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 …
Maggie Haberman / New York Times:
White House Communications Director Hope Hicks says she's resigning in coming weeks; sources say she has been considering leaving for several months — Hope Hicks, the White House communications director and one of President Trump's longest-serving advisers, said Wednesday that she was resigning.
Discussion:
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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, @miriamelder, @mat, @ggreenwald, @jimwaterson, @kevincollier, @niemanlab and Wolfgang Blau, 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 — Music streaming giant Spotify today filed for a $1 billion IPO. Axios had previously reported on the company's confidential filing, but the new paperwork is public.
Discussion:
Bloomberg, The Verge, Android Police, Yourstory, Tech Startups, Business Insider, Ubergizmo, BloombergQuint, Paste, RAIN News, MacRumors, Engadget, BGR, CNBC, Consequence of Sound, 9to5Mac, FMQB, Slate, @alexbarinka, @willknight, The Wrap, @jank0, @danprimack, Bloomberg, @mattlynley, Business Insider, @jonerlichman, @davidfaber and @sherman4949, more at Techmeme »
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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
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
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Fast Company and Fortune, more at Techmeme »
Katie Roof / TechCrunch:
Spotify had 159M MAUs in December 2017, up 29% YoY, of which 71M were premium subs; CEO Daniel Ek owns 23.8% of the firm, co-founder Martin Lorentzon has 12.4%
Discussion:
@thekenyeung
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 — Looks like that whole “content moderation” thing wasn't a joke after all. — The Future — Looks like that whole “content moderation” thing wasn't a joke after all.
Discussion:
Tubefilter, BetaNews, Bloomberg, Gizmodo, Splinter, Engadget, The Next Web, The Gateway Pundit, The Hill, The Verge, The Verge and Gizmodo, more at Techmeme »
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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:
Financial Times, Engadget, Gizmodo, The Verge, Bloomberg and The Daily Beast, more at Techmeme »
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:
Sky News, Financial Times and The Guardian
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, Fast Company and The Next Web
Akhil Arora / NDTV Gadgets 360:
Amazon Music launches in India as a free service for Prime members, available on Android, iOS, and the web — Amazon Music has been given a full-scale launch in India, the subscription-based music streaming service that's part of Amazon Prime membership. You can now access it via music.amazon.in …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, MediaNama, MediaNama, Firstpost, Ubergizmo, RAIN News, Android Central, The Next Web, MediaNama, Music Business Worldwide and TechCrunch
Jon Lafayette / Multichannel News:
NBCUniversal to decrease ads by 10% in original primetime programming on all of its television networks and reduce the number of commercials per break by 20% — New pods will feature just two commercials — NBCUniversal said it plans to decrease advertising time by 10% in original primetime programming …
Discussion:
Variety, Ad Age, Wall Street Journal, FierceCable, Adweek and @markdavis
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:
Reuters, VentureBeat, Variety, Sky News and The Guardian
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
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