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Twitter says it's seeking proposals from experts to assess its “health” and whether it's fostering positive debate or enabling “abuse, spam, and manipulation” — Twitter, like other major tech companies, has faced a year of punishing criticism, as it's been roiled by misinformation …
Discussion:
Twitter, @jack, Cortico, Fast Company, The Wrap, TechCrunch, Variety, The Hill, Digital Trends, Fortune, Business Insider, @jack, The Guardian, @sanazbahargam, @jack, @jack, BuzzFeed, CNNMoney, USA Today, Mashable, Recode, CNBC, @jack, Engadget, The Outline, @rogerpielkejr, BloombergQuint, Gizmodo, @gracie, @darth, @ibarguen, @jimprosser and Jezebel, more at Techmeme »


Interview with Tow Center's Jonathan Albright on how disinformation spreads across platforms: “the ways we get news ... are literally disintegrating around us” — “The kinds of things that I often see could literally be stopped by one person. I mean: 4chan trending on Google during the Las Vegas shooting?
Discussion:
BuzzFeed, @elilake, @mat, @miriamelder, @ggreenwald, @jimwaterson, @kevincollier, @niemanlab and Wolfgang Blau, more at Techmeme »


ABC News, The Athletic, and Atlantic are contending for ownership of FiveThirtyEight, which averaged 4M-6M unique visitors/month in past year, ~21M in Nov. 2016 — Statistics guru's website is poised to move on from a five-year tie-up with ESPN — The list of suitors for Nate Silver's …
Discussion:
@shalini, The Big Lead and Awful Announcing


Facebook says it's ending test in six countries that moved Pages' posts from News Feed to secondary Explore Feed, is also ending Explore Feed bookmark globally — Facebook has ended a test that put publishers in one feed and friends in another. — Facebook has decided it's a bad idea …
Discussion:
Facebook, TechCrunch, Adweek, Fast Company, Quartz, Digital Trends and @caseynewton, more at Techmeme »


EU announces guidelines mandating that tech firms remove terror content within one hour of it being flagged by law enforcement or Europol — EU announces guidelines to tech giants for removing terror and other illegal content from their websites — BRUSSELS—The European Union on Thursday upped …
Discussion:
EU Press Room, Financial Times, The Verge, Mashable, Gizmodo, Engadget, The Daily Beast and Bloomberg, more at Techmeme »


YouTube banned neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division's channel for violating hate speech policies following criticism and a request from the Anti-Defamation League — YouTube's removal only comes after a media flurry around the platform's inaction on neo-Nazi content.
Discussion:
The Outline, The Daily Caller, Al Jazeera English, Jezebel, The Verge and Engadget
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Study: top 3% of most-viewed YouTube channels receive ~85% of all views, attract 1.4M+ views/month, but could bring only ~$17K/year each in advertising revenue — You can have a million views a month and still not be able to make rent — Do your children dream of YouTube stardom?
Discussion:
@tictoc, @alexisohanian, The New York Observer, Gizmodo and Fast Company


Hasan Minhaj, a Daily Show correspondent, gets his own Netflix talk show, with 32 episodes, becoming the first Indian-American to host a weekly comedy show — The 32-episode order makes Minhaj the first Indian-American to host a weekly comedy show. — Hasan Minhaj is moving his comedy to Netflix.
Discussion:
The Wrap, Broadcasting & Cable, HuffPost, Variety, The Verge, Jezebel, BrooklynVegan, Engadget, Paste, Splitsider and TV Tattle


Canadian government pledges CAD$50M to support local journalism over five years, but media leaders worry amount is too little and may not flow to right outlets — Newspapers stacked and folded in Toronto. Image: Kat Northern Lights Man/flickr. — The Canadian government has pledged …
Discussion:
Toronto Star, @sprawlcalgary, @debananenschil and Nieman Lab


Interview with Katie Couric on her time at Yahoo: though it spent money on big-name reporters, it didn't know how to distribute and scale its quality content — “They hired some big names, and yet they were in the witness protection program.” — When Katie Couric joined Yahoo in 2014 …
Discussion:
The Daily Caller and TVNewser


Sony Music owns 5.7% of Spotify's shares, which is more than other music labels and potentially worth $1.1B based on a $20B valuation — Now it has to figure out how to divide that money with Beyonce and its other artists. — Spotify's coming IPO is validation for CEO Daniel Ek, who has built a giant music streaming business.
Discussion:
Variety, Rolling Stone, Fortune, @pkafka, Variety, The New York Observer and Fast Company
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Spotify's gross margin has grown from 16% to 21% from 2014 to 2017, but since it pays per stream, it still must figure out how to turn usage growth into profit
Discussion:
Forbes, Fast Company, TechCrunch and AdExchanger, more at Techmeme »

Spotify files with SEC for $1B direct listing, will use SPOT as stock symbol; reports 71M paid subs, up 46% YoY, $4.09B revenue in 2017, up from $2.95B in 2016
Discussion:
Bloomberg, Yourstory, Android Police, Tech Startups, Business Insider, Ubergizmo, The Verge, BloombergQuint, Paste, RAIN News, MacRumors, Engadget, BGR, Consequence of Sound, 9to5Mac, FMQB, TechCrunch, Recode and Slate


UK culture secretary rejects second stage of Leveson inquiry, says government will not implement rule forcing media to pay legal costs in all libel cases — Culture Secretary Matt Hancock has said the government will not implement the second stage of the Leveson Inquiry.
Discussion:
The Guardian, The Guardian, @markdistef, Sky News, Financial Times and The Guardian


Texas Monthly editor-in-chief Tim Taliaferro to become chief innovation officer in May, with Rich Oppel stepping in as interim editor-in-chief — There's been a management shakeup at Texas Monthly. — The Austin-based magazine said Thursday that current editor-in-chief Tim Taliaferro …
Discussion:
@by_jmiller, @carlosasanchez, @alexandrianeas and @oliviamesser


Facebook says it found no additional evidence of Russia-linked ads during Brexit campaign in 2016 after launching standalone investigation in January 2018 — Investigation uncovers no coordinated Russian-linked activity in addition to the 71p of ad spend reported in December