Mediagazer: Two ex-Meta employees find an AI clickbait network linked to a Polish IT company, which is “domain squatting” on URLs, including Iowa's Clayton County Register (Kate Knibbs/Wired)

5:30 PM ET, February 26, 2024

Top News:

Kate Knibbs / Wired:

Two ex-Meta employees find an AI clickbait network linked to a Polish IT company, which is “domain squatting” on URLs, including Iowa's Clayton County Register — When two former Meta employees dug into why the website of Iowa's Clayton County Register was spewing dubious posts about stocks …

Discussion: @seoconspiracy

Jess Jones / City A.M.:

Sesamy, launched by Acast co-founders to let users in Sweden and Denmark purchase single articles or podcasts as a one-time transaction, plans to expand to UK — Could one-off articles and podcast purchases be the future of publishing? That's the vision of the co-founders of Acast …

Discussion: Benjamin Webb on LinkedIn, @johnspurlock and @rasmus_kleis

Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:

BLKFAM, a free, ad-supported streaming service focused on Black families, launches in the US with 1,000+ hours of kid-friendly animation titles and more — BLKFAM is a free, ad-supported, Black-focused family streaming service launching today to give Black Americans access to more than 1,000 hours …

Discussion: The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, The Streamable, @xpangler, Deadline and The Wrap

Bloomberg:

Sources: Charter Communications is exploring a takeover of smaller rival Altice USA, which serves ~5M customers across 21 US states; Altice stock is up 50%+ — - Charter working with advisers on pursuing smaller rival — Both firms have suffered with surge in wireless competition

Discussion: CNBC, Next TV, @fasulo_chris, @maffei_fake, @stopthecap and @lucas_shaw

The Guardian:

Former TV news executives and others criticize Ofcom for allowing GB News to violate broadcasting impartiality rules by dragging its feet with investigations — Ofcom is accused of not treating all broadcasters the same and of dragging its feet with investigations into the rightwing channel

Discussion: @justicetrousers, @adrian_warner, @michaellcrick, @paulmarsha11, @docrussjackson, @catrollo and Mediaite

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Ampere Analysis: streaming revenue will overtake pay TV subscription revenue in the US for the first time in Q3 2024, helped by streamers' addition of ad tiers — Total streaming revenue will hit $17.3 billion, topping $16.7 billion from pay TV, in the third-quarter of 2024, predicts research firm Ampere Analysis.

Discussion: Next TV, @mtfiii, The Wrap, The Desk, The Streamable, Media Play News, Broadband TV News and WORLD SCREEN

Sam Buckingham-Jones / Australian Financial Review:

Australian businessman Kerry Stokes launches The Nightly, a daily online newspaper with backing from billionaires Katie Page, Chris Ellison, and Gina Rinehart — Billionaires Katie Page, Chris Ellison and Gina Rinehart are the key backers of Kerry Stokes' new daily online newspaper …

Discussion: @john_macgowan, @ianpmcleod, @markdistef, @pollyanna_04, @chris_dengate, Crikey, Mumbrella, @rachelrwithers, @matt_levinson and Sydney Morning Herald

Helen Bushby / BBC:

British film censors change the age rating for the classic 1964 film Mary Poppins from U to PG citing “discriminatory language” — Mary Poppins, the classic film starring Julie Andrews, has had its age rating raised by British film censors because it features “discriminatory language”.

Discussion: The Wrap, Fox News, Daily Mail, IndieWire, TMZ.com, Deadline and Variety

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

News reader Particle.news, which uses AI to summarize articles and aims to fairly compensate authors and publishers, enters private beta — A team led by former Twitter engineers is rethinking how AI can be used to help people process news and information.

Discussion: @pandemona@threads.net, @pandemona@threads.net and @pandemona@threads.net

Columbia Journalism Review:

A profile of Dale Anglin, first director of Press Forward, a philanthropic effort to invest $500M over five years in local news and aiming to raise $500M more — Dale R. Anglin has spent more than twenty years in the nonprofit sector, channeling millions of dollars to social service organizations.

Discussion: @jpalfrey, NewsLab, @peristrathearn, @theivyexile, @bgrueskin, @ssuttell, @jayrosen_nyu, MediaPost, Inside the News in Colorado and @geisler_jill@threads.net

Bloomberg:

While Netflix is profitable in South Korea, local rivals Tving and Wavve lost a combined ~$165M in 2023 and are reportedly in talks to merge — After years of pumping out hit shows, South Korea's biggest media companies are cutting back and consolidating to survive a global pullback in entertainment.

Discussion: @themarkrussell, @lucas_shaw, Lucas Shaw on LinkedIn and @viveklath

Max Goldbart / Deadline:

UK's Ofcom delivers its roadmap for implementing the Media Bill, saying regulation of streaming services will not come into place in full for two years — Streamer regulation in the UK will not come into place in full for two years, Ofcom said today. — Delivering its roadmap for implementing …

Discussion: Broadband TV News

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Steven McIntosh / BBC:
UK police will take no further action against suspended GB News host Dan Wootton, who was accused of using fake identities to bribe men for explicit material

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In response to a query for news stories about Putin's comments on Navalny's death, Microsoft's AI-assisted search Copilot invented Putin quotes

Discussion: WinBuzzer, @ranimolla, @nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social and @joshuatopolsky@mastodon …

From Techmeme:

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple and OpenAI are preparing a major announcement of their partnership at WWDC; the new AirTag with a better chip is scheduled to arrive by mid-2025

Greg Brockman / @gdb:
Sam Altman and Greg Brockman respond to Jan Leike, say they've raised awareness of the risks and opportunities of AGI, will keep doing safety research, and more

Financial Times:
Microsoft, Meta, Google and others pitch smaller language models that are cheaper to build and train, to lower costs and hardware requirements for generative AI

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