Search Engine Land: How The Verge gamed Google with its ‘best printer 2023’ article. “Technology news publisher The Verge has published a 600-word article half-filled with ChatGPT content and a heavy dose of sarcasm that has been outranking more in-depth, well-researched and arguably more helpful content written by humans at publications like the New York Times for the competitive query [best printer 2023].”
PetaPixel: To Save its Content, Archive Team is Attempting to Back Up All of DPReview. “Following yesterday’s news that DPReview is shutting down, photographers around the web began wondering what would happen to its huge library of articles, reviews, and camera test images, including the website’s excellent studio shot comparison tool. Archive Team aims to scrape more than 4 million articles and posts within the next three weeks.”
Washington Post Engineering: Here’s how The Washington Post verified its journalists on Mastodon. “A small cross-disciplinary team of engineers worked together to add a feature so journalists at The Washington Post could link their Mastodon profiles from The Post’s website and verify themselves on the social network.”
BBC: How Elon Musk’s tweets unleashed a wave of hate. “There have been hundreds of posts, many including misogynistic slurs and abusive language. There have also been threatening messages, including depictions of kidnap and hanging.”
CBC: Google says it will volunteer its top execs to testify at parliamentary committee. “Google said it will volunteer some of its top executives to testify at a parliamentary committee that is studying the actions of the Silicon Valley giant after it ran a five-week test that blocked news links to some of its Canadian users.”
SwissInfo: Google should pay millions for Swiss news, says study. “According to a study carried out on behalf of the German-language publishers’ association Schweizer Medien, published by the 24Heures/Tribune de Genève newspapers on Friday, 86% of people in Switzerland use Google to obtain online information…. When using Google, over half of users (53%) stay on Google’s ecosystem and do not click further on links to the publication’s website – they are generally satisfied with the information appearing on the Google search page.”
CBC: MPs denounce Google for blocking news sites as executives testify before committee. “Executives from Google Canada were in the Commons committee hot seat Friday after the company decided last month to block some Canadian users from viewing news content on its site in response to the government’s proposed Online News Act.”
Richmond Times-Dispatch: Opinion: Casting shade on Virginia’s ‘Sunshine Law’. “What was once the domain of overreaching politicians and campaign-season hyperbole, the idea that U.S. democracy is under attack means something different in 2023. Meanwhile, perhaps our best tool for combating propaganda and misinformation — the Freedom of Information Act — continues to get treated in the Virginia General Assembly like a bureaucratic nuisance.”
WFLA: Florida bill would require bloggers who write about governor to register with the state. “Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) wants bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature to register with the state or face fines.”
Associated Press: Betting on social media as a news destination for the young. “If young people are spending so much time on social media, it stands to reason that’s a good place to reach them with news. Operators of the News Movement are betting their business on that hunch. The company, which has been operating for more than a year, hopes to succeed despite journalism being littered with years of unsuccessful attempts to entice people in their 20s to become news consumers.”
National Post: Google CEO, U.S. executives disregard summons to appear before House of Commons committee. “Google will send Canadian representatives to a Parliamentary committee looking into the company’s blocking of some Canadians’ access to news on its platforms — despite a summons for its top U.S.-based executives.”
The Wrap: CNET Lays Off 10% of Staff Just Weeks After Launching Articles Written by AI. “CNET is laying off roughly 10 percent of its editorial staff – around a dozen people, including long-time veterans of the media and reviews website – just weeks after acknowledging it has started using artificial intelligence programs to write certain articles, the Verge reported Thursday.”
CBC: MPs summon top Alphabet/Google executives to explain decision to block news content. “A parliamentary committee is calling four of Google’s top executives to appear before it after the company began testing ways it could block news content from searches if Parliament passes the Online News Act.”
Michigan Daily: My love for physical media will never die. “I have a DVD collection that I’ve been building since my preteen years. Whenever a book I want to read comes out, I have to buy my own copy (and I wouldn’t be caught dead with a Kindle — no offense to my Mom, or anyone else who owns one). I still get CDs at Christmas, and I’m slowly getting into vinyl. Do I technically still have a bunch of Disney movies on VHS? That, I will neither confirm nor deny.”
Associated Press: Lebanese state media archives looted in heart of Beirut. “Unknown assailants broke into the offices of Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency and stole the servers that contain its archives, the Information Ministry said Monday.”
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