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The New Gatekeepers


a Friday, May 4th, 2018

Lessons in third-party platform promises, this time from Snap Inc.

As if we needed another lesson in the downsides of the media shackling their business models to third-party platforms, Snap Inc.—the company behind the popular Snapchat messaging app—is reportedly changing the terms of how it compensates publishers who use its Discover feature, a kind of newsstand where partner media companies can post short videos. According to Digiday, […]

a Thursday, May 3rd, 2018

A look at the platform-publisher ecosystem, and a surprise at the Times

Matt McAlister has been working in digital publishing for a long time now, including a stint at The Guardian as director of digital strategy, so he has a long memory when it comes to the relationship between publishers and platforms like Google and Facebook. McAlister now runs a media research company called Kaleida, which just […]

a Thursday, May 3rd, 2018

Zuckerberg cares about journalism, but says he doesn’t want to pay for it

The news is important, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at an invitation only event in Menlo Park, Calif. following the company’s F8 conference on Tuesday. The event was an off-the-record briefing that Zuckerberg chose to turn into an on-the-record interview with editors and reporters from a number of leading media organizations, including The New York Times, […]

a Thursday, May 3rd, 2018

Campbell Brown on Facebook’s plans to decide what news is trustworthy

In interviews following the F8 developer conference in San Jose on Tuesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he believes that journalism is “incredibly important to society and democracy,” but at the same time noted it is a tiny fraction of what happens on the giant social network. That tension runs through all the ways in […]

a Thursday, April 26th, 2018

British MPs say they may try to compel Zuckerberg to testify

Britain failed in its attempts to get Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to come and testify before a committee looking into the problem of fake news and user privacy following the Cambridge Analytica leak, but it seems the British parliament hasn’t given up quite yet. Damian Collins, the head of the parliamentary committee on digital culture […]

a Wednesday, April 25th, 2018

Do people really want to watch a Netflix show about BuzzFeed journalism?

Netflix announced on Wednesday that it is rolling out a new short-form series called Follow This, which will profile writers who work at BuzzFeed News and the stories they are working on, in 15-minute weekly segments (so no binge watching). For example, a promo for the series features BuzzFeed reporter Scaachi Koul talking about a story […]

a Monday, April 16th, 2018

Conference in Perugia takes the pulse of journalism worldwide

Every year for the last 12 years, some of the top thinkers in journalism, as well as many CEOs of media companies, publishers and startups, have gathered in the Italian city of Perugia for a one-of-a-kind conference called the International Journalism Festival. The summit offered an eyeopening, global perspective on topics that continually confound US journalists. […]

a Wednesday, April 11th, 2018

Zuckerberg is trying hard to get out in front of the regulatory wave

Like blind men trying to describe an elephant, everyone describing the Zuckerberg 2018 Apology Tour seems to have found whatever they wanted to find. Some members of Congress clearly believe they confronted the arrogant young billionaire and asked him the tough questions, while many observers—especially those in Silicon Valley—saw Congress demonstrating its ignorance about how Facebook works on even a […]

a Friday, April 6th, 2018

A special privacy feature available only to Facebook executives

One thing about Facebook is it’s very difficult to get rid of things once they are on the social network. Even if you delete your profile, for several days it exists in a state of limbo, not truly deleted but merely hidden from view, in case you change your mind. And still, your data will remain […]

a Thursday, April 5th, 2018

Could we build the Facebook-era equivalent of public broadcasting?

As Mark Zuckerberg continues his 2018 apology tour by admitting that Cambridge Analytica may have illicitly acquired personal data on as many as 87 million Facebook users, instead of the previous estimate of 50 million, the chorus of voices saying we need to reject the social network (the #DeleteFacebook movement) grows louder. In a New […]

a Monday, April 2nd, 2018

‘We didn’t spend enough time thinking about the risks,’ Zuckerberg admits

When Mark Zuckerberg talks about something that has gone wrong at Facebook—which happens rather frequently—he almost always comes off as concerned and apologetic, and his latest interview on Vox Media’s “The Ezra Klein Show” on Friday, March 30th (a transcript of which was published this morning) is no exception. But anyone who has been following Facebook for any […]

a Friday, March 30th, 2018

Is there more than a whiff of bias in the media’s coverage of Facebook?

Scott Rosenberg touched off a minor firestorm in the media-sphere with a post at Axios this week, in which the veteran technology writer argues that at least some of the enthusiasm with which media companies are covering Facebook’s trials and tribulations stems from their resentment over how the company has stolen their readers and advertising […]

a Thursday, March 29th, 2018

Fake news, clickbait still doing well after Facebook algorithm change

Earlier this year, Facebook announced a change to its News Feed algorithm designed to reduce the visibility of news—apart from those outlets deemed to be high quality or trusted sources. Instead, as of January the social network said it would favor posts by people and pages, to encourage what it called “meaningful interaction.” What effect has this had […]

a Tuesday, March 27th, 2018

Affiliate ad scammers say Facebook helped them trick users

Most of the attention focused on Facebook right now is aimed at the Cambridge Analytica leak, where a shadowy Trump-affiliated organization got hold of personal data on 50 million Facebook users and targeted them with ads and fake news during the 2016 election. But this saga is just one example of how Facebook’s targeting features can […]

a Monday, March 26th, 2018

Facebook touches the third rail by discussing accreditation of journalists

Not surprisingly, the issue of “fake news” and the role the giant web platforms play in spreading misinformation was a big topic of conversation at the Financial Times “Future of News” conference held last week in New York. But things started to get a little heated when Campbell Brown—Facebook’s head of news partnerships—was asked by moderator Matthew […]

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The New Gatekeepers

Platform Timeline

For more on the key developments of tech platforms affecting publishers, see the Tow Center's Platform Timeline .

Most Popular

  1. The mystery of Tucker Carlson
  2. CNN public editor: It’s time to end the panel discussion format
  3. The Doctor vs. #MeToo
  4. What’s the right way to ask whether someone is gay?
  5. Why we capitalize ‘Black’ (and not ‘white’)
  6. Journalism’s Gates keepers

Questions? Tips?

Contact Mathew Ingram at [email protected] or @mathewi.

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