebook doesn’t send enough traffic to our 1,000-word articles that countless lost customers have demonstrated they don’t want to read, we should be going to the social platforms, speaking the language there, respecting their context, and using the devices they provide — memes, video, photos, dancing GIFs if that’s what it takes — to bring journalistic value to the conversations that now occur without us. (…) Instead of mourning the creation of fake-news memes and putting the onus on Facebook to kill them (again: do we really want that?) we should be pouring out our own truth memes — with facts, fact-checking, context, explanation, education, reporting, watch-dogging: journalism, in short.
in "Fake News: Be Careful What You Wish For" 14 nov 2016
Onde ouviram algo parecido com esta sugestão antes? hint: de um sujeito muito mal-encarado que tem sempre razão…Continua: 1) e que tal a imprensa abraçar realmente o digital:
As a media company, I would assign social journalists to work on Facebook, Twitter, et al not to promote my own damned stories but to find what people are curious, wrong, and confused about and to bring them journalism.
in "Fake News: Be Careful What You Wish For" 14 nov 2016
…e 2) que tal acabar de vez com a ilusão do gatekeepin’? Mais –repetição!- no próximo post…
In both cases — media and Facebook — I’m suggesting that we inform and empower the users, the citizens, the public to share smarter, more factual, more rational and reasonable information. (…) Instead of concentrating on killing the bad, enable the good and empower the user.
Puto: familiar?
Porque achamos que o jornalismo é demasiado importante para ser deixado aos jornalistas? Acabámos de demonstrar a falácia destes inúteis modernos. Acreditar no potencial do jornalista crescido e alimentado numa redação orientada ao mercado faz tanto sentido como acreditar que as jotinhas produzem os bons políticos do amanhã. (...) A relação Trump/media ** é muito mais abrangente do que a aqui resumida a propósito da falácia do jornalista profissional. Antes este era contido pelo establishment, prevê-se que os novos powers that be os venham a perseguir: a importância do public citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information continua a ser a melhor estratégia de resistência agora que o digital o suporta.
In Real Nós
** Dito e feito: publicados hoje no Guardian e no NY times duas longas reportagens on topic:
Para o ultimate guide de penitência no jornalismo, um imediato às eleições e outro de hoje também:
Adivinha-se uma relação difícil entre o presidente-eleito e a imprensa, uma que nos importa acompanhar para compreender a evolução dos media agora que dificilmente se poderá voltar aos bons velhos tempos do monopólio da comunicação - não queremos anunciar já que os "gates r open" porque podemos simplesmente estar a testemunhar o início de uma maior censura que disfarça de comunicação directa monólogos de um só sentido. Enquanto acompanhamos os desenvolvimentos nessa frente falta-nos registar a também difícil relação dos media com as redes sociais, de que todas as nossas notas são apenas um longo registo de sintomas, não causas. Próximo: causas. E mais algumas conclusões pelo meio.
Por data, acabaste de ler:
- “A Honeypot For Assholes”: Inside Twitter’s 10-Year Failure To Stop Harassment
https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/a-honeypot-for-assholes-inside-twitters-10-year-failure-to-s?utm_term=.ojnJZ84Px#.wf7loqRz2
11 agosto 2016 - The Big Difference Between Facebook and Twitter
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/11/the-big-difference-between-facebook-and-twitter
3 nov 2016 - Fake News: Be Careful What You Wish For
https://medium.com/whither-news/fake-news-be-careful-what-you-wish-for-7246da863a40#.ucn40cs1h
14 nov 2016 - Facebook and Google move to kick fake news sites off their ad networks
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/15/facebook-google-fake-news-sites-ad-networks
15 nov 2016 - Google and Facebook's "fake news" ban is a welcome nail in the coffin of "software objectivity”
http://boingboing.net/2016/11/15/google-and-facebooks-fake.html
15 nov 2016 - This Is How Facebook Is Radicalizing You
https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/the-far-right-is-a-meme
16 nov 2016 - How tech and media can fight fake news
http://www.cjr.org/first_person/ben_smith_fake_news_buzzfeed_facebook.php
17 nov 2016 - Your Filter Bubble is Destroying Democracy
https://www.wired.com/2016/11/filter-bubble-destroying-democracy/
18 nov 2016 - Social media sites can’t allow fake news to take over
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/social-media-sites-cant-allow-fake-news-to-take-over/2016/11/18/ba8ace9e-ac22-11e6-8b45-f8e493f06fcd_story.html?utm_term=.192b73dd5f11
18 nov 2016 - It’s time to get rid of the Facebook “news feed,” because it’s not news
http://arstechnica.com/staff/2016/11/its-time-to-get-rid-of-the-facebook-news-feed-because-its-not-news/
19 nov 2016 - Facebook and the Digital Virus Called Fake News
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/facebook-and-the-digital-virus-called-fake-news.html?_r=0
19 nov 2016
leituras adicionais
- portugal
- meio de comunicação vs isento dessas coisas
O site Sapo é ou não um meio de comunicação? Para a ERC, a resposta é sim e, como tal, deve respeitar a Lei de Imprensa e elaborar um estatuto editorial (...) a ERC emitiu um parecer em que concluía que “a página Sapo Notícias do portal Sapo constitui uma verdadeira publicação periódica electrónica, sujeita ao âmbito de aplicação da Lei de Imprensa”
Já a PT Comunicações defende que o site tem carácter multifuncional e é um agregador de conteúdos e por isso está excluído desta obrigação, acrescentando que “não preenche o conceito legal de imprensa”.
