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Senate votes 50-48 to repeal Obama-era regulations requiring that ISPs ask before sharing customer data — The Senate voted Thursday to make it easier for internet service providers to share sensitive information about their customers, a first step in overturning landmark privacy rules …
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Sources: a bitter feud has emerged between Patrick Soon-Shiong and Michael Ferro as they compete for larger stakes in Tronc — Ousted director Patrick Soon-Shiong adds to stake in Los Angeles Times publisher, setting up for showdown with its biggest shareholder and chairman Michael Ferro
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Disney extends Bob Iger's contract as CEO until July 2019 amid concerns that there is no immediate successor within the company's executive ranks — The exec has now re-upped his contract until July 2, 2019 amid concerns among industry observers that there is no heir apparent within the company's executive ranks.
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New York Times, TVWeek.com, @thrmattbelloni, Investor's Business Daily, Seeking Alpha, Financial Times, Bloomberg and Fast Company
Jeff Gammage / Philly.com:
Philadelphia Media Network guild members vote down contract that would have ended seniority protections in the event of a layoff — Journalists and other union members at the Inquirer, Daily News, and Philly.com have decisively rejected a contract offer that would have provided solid …
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@poynter, @thegoalkeeper and @davisshaver

Filing: SoundCloud raises $70M in debt funding to build a “financially sustainable platform”, following a $100M raise in June 2016 — Music streaming service SoundCloud has raised $70 million (£56 million) in debt funding, according to documents filed with Companies House in the UK.
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TechCrunch, Forbes, Recode, Variety, hypebot, RAIN News and Tech.eu, more at Techmeme »

Sources: American Media Inc. cuts about 40 jobs at Us Weekly, including Editor in Chief Michael Steele and Editorial Director Jaimee Zanzinger — Among those cut were editor in chief Michael Steele and editorial director Jaimee Zanzinger, both of whom had to lead the meetings about the job cuts.

Twitter confirms it is considering paid TweetDeck subscription service with new features including analytics and breaking news alerts for brands and news orgs — New analytics inside TweetDeck — Twitter is considering offering a paid subscription to power users, including brands and news organizations, The Verge has confirmed.
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VentureBeat, Marketing Land, @martinsfp, @chillmage, @profjeffjarviss, @backlon, @kennethn and @drpizza, more at Techmeme »

Instagram says it will start blurring “Sensitive Content” that doesn't merit removal and opens two-factor authentication to all — Instagram is already doing a lot to spot and censor posts that violate its community guidelines, like outright porn, but now it's also taking steps …
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Chartbeat and CrowdTangle expand Offsite Social globally, offering publishers more data on social engagement and distribution — Chartbeat and CrowdTangle today announced a major expansion of a tool for measuring how stories are performing on social platforms.
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Digiday, Marketwire, Chartbeat Blog and Poynter
David Folkenflik / NPR:
Vice News Tonight draws more than 500K viewers each episode, and more than 3M watch longer-form Friday night show; a considerable number are millennials — The show “Vice News Tonight” aired its one 100th episode last night on HBO. The show mixes the edgy style of the Vice Media Company …
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@cheeky_geeky, @keegan_hamilton, @evanmcs, TVNewser and @joshuahersh

Judge approves class action settlement that will see The Hollywood Reporter pay out $900K for misclassifying freelancers — Over three years after The Hollywood Reporter was accused of playing fast and loose with how it classified contributors to get out of paying benefits and more …
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Talking Biz News

Conservative news outlets like Breitbart are singling out federal staffers for criticism, questioning their loyalty to Trump — A spate of stories in Breitbart and other outlets have singled out individual career employees, questioning their loyalty to Trump.
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@brucebartlett, @ericgeller, @tcwittes and @blakehounshell