Reuters: EU countries back copyright reform targeting Google, Facebook. “The European Union’s bid to overhaul its two-decade old copyright rules cleared its final hurdle on Monday as EU governments backed the move forcing Google to pay publishers for news snippets and Facebook to filter out protected content.”
Google News
Fortune: Google Introduces New Tools to Help Journalists Fight Fake News
Fortune: Google Introduces New Tools to Help Journalists Fight Fake News. “A year into a $300 million push to support journalism, Google is introducing new tools to fight fake news. On Wednesday, the company unveiled a tool that helps news organizations tag stories that debunk misinformation so that Google News can more easily feature it. Another new tool provides journalists with a database of all stories with that tag so that they can find those fact-checking stories.”
Charged: Google News is broken
Charged: Google News is broken. “There’s been a lot of discussion about the future of publishing over the last few years, particularly as Facebook traffic began cratering, leaving publishers scrambling to find new sources of traffic. What’s never really discussed, however, is how those platforms work, and how news sources end up getting mountains of traffic from them, let alone approved for them in the first place.”
CNET: Google could kill Google News in EU over controversial proposed law
CNET: Google could kill Google News in EU over controversial proposed law. “If the European Union goes ahead with a controversial set of changes to digital copyright, Google could pull its Google News service from the continent, according to a report Monday by Bloomberg.”
The Guardian: Google News may shut over EU plans to charge tax for links
The Guardian: Google News may shut over EU plans to charge tax for links. “Google’s top news executive has refused to rule out shutting down Google News in EU countries, as the search engine faces a battle with Brussels over plans to charge a ‘link tax’ for using news stories.” This discussion has been happening since at least 2015. Somebody ask Spain how it went.
Poynter: Ahead of the midterms, Google News Lab created a way to see what’s trending at the state, county and city level
Poynter: Ahead of the midterms, Google News Lab created a way to see what’s trending at the state, county and city level. “With close to 500 House and Senate seats in play with the midterm elections, Google News Lab started thinking about how local reporters might use local data in their work. On Wednesday, the team went live with a Google Trends Midterm page with data on real-time Google search trends at the state, county and city level. (Disclosure: The Google News Initiative funds some training and projects at Poynter.)”
The Atlantic: Why Google Doesn’t Rank Right-Wing Outlets Highly
The Atlantic: Why Google Doesn’t Rank Right-Wing Outlets Highly. “As a thought experiment, pick some markers of relevance (timeliness, impact, keyword density) and quality (originality, sourcing, depth). Now apply a ranking algorithm to the work of the mainstream media, which is to say the big networks, papers, and digital sites that abide by traditional journalistic values. Then apply the same standard to the conservative publications that PJ Media bemoaned the lack of.”
