Category Archives: Digital media

‘Like a bad joke’: Al Jazeera staff bemused at rightwing US venture

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Rightly, a digital platform for conservatives, goes down awkwardly in Qatari-funded news organisation

Al Jazeera’s surprise decision to launch a digital platform for conservatives in the US has left many within the Qatar-based news organisation dumbfounded and confused, staff have told the Guardian.

The network has announced the launch of Rightly, a platform that will host programmes and produce online content aimed at “audiences currently underrepresented in today’s media environment”, in this case right-of-centre Americans.

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Facebook over-enforced Australia news ban, admits Nick Clegg

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Communications chief defends reversed ban, saying it is unfair to force tech firms to pay for news content

Facebook “erred on the side of over-enforcement” in removing links to hundreds of non-media organisations in Australia, Nick Clegg has admitted, in a blogpost defending the social media company’s short-lived news ban there.

The former UK deputy prime minister, now Facebook’s vice-president of global affairs and communications, said the tech firm had been “forced into [the] position” of blocking content designated as news after the Australian government refused to back down over plans to require it to negotiate with news publishers for payment for content.

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No 10 ‘concerned’ about Facebook news shutdown in Australia

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Oliver Dowden expected to meet US company, as No 10 says UK will ‘defend free speech and journalism’

The UK government is “obviously concerned” at the repercussions of Facebook’s shutdown of large numbers of news and public information resources in Australia, Downing Street has said, confirming that the culture secretary will meet the US company this week.

Oliver Dowden is “expecting to meet Facebook this week”, Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said, adding that the date had yet to be confirmed.

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Eliot Higgins: ‘People accuse me of working for the CIA’

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The founder of the online investigative collective Bellingcat talks about working with Alexei Navalny, open source reporting and the trouble with ‘cyber-miserablism’

Eliot Higgins launched Bellingcat in summer 2014, days after the Russian military shot down Malaysian Airlines MH17 over eastern Ukraine. The online outfit has broken a series of international scoops. In 2018 it discovered the identities of the two undercover assassins who poisoned Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. Last year Bellingcat revealed extraordinary details of the plot by Russia’s FSB spy agency to poison the opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Higgins’s first book tells the story of how open source investigation has redefined reporting in the 21st century. He argues that the internet can still be a force for good, despite bad actors, complacent technology firms and an explosion in alternative “facts”. Higgins lives in Leicester with his wife, daughter and son.

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Tobacco giant bets £1bn on social-media influencers to boost ‘lung-friendlier’ sales

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As smoking falls out of fashion, BAT is pinning its hopes on younger users of e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches

Flashing an ice-white smile for her 50,000 followers on TikTok, a fresh-faced young woman pops a flavoured nicotine pouch into her mouth, as one of Pakistan’s most popular love songs plays in the background.

More than 3,000 miles away, in Sweden, another social media starlet lip-syncs for the camera, to a different pop tune. The same little pouches, made by British American Tobacco, appear in shot.

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Facebook is ‘schoolyard bully’ in Australia news row, says UK media boss

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Trade group chairman says robust regulation is needed to rein in monopolistic tech firms

Facebook’s move to block all media content in Australia shows why countries need robust regulation to stop tech firms behaving like a “schoolyard bully”, the head of the UK’s news media trade group has said.

Henry Faure Walker, the chair of the News Media Association, said Facebook’s ban during a pandemic was “a classic example of a monopoly power being the schoolyard bully, trying to protect its dominant position with scant regard for the citizens and customers it supposedly serves”.

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UK’s first football hate crime officer turns focus on social media

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Stuart Ward of West Midlands police aims to stamp out racist abuse in grounds and online to bring back community spirit

Since starting his role as the UK’s first football hate crime officer earlier this month, PC Stuart Ward has been busier than expected, considering football fans are banned from stadiums as part of the coronavirus lockdown.

Instead of jibes from the stands, players are now fielding more abuse on social media – just the other week, in Ward’s biggest case to date, West Midlands police arrested a man suspected of racially abusing West Bromwich Albion footballer Romaine Sawyers online.

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Microsoft urges US and EU to follow Australian digital news code

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Firm stood against Facebook and Google over plan to make tech giants pay news organisations

Microsoft is calling for the US and the EU to follow Australia in introducing rules that require technology companies to share revenue with news organisations and support journalism.

The company, which stood against Facebook and Google in supporting the proposal, argues that it is necessary to impose such a levy to create a level playing field between large tech firms and independent media organisations.

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I found peace in an unexpected corner of the internet: nun Twitter

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Religious Twitter brings together nuns, monks, bishops and rabbis too and it may have something to teach us

There is a Rumi poem – it is my favourite. “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,” writes the 13th-century mystic, “there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”

I feel this way about religious Twitter.

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Perfect storm: have the influencers selling a dream lost their allure?

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Social media stars, already under fire for trips to Dubai in lockdown, are now involved in a row over Instagram posts

Makeup artist Sasha Louise Pallari started her hashtag #filterdrop in summer 2020. A social media campaign to discourage influencers promoting beauty products by using filters to exaggerate their effect, it paid off last week when the Advertising Standards Authority banned two tanning brands from using misleading filters on Instagram Stories. The ruling means that in future all use of filters will be more tightly controlled – and, so the theory goes, more “natural” content likely to be seen on social media.

