Mediagazer: News sites could protect your privacy with encryption. Here's why they probably won't. (Andrea Peterson/The Switch)

4:20 PM ET, December 11, 2013

Top News:

Turning the Page on Anonymity: The Future of HuffPost Comments — Maintaining a civil environment for real conversation and community has always been key to The Huffington Post. From day one, our comments were pre-moderated, and we invested in the most advanced moderation technology along with human moderators.

Discussion: FishbowlNY, 10,000 Words, Poynter, @adrianshort, @jayrosen_nyu, @niemanlab and @dangillmor

Don Reisinger / CNET:

Apple TV gets content boost with Crackle, Watch ABC — Apple has been bulking up its content lineup on the Apple TV, and Wednesday, the company announced still more updates. — Time Warner Cable to add another app platform: Apple TV? — Apple TV a no-show, in any respect, at iPhone event

Discussion: AllThingsD and The Verge

Janko Roettgers / Gigaom:

Apple TV gets live news programming with Bloomberg TV — Bloomberg TV launched an app on Apple TV devices Wednesday morning that includes a live feed of the cable networks financial news programming as well as access to on-demand videos. The live feed is available without authentication …

Discussion: TechCrunch, @brianstelter and 9to5Mac

Andrea Peterson / The Switch:

News sites could protect your privacy with encryption. Here's why they probably won't. — “I've basically been trying to bribe media organizations at this point to turn on SSL,” jokes Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist and a senior policy analyst at the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.

Discussion: Techdirt, Free Press Blog, Wired, @jcstearns, @freedomofpress, Electronista, The Verge, ZDNet and PandoDaily

Jack Mirkinson / The Huffington Post:

Time Criticized For Choosing Pope Francis Over Edward Snowden As Person Of The Year — Time chose the widely popular Pope Francis as its Person of the Year for 2013, sparking criticism from many who thought that the magazine's choice for runner-up, Edward Snowden, deserved the top prize.

Discussion: TIME, TIME, TIME, Capital New York, Guardian, Forbes, Business Insider, The Switch, Talking Points Memo, The Week, Latest News & Headlines, PRNewser, Gothamist, Softpedia News and Newsy

Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:

Vice Media Buys a Tech Company to Experiment With Content Distribution — ADVERTISING, journalism and technology continue to converge. The latest example: Vice Media's acquisition of Carrot Creative, a digital agency that creates apps, websites and games for media companies and brands.

Discussion: VCPOST, @rafat, @jamesnord and Capital New York

Christine Haughney / New York Times:

Gannett to Add USA Today to Local Papers — Gannett Company, one of the nation's largest newspaper chains, will try to expand its advertising and circulation revenue by inserting parts of its flagship newspaper, USA Today, into its local newspapers. — The company is expected to announce …

Discussion: USA Today, Gannett Blog and @susanpage

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

News organisations plead with Syrian rebels to stop abducting journalists — Thirteen news organisations, including The Guardian, have signed a letter calling on rebel groups in Syria to desist from kidnapping journalists and asking for the release of those currently being held hostage.

Discussion: Committee to Protect …, New York Times, FishbowlNY, Capital New York, The Atlantic Online, New York Times, Associated Press, The Huffington Post, Online NewsHour and euronews

Stephen Totilo / Kotaku:

YouTube Channels Crippled By Copyright Claims — Numerous video game-related YouTube personalities have spent the last day digging through piles of copyright claims suddenly filling their inboxes, claims that they say are messing with their ability to produce and profit from videos they post online.

Discussion: Forbes, Polygon, Tubefilter, VentureBeat, @simonhoupt, @jerryandharry, Plagiarism Today and Marketing Pilgrim

Jeff John Roberts / Gigaom:

Beastie Boys countersue as fair use fight over “Girls” song escalates — A copyright case between the Beastie Boys and toy maker GoldieBlox just got nastier: the rap group claims in a court filing that rewriting its “Girls” song for a video commercial does not count as “fair use,” …

Discussion: Fast Company, Variety, GeekWire, Businessweek, Hollywood Reporter, Gothamist, The Verge, @rga, Techdirt, TeleRead and Columbia Journalism Review

Erik Wemple:

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow to write Washington Post column — The journalistic bond between The Post and MSNBC just grew a bit stronger, as the paper's opinion section announced that MSNBC host Rachel Maddow will be writing a monthly column. “We expect that she will bring to Post readers the strong arguments …

Discussion: WashPost PR, TheBlaze.com and The Huffington Post

Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:

Spotify brings free music to all devices (with caveats); snags Led Zeppelin — NEW YORK CITY — In its quest to entice more users, Spotify is finally bringing its free music service to more devices — though they won't all get the same free content. — A new ad-supported offering …

Discussion: New York Times, Spotify Blog, AdAge, AllThingsD, Media & Entertainment, Betabeat, Newsy, Reuters, Rolling Stone, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Variety, CNET, Hollywood Reporter, App Advice, @devindra, The Verge, Mashable, Gigaom, Pocket-lint, Telegraph, Softpedia News and The Next Web

John Herrman / BuzzFeed:

Why Twitter Just Joined The Backchannel Wars — Direct messages to the forefront, big photos in tow. Twitter knows: The service that controls messaging controls the world. — Another day, another new messaging app. The only difference: This one is already installed on your phone.

