Top News:
Hailey Fuchs / Politico:
Roku says it will no longer offer RT News among its channels globally, after earlier pulling the Russian state-controlled TV network from its service in Europe — Roku, the widely popular internet television service, will no longer offer RT among its channels, a company spokesperson told POLITICO on Tuesday.
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Engadget, The Verge, Wall Street Journal, Axios, @tomwarren, MediaPost, Deadline, Bloomberg and NPR
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Politico:
The EU officially bans Sputnik and five legal entities associated with RT; national regulators must ensure that the sanctions are enforced — Kremlin-backed media outlets RT and Sputnik are officially banned in the EU as of Wednesday morning, in a move meant to crack down on Russian disinformation amid Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Discussion:
@laukaya, CNET, consilium.europa.eu, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Euractiv and @fabiochiusi
Euan O'Byrne Mulligan / The Guardian:
BBC stops all content licensing in Russia and requests the remaining episodes of two programs for which it sold rights are not aired on Russian state TV — Rival broadcaster ITV will also put a stop on new programme sales to Russian clients — The BBC will no longer license TV content …
Discussion:
Reuters
Oliver Darcy / CNN:
DirecTV drops RT “effective immediately”, accelerating this year's contract expiration timeline; DirecTV and Dish are the only major US TV providers carrying RT — New York (CNN Business)DirecTV is cutting ties with RT, the Russia-backed television network infamous for promoting Vladimir Putin's agenda.
Mark Scott / Politico:
YouTube plans to block Russia-backed RT and Sputnik in the European Union and the UK, following similar bans by Meta and TikTok, citing the invasion of Ukraine
Discussion:
@googleeurope, @broderick, @ggreenwald, @eliothiggins, Reuters, Washington Post, @kolga, @americascomic, @drewcurtis, insideradio.com, @carolecadwalla, @ezralevant, @jeffjarvis, Music Ally, Popular Science, @elilake, @yiannisbab, @hillelneuer, @eliothiggins, @christopherjm, @eliothiggins, @jessikkaaro, @jimwaterson, Vanity Fair, Euractiv, 9to5Mac, Variety, TechCrunch, The Verge, Engadget, The Hollywood Reporter, TASS, Insider, euronews and Reuters, more at Techmeme »
Vikas SN / Moneycontrol:
Netflix acquires Finnish game developer Next Games for around $72M; the studio specializes in games based on entertainment franchises, such as Stranger Things — Next Games had released ‘Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales’, a role-playing game based on the streaming giant's hit 80s horror drama series in October last year.
Discussion:
The Streamable, Variety, The Verge, Next Games, Engadget, Bloomberg, Tech.eu, Digital TV Europe, Media Play News and TechCrunch, more at Techmeme »
J. Clara Chan / Hollywood Reporter:
Snap halts ads in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, pledges $15M to relief orgs in Ukraine, and is helping relocate 300+ Ukrainian staff of its AR platform Looksery — Three hundred Snap employees are from Ukraine, according to a message shared on Tuesday.
Discussion:
Snap Newsroom, Insider, Engadget, CNET and The Wrap, more at Techmeme »
Washington Post:
Twitter's crowdsourced fact-checking program Birdwatch remains a small pilot project 13 months after launch, with only 359 contributors flagging tweets in 2022 — With the Ukraine war unfolding on social media, parsing fact from fiction has never been trickier — or, for those involved, more urgent.
Discussion:
@willoremus, @willoremus, @kcoleman, @mantzarlis, @kcoleman, @blackamazon, @shannonpareil and @carnage4life
Brian Steinberg / Variety:
iSpot will acquire Tunity, which analyzes viewing habits of “out of home” audiences in restaurants and other locations through its mobile app — The media industry's measurement wars are expanding beyond counting traditional video audiences. — iSpot, the measurement company …
Discussion:
Next TV, AdExchanger, Axios, @bristei and @kerrymflynn
Sarah Scire / Nieman Lab:
A profile of Bolts, a nonprofit digital magazine launched in early February to focus on criminal justice and voting rights at the local level in the US — “Issues that seem really intractable at the national level often aren't at the local level. That's why we think there's a lot of opportunity for coverage there."
Discussion:
@sarahscire, @boltsmag, @amandalitman and @taniel
Andrew Hutchinson / Social Media Today:
Meta releases its Q4 Widely Viewed Content report, showing the most viewed Facebook Page comes from a banned account; Meta would not reveal the account — Safe to say that Meta's efforts to refute the idea that Facebook amplifies divisive political content are not going exactly as it would have hoped.
Discussion:
Transparency Center, @blackamazon, @kevinroose, @brandyzadrozny, @mhbergen, @oneunderscore__, Adweek and Meta, more at Techmeme »
Amanda Yeo / Mashable:
Reddit quarantines r/Russia and r/RussiaPolitics over “a high volume of information not supported by credible sources” and bans a mod for acting in bad faith — A moderator has also been removed. — Reddit has quarantined subreddit r/Russia due to misinformation …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, @drewharwell, @thinking_panda, Reason, Reclaim The Net, The Guardian, Silicon Republic, Engadget, The Week and Snopes.com
Jonathan Tannenwald / The Philadelphia Inquirer:
Turner Sports wins English-language TV rights for US Soccer starting in 2023 and HBO Max will be the primary outlet; sources: the deal is worth ~$25M per year — The U.S. Soccer Federation's next English-language TV rights deal has been won by Turner Sports, the two entities announced Tuesday …
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