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Prince Harry says social media misinformation is threat to democracies

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Duke of Sussex calls for more accountability and accuses platforms of shunning responsibility

Prince Harry has said that “time is running out” for social media companies to address misinformation which he believes is a threat to democracies.

He has called for more accountability for platforms, accusing them of shunning responsibility, and highlighted both the role that they played in the US Capitol riots earlier this month and the treatment of the Rohingya population in Myanmar.

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Google threatens to leave Australia – but its poker face is slipping

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Analysis: tech firm’s refusal to pay news publishers comes as it agrees to do exactly that in France

The biggest companies in technology love an ultimatum but rarely do they spell out their threats. This week, however, Google has done exactly that, telling an Australian parliamentary hearing that a proposed law forcing the company to pay news publishers for the right to link to their content “would give us no real choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia”.

The threat, from the company’s Australian managing director, Mel Silva, is the latest escalation in a war of words over the proposal, which seeks to undo some of the damage online business models have dealt to the country’s publishing industry.

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Google threatens to shut down search in Australia if digital news code goes ahead

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Google and Facebook are fighting legislation that would force them to enter into negotiations with news media companies for payment for content

Google has threatened to remove its search engine from Australia and Facebook has threatened to remove news from its feed for all Australian users if a code forcing the companies to negotiate payments to news media companies goes ahead.

The move would mean the 19 million Australians who use Google every month would no longer be able to use Google Search, and 17 million Australians who log into Facebook every month would not be able to see or post any news articles on the social media site.

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Von der Leyen: big tech firms need to be reined in despite Trump’s exit

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Internet giants that spread hate speech and conspiracy theories should face ‘democratic limits’, says European commission president

The end of Donald Trump’s tenure in the White House was celebrated by the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday, as she warned that the former US president’s rise highlighted the need to confront the internet giants who helped him spread “conspiracy theories and fake news”.

The European commission president spoke of her relief at Trump’s departure, but warned that the outgoing leader’s movement still existed, and that the digital platforms used to spread hate needed to be tackled.

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When film stars attack: Russell Crowe’s reaction to criticism could set a trend

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The actor’s unexpected response to a complaint about an 18-year-old film could pave the way for big-name actors to personally insult Twitter users

One of the most surprising new avenues to have formed for celebrities over the course of the pandemic has been Cameo. For the uninitiated, Cameo is a service where celebrities can create personalised messages for their fans. For £75, Hodor from Game of Thrones will wish you a happy birthday or – if you have £750 lying around – Richard Dreyfuss will put on a Jaws shirt and struggle to pronounce your name.

But maybe this isn’t enough for you. Maybe you want to find direct engagement, with a much bigger star than Cameo offers, and for free. If that’s the case, I can heartily endorse not liking a Russell Crowe movie. Because, even if it takes him a while, Crowe will do his best to respond to your criticism. And if you’re really lucky, he’ll sound like an out-of-touch bus stop crackpot in the process. Here’s what happened.

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Revealed: Tory MPs and commentators who joined banned app Parler

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Nadine Dorries, James Cleverly and Michael Gove joined the platform favoured by Trump supporters

At least 14 Conservative MPs, including several ministers, cabinet minister Michael Gove and a number of prominent Tory commentators joined Parler, the social media platform favoured by the far right that was forced offline last week for hosting threats of violence and racist slurs.

Parler was taken offline after Amazon Web Services pulled the plug last Sunday, saying violent posts and racist threats connected to the recent attack on the US Capitol violated its terms.

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Wikipedia at 20: last gasp of an internet vision, or a beacon to a better future?

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The naysayers said the user-written encyclopedia would never work. Now it boasts 55m articles and 1.7bn visitors a month

Twenty years ago today, a tech startup called Nupedia launched a side project. The company had been hard at work producing a free online encyclopaedia, but it was slow going: its strict editing process, comprehensive peer review and focus on expert authors meant it finished only 21 articles in its first year.

The side project would do away with all of that. Instead, anyone would be able to write and edit articles. Nupedia’s founders were split over whether the trade-off – more content with a lower barrier to entry – was worth it, but by the end of its first year, the side project had amassed articles on more than 18,000 topics. Nupedia, by the time it shut in 2003, had finished just 25.

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Armie Hammer drops out of Jennifer Lopez film amid social media controversy

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Hammer was due to appear opposite Lopez in the action comedy Shotgun Wedding but has requested to step away

Armie Hammer has dropped out of an upcoming film with Jennifer Lopez after messages allegedly sent by the actor were leaked online. Hammer has described the messages and social media response to them as an online attack, calling them vicious and spurious.

Hammer, star of movies including The Social Network and Call Me By Your Name, had been set to appear opposite Lopez in action comedy Shotgun Wedding. However, he will no longer take the role.

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Opinion divided over Trump’s ban from social media

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Actions spark debate on free speech and whether chief executives of tech firms are fit to act as judge and jury

As rioters were gathering around the US Capitol last Wednesday, a familiar question began to echo around the offices of the large social networks: what should they do about Donald Trump and his provocative posts?

The answer has been emphatic: ban him.

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