It’s #NewstodonFriday! It’s been another busy week for the many newsrooms who have an active presence in the #fediverse, and we’re highlighting their work in the thread below. If you like what you see, follow the profiles and boost their stories.
If you’re a journo or newsroom that we don’t know about or if there’s a newsroom you’d love to put on our radar, please let us know in the comments.
⤵️
@josephcox has written a book, “Dark Wire,” about an encrypted messaging service app called Anom, which is used by drug traffickers but was infiltrated by the FBI and Australian Federal Police (AFP). @404mediaco has published this extract about how a kidnapping was both planned and foiled on Anom.
It’s 2024. Elon Musk Rules X. And the Political World Is Still Addicted.
"Two years after words like Mastodon, BlueSky, Post and Threads became rallying cries and users declared war on the blue check, those who made Twitter what it was in the days before Musk have returned to using X."
"Last year, Democratic candidates spent more than a million bucks on Twitter ads, The Washington Post reported."
How many newspapers' editorial boards will join the Philadelphia Inquirer?
The former president’s criminal conviction and broadsides aimed at the legal system further demonstrate why he is unfit for any office, let alone the Oval Office, writes The Inquirer Editorial Board.
#AI#GenerativeAI#Search#Perplexity#Plagiarism#Journalism#Media#News: "AI-powered search startup Perplexity appears to be plagiarizing journalists’ work through its newly launched feature, Perplexity Pages, which lets people curate content on a particular topic. Multiple posts that have been “curated” by the Perplexity team on its platform are strikingly similar to original stories from multiple publications, including Forbes, CNBC and Bloomberg. The posts, which have already gathered tens of thousands of views, do not mention the publications by name in the article text — the only attributions are small, easy-to-miss logos that link out to them.
For instance, a Perplexity aggregation of Forbes’ exclusive reporting on Eric Schmidt’s stealth drone project contains several fragments that appear to have been lifted, including a custom illustration. Over the past several months, Forbes has broken a series of stories on the former Google CEO’s secretive efforts to develop AI-guided aircraft for the battlefield, and this week reported that Schmidt had poached talent from SpaceX, Apple and Google, and has been testing his drones in the wealthy Silicon Valley town of Menlo Park." https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/06/07/buzzy-ai-search-engine-perplexity-is-directly-ripping-off-content-from-news-outlets/
Sony Will Use AI to Cut Film Costs, Says CEO Tony Vinciquerra
"“We are very focused on AI. The biggest problem with making films today is the expense,” Vinciquerra said at Sony’s Thursday (Friday in Japan) investor event. “We will be looking at ways to…produce both films for theaters and television in a more efficient way, using AI primarily.”"
RW #Media & groups step up the lies & #disinformation, but thankfully for Dems, they're losing their touch. Their judgement is misguided. Dolly is universally beloved, esp. by Gen X & seniors & Gen Z & millennials are concerned about #climatechange. Defending #TFG is⬆️fraught.
The Federalist on 6/6:
"Dolly’s right that all should be treated with love & kindness, but when we refuse to label sin a sin, we’re doing more harm than good."
"Fed Judge Caught Stumping For Biden’s Green Agenda In MT."
AP News calling environmental protestors "oil supporters". It's no wonder the world is the way it is, if these are kind of news platforms that keep us "informed" about issues #climate#protest#UK#news#media
“Imagine if the Biden campaign Twitter feed posted video of a supporter confronting Laura Ingraham, cursing at her, & saying this: ‘Biden will get rid of all you fucking conservatives. You conservatives are gone when he fucking wins.’”
Why do I feel like we're making the same mistakes with bird flu that we did with covid?
Dismissing this case with "oh he had chronic conditions" is extremely dangerous. Not to mention the fact that there's a lot of people who have multiple underlying health conditions.
Think of a publisher, and there's a good chance they'll have a Flipboard account. Now, we're in the process of federating them. Publishers — like just about everyone we know — have a hard time getting their heads around the fediverse and what it means to federate your Flipboard account, so @jejord has written this blogpost. In it, she explains the fediverse, what Flipboard federation looks like, the value of our Magazine feeds, and why we think all this is important. "The fediverse is potentially the One Ecosystem to Rule Them All, and is estimated to grow to 170M users by the end of 2024," writes Jessica.
Lying about our #democracy can cost you. A jury awarded R Freeman & S Moss $148M from Giuliani. Fox News settled with Dominion for $787M after facing the prospect of a lengthy & damaging trial. #Media orgs like OANN/Project Veritas/Salem Media have issued retractions & apologies for their false election claims. We don’t know exactly how this rebalancing towards truth will impact the 2024 election. Those actors-certain to pause-. https://www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/lying-about-the-2024-election-will
A social app for creatives, Cara grew from 40k to 650k users in a week because artists are fed up with Meta’s AI policies
"On Wednesday, Zhang opened her email to find a horrible shock: her bill for using Vercel, a web hosting company, would cost $96,280 for the last week."
WHO confirms first fatal human case of bird flu A(H5N2)
"This was the first laboratory-confirmed human case of infection with A(H5N2) subtype of bird flu reported globally and the first H5 virus infection in a person reported in Mexico."
"The victim had no history of exposure to poultry or other animals, WHO said."
"American media corps., probably: you know who we need running our news outlets this election year? Foreigners who convinced their own country to cripple itself with Brexit."
-W Clark
Local news is crucial to democracy, and it's disappearing — according to a new book by Steven Brill, excerpted in @Semafor, approximately twenty-two hundred papers and their websites went out of business between 2005 and 2021. That's created a vacuum into which "pink-slime" sites have poured. Brill writes about these sites that present themselves as legitimate publishers but are created to boost specific candidates and secretly financed by partisan funders, Democrats and Republicans alike.
Federated news publishers include @AxiosNews, @Semafor, @BloombergGreen, @19thnews, @ConversationUS and more. You'll also find many fantastic lifestyle publishers there, such as @Smithsonianmag, @cntraveler, @outside, @Kotaku and @TheRoot. We're working on a better way to separate publisher and curator profile details so you can easily find what you're looking for; stay tuned. If you're a publisher who'd like to onboard to Flipboard or have your account federated, fill in this survey:
In the words of Fatboy Slim, "we've come a long long way together." Here, @miaq breaks down Flipboard's federation journey so far.
"We could [federate Flipboard] with a quick flip of the switch but we’ve chosen to act more intentionally," she writes. "We’re taking measured steps to test, learn, and ensure that everything we’re doing stays true to our values and those of the fediverse. Maintaining quality is top of the list."
"Will Putin now "denazify" Europe as the far-right surges? Or will Russian fascists make friends with them? Or both?"
-M Andeeva
"Russia has been funding & providing all logistical support to far-right parties & Nazi grps. RU even trained Nazi grps in its PARAMIL camps inside RU. RU has been doing the same in US & targets both extremes-."
-W Seligman