Mediagazer: Facebook policies force publishers to tag underwritten content as if it were produced “with” a sponsor, even when that isn't the case (John Cook/Gizmodo)

12:00 PM ET, October 12, 2016

Top News:

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Amazon launches subscription streaming service Music Unlimited, costs $7.99/mth for Prime members, $3.99/mth for Echo owners, and $9.99/mth for all others — Rumors have been swirling around Amazon's plans to launch its own, standalone music streaming service, and now those reports have been proven out …

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Pandora launches Pandora Plus, its $5/month ad-free service that also gives users offline playback, more song skips and replays — Pandora is not taking today's debut of Amazon's new, on-demand music streaming service lying down. The company has conveniently timed the launch of its own new paid tier …

Discussion: Pandora Blog and VentureBeat

Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:

Wall Street Journal Editor-in-Chief Gerard Baker tells reporters writing must be sharper, shorter, and more creative as newsroom turns focus to digital — The Wall Street Journal is in the middle of a newsroom overhaul. And, according to its top editor, that transformation will include a sharper focus on cutting out editorial flab.

Discussion: @brizzyc, @charliebeckett, @bristei, @lydiadepillis, @itsren, @jonathanhaynes and @jdye

Philip Bump / Washington Post:

How Newsweek journalist Kurt Eichenwald implied connections among Trump, WikiLeaks, and Russia that don't hold up under scrutiny — This tweet, retweeted thousands of times, is at best misleading. … Kurt Eichenwald is a reporter and writer who has been dogged in looking at Donald Trump over the course of the campaign.

Brian Stelter / CNNMoney:

Sources: Billy Bush to be dropped from NBC's Today show; one source says announcement will happen “in the coming days” — On Saturday night NBC was going to throw a surprise party for Billy Bush in Greenwich Village. Now it has been cancelled. — “Surprise,” indeed.

Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:

Newsroom memo: Huffington Post's Executive Editor Liz Heron is departing the site — Liz Heron, managing editor of The Huffington Post, is leaving that organization about a year after being appointed the newsroom's second-in-command. — Heron was hired on in September 2015 after serving …

Discussion: Liz Heron, The Wrap, FishbowlNY, @mlcalderone and Politico

Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:

NYT renames global edition “New York Times International Edition”, with focus on deeper coverage; homepage will deliver geotargeted content to non-US readers — As of yesterday, there was something called the International New York Times.

Discussion: Guardian

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Playboy launches nudity-free magazine in Apple iTunes, Google Play stores, available for $5.99 an issue or $17.99 a year — Playboy's 63-year-old magazine — recently stripped of nude pictorials — is now an app. — Playboy Enterprises is selling digital copies of the Hugh Hefner's …

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:

Google acquires FameBit to better connect YouTube creators with brands — Google announced on Tuesday that it has acquired FameBit, with plans to leverage its technology platform to help YouTube creators better connect with brands. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Discussion: YouTube Blog, Variety, ClickZ, @pakman, Wall Street Journal, Michael Jones, The Blog for the #1 …, ZDNet, Business Insider, 9to5Google, Recode, Engadget, The Wrap, @famebit, @nealmohan, @seajayinla, @dipson, @peterpham, Hollywood Reporter, The Verge and TechCrunch

Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:

BuzzFeed aims to grow commerce revenue with Shop BuzzFeed, its online shop which sells merchandise created by the site's illustrators and designers — If you like your socks with milkshakes and French fries, good news: BuzzFeed has a store for you. — This summer, the online news …

David Bixenspan / LawNewz:

Gawker Media files new motion as part of bankruptcy proceedings, asking court to authorize investigation into Peter Thiel's financing of lawsuits against it — On Tuesday, Gawker Media, the largely defunct media company that recently sold most of its assets to Univision at auction …

Lexology:

France adopts Digital Republic Act, which includes changes to laws surrounding net neutrality, data portability, video games, and copyright — Introduction — One year ago the French government launched a new democratic experiment: an online public consultation on the draft bill on the ‘Digital Republic’.

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More News:

Washington Post:
Dozens of suspicious court cases, with missing defendants, aim at getting web pages deindexed or taken down outright by abusing firms' policies on defamation

Discussion: Beyond Search, @orinkerr, @cstross, @xor, Techdirt, CL& and Softpedia News

Scott Dadich / Wired:
Wired's Editor-in-Chief Scott Dadich on how the magazine collaborated with President Obama as he guest-edited the magazine's November issue

Discussion: @markbao, @wired and @sdadich

John Cook / Gizmodo:
Facebook policies force publishers to tag underwritten content as if it were produced “with” a sponsor, even when that isn't the case

Discussion: @weareyourfek, @backlon, @s_m_i, @baekdal, @jwherrman and @johnjcook

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
Rolling Stone asks that UVA case, due to start Monday, be postponed as ABC's 20/20 to air deposition footage on Friday, saying it will prejudice jury

Discussion: @robbysoave and @eriqgardner

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Al Jazeera English:
Pakistan journalist Cyril Almeida barred from leaving the country, after Dawn published his report on rift between civilian and military leaderships

Kurt Andersen / Esquire:
Esquire revives Spy magazine online for last 30 days of presidential campaign

Discussion: Folio, Wall Street Journal, Nieman Lab, Boing Boing, Adweek, The Verge, @selfstyledsiren, @jbenton, @gabrielsnyder, @jayfielden and @daveholmes

From Techmeme:

Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta details Llama 3: 8B- and 70B-parameter models, a focus on reducing false refusals, and an upcoming model trained on 15T+ tokens that has 400B+ parameters

Raffaele Huang / Wall Street Journal:
Apple removes WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China, saying it was ordered to do so by China's cyberspace officials citing national security concerns

Ryan Morrison / Tom's Guide:
Microsoft researchers introduce VASA-1, an AI model that creates a realistic talking face video from a portrait photo and an audio file, in research preview

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