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Twitter says it won't block activists, journalists and politicians in India
Twitter has said in a blog post that it won’t block the accounts of politicians, journalists and activists in India, despite being ordered to do so by the Modi government.
Study: Women are abused every 30 seconds on Twitter
Earlier this year Amnesty International released a report discussing what many of Twitter's female users already know: the social network is not always a great place to be if you're a woman. Now, a new study reveals the hard statistics on just how toxic the situation is. According to the report by Amnesty International and global AI software company Element AI, female journalists and politicians were abused every 30 seconds on Twitter in 2017.
Does social media threaten the illusion of news neutrality?
For journalists, social media can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they can use platforms like Facebook and Twitter to share their opinion on a wide range of matters, from sports to politics. But at the same time, they have to remember to exercise caution, because whatever they say can be taken out of context and have major implications on the publications they work for. If a reader who follows your tweets or Facebook posts doesn't agree with you, that can motivate them to claim your entire newsroom is biased.
White House adds four 'Skype seats' for press briefings
Starting this week, the White House will open up four so-called Skype seats to reporters outside of Washington, DC. Press secretary Sean Spicer announced the move in a briefing today, one that he says will "open up the briefing room to journalists who live beyond 50 miles" of the DC area. Spicer also explained that the virtual access will give news outlets that don't have press passes or the financial resources to travel a chance to attend White House news sessions.
Uber says it won't track journalists after (allegedly) doing just that
Uber, which keeps lurching from one PR disaster to another, just found itself in hot water again. At a private dinner attended by a Buzzfeed reporter, exec Emil Michael mused that Uber should spend "a million dollars" to dig up dirt on the "personal lives..., families" of reporters. In particular, he keyed in on Pando Daily journalist Sarah Lacy, who wrote about deleting her Uber app after its (very distasteful) tie-up with a French modeling/escort agency. Incredibly, he suggested that since Uber is supposedly safer than taxis, Lacy should be held responsible for any women who are sexually assaulted after deleting their Uber apps.
Twitter tool that breaks news in real-time now open in US
Twitter's more than just a way to update anyone who cares to listen on what you're doing. Not only can you ask it life's nagging/profound questions, you can use it to buy yourself a snood, if you wish. But, there are more serious tasks that Twitter's constant stream of mini-missives can assist with -- such as breaking news. Back in January, we heard about Dataminr for News -- a service for journalists that identifies stories as they break on Twitter. Now, it's ready for prime time. Initially, CNN had been trialling the tool, but that pool of newsrooms has since extended to the BBC, The Weather Channel, USA Today and beyond. Finally it's open to any news room that wants to harness the 500,000,000 public Tweets per day that Dataminr claims it parses to distill into news. Dataminr for News is available through Tweetdeck integration, and a dedicated mobile app, and not only highlights stories, but adds context and estimated locations to events as more information flows in. Now your social media activism might have a quicker route to the media's gaze.
The Times of India wants access to its journalists' social networks
Over the past few years, social networks have become an extremely powerful tool for every journalist, whether it's here in the United States or elsewhere across the world. But social networks like Twitter and Facebook aren't just a venue for sharing links or live-tweeting breaking news events, as great as that is -- it's also about the engagement one can have with readers and other fellow journalist. Knowing this, The Times of India has recently implemented a new policy that requires its journalism employees to hand over Twitter and Facebook passwords, as it looks to gain control of what they can and cannot post on their social accounts.
The Soapbox: What it means to be a game journalist
The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. Additionally, this article is written in contrast to Jef Reahard's Soapbox on how video game journalists are not real journalists; Massively's writers' opinions on the subject vary. People have, on a few occasions, asked me for advice on becoming a game journalist. My usual response, which is only half-joking, is, "Don't." In just a handful of months, I'll be hitting my three-year anniversary for working Massively. That means I've had one of the longest tenures at the site, which is kind of staggering in my mind. I still fundamentally think of myself as one of the new kids on the block. But for better or worse, I've been doing this for a while and have a pretty good grasp of what the job entails. Of course, that's still a subject of debate. As with a lot of topics, people as a whole can't even decide on what makes someone a game journalist instead of just an enthusiast with some advertising revenue. To some people, it's not even a real job, just a hobby. I'm one of those people who never like to pin down an exact definition of something that's ambiguous... but I can define what I see as my responsibilities in this job.
Foxconn folds under pressure, drastically declaws lawsuit
It's tough work running the multi-billion dollar industrial powerhouse that is Hon Hai Precision Industry. First you get slammed with damning accusations about working conditions at your iPod-producing Foxconn plant, and like any responsible corporate citizen, you completely deny the allegations and threaten legal action against the "conspirators" responsible for slandering you. Then, even after you've admitted to some labor law violations and an outside investigation by Apple confirms these as well as other breaches in its supplier code of conduct, you somehow think the best course of action is to still sue the Chinese journalists who covered the story in order to make their lives a living hell. Well once again good old Hon Hai has admitted that it dropped the ball on this one, citing "great public attention on the target of the injunction" as the reason that it both drastically reduced the damages it was seeking from $3.8 million to a symbolic one yuan (12 cents) and withdrew its request to freeze Wang You's and Weng Bao's personal assets. So in other words, the leaders of iPod City didn't so much regret the suit as they did the public outcry that followed -- yet another example of media pressure shaming big business into doing the right thing. Hmm, now where did we just hear about a similar sequence of events happening in the United States? No matter -- power to the people![Via Techdirt]
Journos replaced by computers; Engadget snarkbot imminent
Oh boy, what a day it's been in the world of artificial intelligence. Those wacky computer programmers over at United States company Thomson Financial have developed software for the computing machines that generates most excellent news stories from corporate earnings reports. What a bunch of smart guys. Amazingly, the United States company Thomson Financial's computing machines can turn statements of finance into good news stories within 300 milliseconds of this financial information data going public. A corporate executive person from United States company Thomson Financial says that this method of storytelling allows reporters to do more important reporter things. How cool is that? Many stupid humans say that witless publications such as American technology weblog Engadget are already being transcribed by robots, but we think that is crazy nonsense talk. End transmission.
