Category Archives: Media

Leading tech journalist quits Substack over platform’s Nazi newsletters

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Reporter Casey Newton takes more than 170,000 subscribers elsewhere over company’s failure to police extremist content

Platformer, a prominent tech newsletter founded by the veteran reporter Casey Newton, is leaving Substack over the company’s failure to police extremist content.

In a post explaining the decision, Newton said his team had identified seven Substack publications “that conveyed explicit support for 1930s German Nazis and called for violence against Jews, among other groups”. He said after weeks of back-and-forth discussions with company leaders about their “laissez-faire approach to content moderation”, he decided to part ways with the platform.

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Netflix pulls Indian film after backlash from rightwing Hindu groups

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Annapoorani: the Goddess of Food criticised for depiction of deity and member of vegetarian caste cooking and eating meat

Netflix is embroiled in a backlash in India from rightwing Hindu groups over a film accused of offending religious sentiments for its depiction of a deity and a member of a traditionally vegetarian caste cooking and eating meat.

Annapoorani: the Goddess of Food, a film made in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, tells the story of a young woman of the privileged Brahmin caste, whose father cooks food in a Hindu temple, and her aspirations to become one of India’s best chefs.

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Jewish students condemn antisemitic tweets about French PM Gabriel Attal

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Students’ union calls for sanctions over posts on social network that have also contained homophobic abuse

The French Union of Jewish Students has called for sanctions against people who have written antisemitic and homophobic comments about France’s new prime minister, Gabriel Attal, on the social network X.

Attal, 34, who was appointed by the president, Emmanuel Macron, this week, is France’s youngest prime minister and also the first out gay politician in the job.

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Bill Ackman ‘losing it’ over plagiarism allegations against wife, Axel Springer says

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Business Insider ran reports on Nexi Oxman, wife of billionaire investor who helped oust Harvard head over alleged plagiarism

The billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who helped oust Claudine Gay as Harvard president in a scandal over alleged plagiarism and campus antisemitism, is “completely losing it” over stories in which Business Insider said his wife, the academic Neri Oxman, “plagiarised some passages” in her own dissertation.

So said Adib Sisani, communications director for Axel Springer, the German company that owns Insider, in comments to the news website Puck.

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Ex-Malaysian PM’s lawyer pressures Netflix to take down documentary

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Defence counsel for Najib Razak, jailed over fraud scandal, says Man on the Run is ‘sub judice and contemptuous’

A lawyer acting for the disgraced former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak has called for the takedown of a Netflix documentary about a multibillion-dollar fraud scandal that occurred under his administration.

Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, the lead defence counsel for Najib, who is serving a 12-year sentence on corruption charges, said Man on the Run was “sub judice and contemptuous”, according to local media reports.

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Channel 4 in diversity row as four white directors appointed to board

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Chair says government-approved appointments lag behind broadcaster’s diversity targets

A row has broken out over the lack of ethnic diversity among Channel 4’s new board members, as the broadcaster’s chair criticised the government’s decision to appoint four white directors.

The culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, approved the appointments on Monday of five new non-executive directors to join the Channel 4 board and they were announced by the UK’s media regulator Ofcom.

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Media now in Bill Ackman’s sights after wife embroiled in plagiarism row

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Billionaire vows to tackle ‘problems with how our media operates’ after Neri Oxman accused of plagiarism in PhD thesis

After the resignation of Harvard president Claudine Gay, amid accusations of plagiarism, some might have expected Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund manager, to step back from what became a rightwing push against academia.

Instead, Ackman, who became embroiled in university politics after students protested against Israel’s actions in Palestine, appears to have expanded his scattergun attack against other perceived liberal institutions, with news organizations and the media now in his sights.

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New York Times faces backlash for essay speculating on Taylor Swift’s sexuality

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A 5,000-word opinion piece has been branded as ‘inappropriate’ and ‘invasive’ for suggesting the singer was sending coded queer messages in her music

The New York Times is under fire for publishing a piece speculating on Taylor Swift’s sexuality.

In a 5,000-word opinion piece titled Look What We Made Taylor Swift Do, editor Anna Marks listed references to the LGBTQ+ community overt or perceived in Swift’s music and theorized that the singer was sending coded messages that she was secretly a member of the community.

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Channel 4 plans deepest job cuts in over 15 years after TV ad slump

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Exclusive: As many as 200 roles could go as firm seeks to accelerate digital streaming strategy and limit cuts to content budget

Channel 4 is drawing up plans to cut potentially as many as 200 jobs in its biggest round of layoffs in more than 15 years, as it seeks to make savings to weather the worst TV advertising downturn since 2008.

The broadcaster, which has undergone a rapid expansion in recent years with staff numbers swelling to a record level of more than 1,200, aims to dramatically reduce a wage bill that now stands at more than £108m a year.

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Jimmy Lai lawyers file UN appeal saying there is evidence witness was tortured

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Hong Kong media mogul’s team raises concerns over testimony of former democracy activist who was imprisoned in China

The international legal team for the imprisoned media mogul Jimmy Lai, who is on trial for national security offences in Hong Kong, has filed an urgent appeal with the United Nations special rapporteur on torture regarding one of the key prosecution witnesses in Lai’s trial.

