Mediagazer: Inside South Africa's investigative non-profit amaBhungane, its role in the Gupta Leaks and in developing trustworthy investigative journalism in the region (Christine Schmidt/Nieman Lab)

11:35 PM ET, February 4, 2018

Top News:

Molly K. McKew / Politico:

How automated Twitter accounts gamed social media to push #releasethememo, along with help from congressmen, far-right media sites, and other influencers — Russian bots and their American allies gamed social media to put a flawed intelligence document atop the political agenda. That should alarm us.

Discussion: @apriledwardss, @profkeithdevlin, @jonspaihts, @mattboegner, @lawrencehurley, @farhip, Dawn DuPriest, @holden, @sjvenuto, @daniellescave, @joshmeyerdc, @maggienyt and @newyorkcommuter

Jaclyn Peiser / New York Times:

After the Shitty Media Men list emerged, 7 men out of about 70 lost jobs or faced significant job setbacks; others said it affected work and personal lives — On the morning of Oct. 11, a week after The New York Times exposed Harvey Weinstein's systematic harassment and assault of women in Hollywood …

Discussion: Harper's, @ohnopaige, @jackiepeiser, The Wrap and Jezebel

Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal:

Sources: in the US, Apple Music subs are growing ~5% a month, may overtake Spotify, which is growing at ~2% a month, this summer; Apple says Music has 36M subs — Apple's U.S. subscriber-account base has been growing about 5% a month, versus No. 1 Spotify's 2% clip

Discussion: Mashable, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, hypebot, Engadget and The Verge, more at Techmeme »

Christine Schmidt / Nieman Lab:

Inside South Africa's investigative non-profit amaBhungane, its role in the Gupta Leaks and in developing trustworthy investigative journalism in the region — “When you diamond-mine, you basically mess up the resource if you go for the best stuff first.” — When Stefaans Brümmer …

Ricardo Bilton / Nieman Lab:

TheAtlantic.com to replace comments with a curated letters section that seeks to elevate the best reader ideas — “Design-wise, comments are treated as an afterthought. We wanted to find a way to elevate the best ideas from our readers." — TheAtlantic.com pulled the plug on comments on Friday …

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Mammoth Media, the company behind chat fiction app Yarn and polling app Wishbone, raises $13M Series A led by Greylock — Mammoth Media has raised a $13 million Series A funding to create what it calls “entertainment experiences for the mobile-first generation.”

more at Techmeme »

Shannon Liao / The Verge:

WeChat to start issuing electronic government IDs, further cementing its dominance in China, made possible by foreign app censorship and government subsidies — The multipurpose messaging app is becoming the nation's ID system — China's most popular messaging app, WeChat …

Paul Lewis / The Guardian:

How YouTube's recommendation algorithm can promote divisive clips and conspiracy videos and may have spread disinformation during the 2016 election — An ex-YouTube insider reveals how its recommendation algorithm promotes divisive clips and conspiracy videos. Did they harm Hillary Clinton's bid for the presidency?

Discussion: @chatox, @aparatbar, @grady_booch, @lizpelly, The Guardian, The Guardian, @zeynep, @profcarroll and @randfish

Harish Jonnalagadda / Android Central:

Amazon Prime Video and Hotstar, an Indian streaming service, are outcompeting Netflix in India through aggressive pricing and strong content libraries — Netflix hasn't altered its pricing structure for the Indian market, and it's losing ground as a result.

Discussion: @gaurav_keswani, @virtuallyakshay and FactorDaily, more at Techmeme »