Discussion: Mashable

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Twitter's new head of news explains why she left NBC

Discussion: LinkedIn Pulse

Jeremy Gordon / The Twitter Blog:
Photos in direct messages and swipe between timelines

Discussion: Business Insider, Marketing Pilgrim, SocialTimes, AppNewser, TechCrunch, The Atlantic Online, The Next Web, Mashable, Digits, Electronista, ReadWrite, 9to5Mac, Wired, Engadget, VentureBeat, MacRumors, The Verge, Pocket-lint, CNET, App Advice, Newsy and Yahoo! News

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Web Video Startup Ooyala Raises $43 Million — We saw a smattering of ad tech IPOs this year, and there are a bunch of companies that are supposedly lined up for next year. — Here's one you likely won't see going public in 2014 — at least not in the beginning of the year: Ooyala, the Web video startup.

Discussion: The Wrap, VentureBeat, Mashable and Variety

Michael Sebastian / AdAge:

Paywalls Boost Ad Rates for Some Magazines and Newspapers, OPA Study Finds — It's All About the Subscription Data (and What You Do with It) — Online paywalls are helping some newspaper and magazine websites increase the ad rates they charge, according to a new report from the Online Publishers Association.

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Warner Takes Netflix-Style Service for Old Movies to iPads — Studio says Warner Instant Archive now supports closed captioning — Warner Bros. has launched an iPad tablet app for its subscription-streaming service for classic film and TV titles, a sign the premium-priced offering …

Discussion: @willmckinley

Josh Horwitz / Tech in Asia:

Marcus Brauchli, once of WSJ and Washington Post, invests in Taipei startup The News Lens — The News Lens, the startup that wants to disrupt traditional media in Asia, just received its first round of funding — Mario Yang (left), co-founder and editor-in-chief at The News Lens …

Michael Sebastian / AdAge:

New York Times Expects Digital Ad Growth in 2014 — New York Times CEO Mark Thompson intends to restore growth to the company's digital advertising revenue next year after recent declines, he told a meeting of investors Tuesday. — To spur growth, the Times is introducing branded content solutions …

Discussion: @laureni, @adage and Capital New York

Guardian:

BBC to axe more than half of its management boards — Review of corporation's governance also includes appointment of two new non-executive directors and changes to trust's remit — The BBC will on Wednesday announce a series of changes to its system of governance and the appointment …

Discussion: Financial Times and @uk_radio

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:

Digital Magazine Startup Magzter Raises $10M To Fuel Global Growth — New York-based Magzter, a startup founded in 2011 to help magazine publishers get their pubs in the hands of digital readers, regardless of which platform they choose to use to read. In two years of operation …

Discussion: Folio

Lauren Kirchner / Columbia Journalism Review:

Jana Winter's victory — On Tuesday, The New York Court of Appeals overturned a subpoena that's been hanging over investigative reporter Jana Winter's head since March, and resolved a legal battle that lasted over a year. The subpoena had called on Winter to appear in the James Holmes criminal trial …

Discussion: New York Times, The Huffington Post, FishbowlNY, The Wrap and The Desk

Comcast:

Comcast Plans to Add New Networks and Distributors to SEEiT Platform — ABC Entertainment Group, A+E Networks Group, AMC Networks Inc., Cablevision's Optimum TV, Charter Communications, Crown Media Family Networks, Discovery Communications, Fox Networks Group and Time Warner Cable are expected …

Discussion: The Verge, @awallenstein and @thefoaguy

Sapna Maheshwari / BuzzFeed:

Growth Of Video Ads On Tablets, Cell Phones And Smart TVs Is Exploding — Total video ad views grew 31% in the third quarter, Citigroup analysts said in a note today. — As many know, people are increasingly consuming video on devices other than their televisions — and that's making for a booming video ad market.

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

NimbleTV Brings TV Everywhere to New York, Without Permission From the TV Industrial Complex — Want to watch the TV you've already paid for, anywhere you want to watch it, whenever you want to watch it? — You can't. * But NimbleTV says it can change that.

Discussion: PandoDaily, Poynter, Mashable, VentureBeat, Los Angeles Times, Business Insider and Variety

Hadas Gold / Politico:

Conservative consolidation: New ‘Twitchy’ owner in talks to buy RedState, Regnery — Salem Communications, the parent company of right-wing sites HotAir.com and Townhall.com, is considering a series of acquisitions that would consolidate several of the conservative blogosphere's …

Discussion: Businessweek and @johntabin