<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div>The article misses the "Big Picture" that people use their Twitters and FBs because they are market 'winners".<br><br></div>They aren't mandatory, they are just popular, just like MySpace was 10 years ago.<br><br></div>People are still free to communicate via any number of other ways that do not involve a platform.<br><br></div>including this list, which I would like to remind you has a set of rules. One of them is to refrain from sending:<br><br>" Sequences of messages by one or more participants that cause an IGC list to become a hostile environment"<br><br></div>I believe your post below is of that nature, and I would ask you to abide by list netiquette.<br><br><div><div><div><br><br><div><div><div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Nov 23, 2014 at 11:06 PM, michael gurstein <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gurstein@gmail.com" target="_blank">gurstein@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">According to this article below our civil society free speech warriors who<br>
are so concerned to keep governments at bay may just be missing the bigger<br>
picture, but I'm sure they will have an excellent chance to be brought up to<br>
speed in their multistakeholder NMI canoodling with the likes of Facebook<br>
and Twitter.<br>
<br>
M<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: <a href="mailto:dewayne-net@warpspeed.com">dewayne-net@warpspeed.com</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:dewayne-net@warpspeed.com">dewayne-net@warpspeed.com</a>] On Behalf<br>
Of Dewayne Hendricks<br>
Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2014 5:51 AM<br>
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net<br>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Technology set journalism free, now new platforms are<br>
in control<br>
<br>
Technology set journalism free, now new platforms are in control By Mathew<br>
Ingram Nov 22 2014<br>
<<a href="https://gigaom.com/2014/11/22/technology-set-journalism-free-now-new-platfo
rms-are-in-control/" target="_blank">https://gigaom.com/2014/11/22/technology-set-journalism-free-now-new-platfo<br>
rms-are-in-control/</a>><br>
<br>
Emily Bell, the former Guardian digital editor who now runs the Tow Center<br>
for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, gave a speech recently at the<br>
Reuters Institute in the UK about the crossroads at which journalism finds<br>
itself today. It's a place where media and journalism - and in fact speech<br>
of all kinds - has never been more free, but also paradoxically one in which<br>
speech is increasingly controlled by privately-run platforms like Twitter<br>
and Facebook.<br>
<br>
I was glad to see Emily addressing this issue, because it's something I've<br>
written about a number of times - both in the context of Twitter'scommitment<br>
to being the "free speech wing of the free-speech party," and also in the<br>
context of Facebook's dominance of the news and how its algorithm can<br>
distort that news in ways we still don't really appreciate or understand,<br>
because it is a black box.<br>
<br>
"Today. we have reached a point of transition where news spaces are no<br>
longer owned by newsmakers. The press is no longer in charge of the free<br>
press and has lost control of the main conduits through which stories reach<br>
audiences. The public sphere is now operated by a small number of private<br>
companies, based in Silicon Valley."<br>
<br>
Free speech vs. profit<br>
<br>
As Emily pointed out, it's a serious issue not just for journalists or the<br>
media but for society as a whole to have "our free speech standards, our<br>
reporting tools and publishing rules set by unaccountable software<br>
companies." Although these platforms often say they are in favor of free<br>
speech and other principles, as Twitter does, at the end of the day they are<br>
profit-oriented public companies who must pursue certain ends in order to<br>
generate revenue.<br>
<br>
There's also a certain tendency on the part of these platforms and their<br>
executives to deny that they act in any kind of editorial role or perform<br>
any kind of journalistic function, when they clearly do. In an interview<br>
with the New York Times, the Facebook executive in charge of the main news<br>
feed said he doesn't think of himself as an editor - and yet, algorithms<br>
involve editorial choices of what to include and what to leave out, even if<br>
Facebook and other companies don't want to admit it.<br>
<br>
"No other single branded platform in the history of journalism has had the<br>
concentration of power and attention that Facebook enjoys. If one believes<br>
the numbers attached to Facebook, then the world's most powerful news<br>
executive is Greg Marra, the product manager for the Facebook News Feed. He<br>
is 26."<br>
<br>
This power is often exercised in disturbing ways: Facebook repeatedly<br>
removes content that doesn't meet its standards, but often doesn't say why -<br>
and in some cases this can affect the historical record of important events,<br>
such as the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons against its own<br>
people, as the investigative blogger Brown Moses has described a number of<br>
times.<br>
<br>
[snip]<br>
<br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">Cheers,<br><br>McTim<br>"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there." Jon Postel</div>
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