Lai’s lawyers say there is “credible evidence” that Andy Li, a 33-year-old former pro-democracy activist, was tortured while in prison in mainland China before he confessed to allegedly conspiring with Lai to collude with foreign forces. That is one of the two national security law offences that Lai has been charged with, along with a colonial-era sedition offence. Lai has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

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Al Jazeera journalist arrested in Tunisia amid crackdown on freedom of press

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Samir Sassi joins growing number of journalists imprisoned and prosecuted in country

Tunisian authorities have arrested an Al Jazeera reporter, the network’s bureau chief said on Thursday, as campaigners voiced concern over a growing number of journalists behind bars in the north African country.

“Samir Sassi, a journalist at the Al Jazeera office in Tunisia, was arrested after security forces raided his house,” said Lotfi Hajji, director of the Qatar-based television network’s bureau in Tunis.

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John Pilger, campaigning journalist, dies aged 84

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Renowned Australian journalist and documentary filmmaker covered conflicts in Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Biafra

The Australian journalist and documentary film-maker John Pilger has died aged 84, his family have announced.

A statement posted to his account on X said: “It is with great sadness the family of John Pilger announce he died yesterday 30 December 2023 in London aged 84.

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Rick Astley: why we’re never gonna give up the evergreen 80s pop idol

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As the singer prepares to host the BBC’s new year special, it caps a stellar 2023 for the star who launched a meme phenomenon

Some may think: why is the BBC welcoming in 2024 with “Mr 1987”? Though that suggests they missed the memo about the spectacular revival of Rick Astley. On Sunday night, 1980s pop star Astley will host BBC One’s New Year’s Eve show from the Roundhouse in Camden, north-west London, following in the footsteps of Sam Ryder and Years & Years, fronted by Olly Alexander.

Stars come back. It’s what they do. But few manage to do it in a way that makes them look infinitely cooler than before. As Astley, 57, continues to ride the Rickrolling phenomenon (more of which anon), his 2023 has been stellar.

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King Charles’s Christmas message rules TV ratings, with 5.9m viewers

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BBC showed nine out of 10 most popular shows, according to overnight data, with Strictly coming second and Doctor Who third

King Charles’s Christmas broadcast came top of the TV ratings on Christmas Day, with the BBC showing nine out of the 10 most watched shows.

The king’s message, which reflected on the “increasingly tragic conflict around the world”, attracted an average of 5.9 million viewers, according to overnight ratings.

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Houston Chronicle compares people crossing border to Mary and Joseph

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Editorial board publishes opinion piece in response to hard-right Republican governor’s latest immigration crackdown

A stinging Christmas opinion issued by the editorial board of the Houston Chronicle newspaper asks Texas’s hard-right Republican leader: “How would governor Greg Abbott treat Mary and Joseph at the border?”

The leading media outlet in the Democratic-voting city published an editorial article on Christmas Eve and posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Christmas Day protesting at the red state’s latest crackdown on people seeking refuge by crossing the US-Mexico border without authorization.

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Chinese dancing frog goes viral doing the worm

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‘Frog seller’ trend sparks debate on intellectual property amid concerns over copyright infringement

An anthropomorphised frog has joined celebrity live-streamers and social media commentators among China’s ranks of influencers, as a trend that began with street sellers in Chinese cities takes on a new life online – and raised questions over who, if anyone, owns the intellectual property rights to a dancing amphibian.

Alternatively known as a “frog seller” or “frog influencer”, the meme involves a person in a frog suit with a blue neckerchief selling frog-themed products such as balloons and toys.

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Brittany Higgins told ‘complete falsehoods’ amid ‘political hit job’, Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyers say as defamation trial ends

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Judge concludes case and reserves his decision after more than four weeks of evidence

Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyers have argued on the final day of his high-profile defamation trial that Brittany Higgins told “complete falsehoods” and her allegations were part of a “political hit job” fuelled by her partner.

Justice Michael Lee on Friday concluded the case and reserved his decision after more than four weeks of evidence and submissions.

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Lehrmann proceedings day 21 – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

Justice Lee describes some of Lehrmann barrister’s suggestions about Higgins’ behaviour as ‘simplistic’

Justice Lee has said it is simplistic to suggest a young woman could not have been sexually assaulted because she carried on in a professional manner.

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Israeli military accused of targeting journalists and their families in Gaza

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Committee to Protect Journalists says at least 68 journalists and media workers killed since 7 October

The Committee to Protect Journalists has accused the Israeli military of targeting journalists and their families in Gaza amid the highest death toll of media workers in any recent conflict.

The New York-based CPJ said at least 68 journalists and other media workers had been killed in Gaza, Israel and southern Lebanon since the Hamas cross-border attack on 7 October and subsequent Israeli assault.

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Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims

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Rights group says Facebook and Instagram routinely engage in ‘six key patterns of undue censorship’ of content supporting Palestine

Meta has engaged in a “systemic and global” censorship of pro-Palestinian content since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war on 7 October, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In a scathing 51-page report, the organization documented and reviewed more than a thousand reported instances of Meta removing content and suspending or permanently banning accounts on Facebook and Instagram. The company exhibited “six key patterns of undue censorship” of content in support of Palestine and Palestinians, including the taking down of posts, stories and comments; disabling accounts; restricting users’ ability to interact with others’ posts; and “shadow banning”, where the visibility and reach of a person’s material is significantly reduced, according to HRW.

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