in "ERC obriga Sapo a ter estatuto editorial" 5 dez 2016
- media
After years of rejecting the “media company” label, Twitter is indulging in some decidedly media company behaviors
At a time when social media companies shirk the “media company” label, Twitter seems to be embracing the role. (...) Whether Twitter says it or not, it’s clear the company wants to be more than simply a dumb pipe for programming created by others. Increasingly, Twitter seems to be positioning itself to procure, program and promote that media as well. (...) For Twitter, a definitive move into media at a time when larger rivals like Facebook dance and prevaricate around it, could be a savvy tactical decision. Twitter’s real-time nature makes it a great platform for breaking news funneled into it by others.
in "Twitter Embraces Its Role As A Media Company" 29 dez 2016
- media
It's an important distinction: Wall Street rewards technology companies with much higher price-to-earnings ratios than pure-play media companies.
Facebook, he said, is not a "traditional" media company or a "traditional" technology company. (...) "Facebook is a new kind of platform," Zuckerberg said during the video chat. "It's not a traditional technology company. It's not a traditional media company. You know, we build technology and we feel responsible for how it's used. We don't write the news that people read on the platform, but at the same time we also know that we do a lot more than just distribute the news, and we're an important part of the public discourse." That's a very different stance than in the past.
in "Zuckerberg: Facebook isn't a 'traditional' media company" 22 dez 2016
- media
VALUED LIKE A TECH COMPANY: Wall Street prizes tech companies over media conglomerates, and rewards Silicon Valley’s innovators with a higher price-to-earnings ratio (...) "so if Zuckerberg wants to deflate (Facebook’s) value by like two-thirds, then by all means, be a media company".
LEGAL BENEFITS: certain legal advantages accrue to online platforms like Facebook that distribute content, but steer clear of creating it. Facebook benefits from an obscure provision of the Telecom Act of 1996 that shields online operators from liability associated with the speech and actions of third parties who use the site (...) “Traditional media companies do not enjoy the same degree of protection thus, Facebook doesn't want to lose that valuable legal shield from potentially onerous liability."
But try as it might to avoid the media label, Facebook’s editors and algorithms increasingly make judgment calls that would be familiar to anyone working in a newsroom. They’re arbiters in determining which articles and images to show. "That is front and center of what we do as journalists".
in "Here's why Zuckerberg doesn't want to be a Murdoch-like media mogul" 20 set 2016
- media
"Facebook is without question in a dominant position, if not the dominant position, for content delivery," he said.
If we are going to examine media monopolies, we should look first at Silicon Valley, not the fading phone business (...) the truly dominant companies in media distribution these days were Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon.
The former editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, estimated that Facebook had "sucked up $27 million" of the paper’s projected digital advertising revenue in the last year by essentially keeping Guardian readers on Facebook, rather than linking them to the Guardian site. "They are taking all the money," he noted. "They have algorithms we don’t understand, which are a filter between what we do and how people receive it."
As more and more of our lives become digital, these new algorithms will assume more power over our lives.
in "Forget AT&T. The Real Monopolies Are Google and Facebook." 13 dez 2016