Top News:
Colin Lecher / The Verge:
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, The Guardian, @sanazbahargam, @jack, @jack, Mashable, @jack, BuzzFeed, USA Today, CNNMoney, Recode, CNBC, @jack, Engadget, The Outline, @rogerpielkejr, BloombergQuint, Gizmodo, @gracie, @darth, @ibarguen, @jimprosser and Jezebel, more at Techmeme »
Laura Hazard Owen / Nieman Lab:
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 »
Benjamin Mullin / Wall Street Journal:
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
Kurt Wagner / Recode:
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 »
Natalia Drozdiak / Wall Street Journal:
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, Mashable, Financial Times, The Verge, Gizmodo, Engadget, The Daily Beast and Bloomberg, more at Techmeme »
Joseph Cox / Motherboard:
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 Daily Caller, Al Jazeera English, The Verge, Jezebel and Engadget
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Paris Martineau / The Outline:
After removing some conspiracy and pro-gun videos and channels, YouTube says it will reinstate videos that were removed in error by moderators
After removing some conspiracy and pro-gun videos and channels, YouTube says it will reinstate videos that were removed in error by moderators
Discussion:
Tubefilter, BetaNews, Gizmodo, Bloomberg, Engadget, The Next Web, Splinter, The Gateway Pundit and The Hill, more at Techmeme »
Chris Stokel-Walker / Bloomberg:
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
Peter Kafka / Recode:
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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Recode:
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
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 »
Dan Primack / Axios:
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
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
Columbia Journalism Review:
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, Nieman Lab, @debananenschil and @sprawlcalgary
Lacey Rose / Hollywood Reporter:
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, Variety, HuffPost, The Verge, Jezebel, BrooklynVegan, Engadget, Paste, Splitsider and TV Tattle
Matt Brian / Engadget:
UK's Sky announces deal with Netflix granting access to all of Netflix's content to Sky customers with Sky Q boxes following the example of BT and Virgin Media — While Sky continues to wade through multi-billion dollar bids from Fox and Comcast, the UK pay-TV provider has quietly …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Variety, The Guardian and Sky News
BBC:
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
Gary Dinges / Austin American-Statesman:
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
Alex Hern / The Guardian:
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
Cynthia Littleton / Variety:
AMC Networks annual revenue grew 1.8% YoY to $2.8B as quarterly revenue fell 0.4% QoQ to $727M; total subscribers grew 3% to 11M for the full year — AMC Networks delivered a solid gain in total subscribers in 2017, thanks in part to the wave of digital MVPD services that launched last year.
Discussion:
The Wrap, Deadline and Broadcasting & Cable