[governance] FW: [Dewayne-Net] Technology set journalism free, now new platforms are in control

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Ah yes so you say you're missing the bigger picture? Or don't you try to 
keep the governments at bay from infringing on privacy?  Which is it?



On November 24, 2014 10:36:44 AM "michael gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:

> According to this article below our civil society free speech warriors who
> are so concerned to keep governments at bay may just be missing the bigger
> picture, but I'm sure they will have an excellent chance to be brought up to
> speed in their multistakeholder NMI canoodling with the likes of Facebook
> and Twitter.
>
> M
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dewayne-net at warpspeed.com [mailto:dewayne-net at warpspeed.com] On Behalf
> Of Dewayne Hendricks
> Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2014 5:51 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Technology set journalism free, now new platforms are
> in control
>
> Technology set journalism free, now new platforms are in control By  Mathew
> Ingram Nov 22 2014
> <https://gigaom.com/2014/11/22/technology-set-journalism-free-now-new-platfo
> rms-are-in-control/>
>
> Emily Bell, the former Guardian digital editor who now runs the Tow Center
> for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, gave a speech recently at the
> Reuters Institute in the UK about the crossroads at which journalism finds
> itself today. It's a place where media and journalism - and in fact speech
> of all kinds - has never been more free, but also paradoxically one in which
> speech is increasingly controlled by privately-run platforms like Twitter
> and Facebook.
>
> I was glad to see Emily addressing this issue, because it's something I've
> written about a number of times - both in the context of Twitter'scommitment
> to being the "free speech wing of the free-speech party," and also in the
> context of Facebook's dominance of the news and how its algorithm can
> distort that news in ways we still don't really appreciate or understand,
> because it is a black box.
>
> "Today. we have reached a point of transition where news spaces are no
> longer owned by newsmakers. The press is no longer in charge of the free
> press and has lost control of the main conduits through which stories reach
> audiences. The public sphere is now operated by a small number of private
> companies, based in Silicon Valley."
>
> Free speech vs. profit
>
> As Emily pointed out, it's a serious issue not just for journalists or the
> media but for society as a whole to have "our free speech standards, our
> reporting tools and publishing rules set by unaccountable software
> companies." Although these platforms often say they are in favor of free
> speech and other principles, as Twitter does, at the end of the day they are
> profit-oriented public companies who must pursue certain ends in order to
> generate revenue.
>
> There's also a certain tendency on the part of these platforms and their
> executives to deny that they act in any kind of editorial role or perform
> any kind of journalistic function, when they clearly do. In an interview
> with the New York Times, the Facebook executive in charge of the main news
> feed said he doesn't think of himself as an editor - and yet, algorithms
> involve editorial choices of what to include and what to leave out, even if
> Facebook and other companies don't want to admit it.
>
> "No other single branded platform in the history of journalism has had the
> concentration of power and attention that Facebook enjoys. If one believes
> the numbers attached to Facebook, then the world's most powerful news
> executive is Greg Marra, the product manager for the Facebook News Feed. He
> is 26."
>
> This power is often exercised in disturbing ways: Facebook repeatedly
> removes content that doesn't meet its standards, but often doesn't say why -
> and in some cases this can affect the historical record of important events,
> such as the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons against its own
> people, as the investigative blogger Brown Moses has described a number of
> times.
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/>
>
>
>
>
>



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