Facebook’s latest changes to its news-feed algorithm seem to be taking their toll on companies that have built their businesses on “viral” content for the social network: The latest victim is Rare, Cox Media’s conservative-focused news site, which the company said is shutting down after traffic evaporated. The site was set up in 2013 and […]

It’s hard to believe that this actually happened, given all the problems Facebook has been having, but the company admitted to running a survey recently with some users that asked whether it would be acceptable for an adult man to ask a 14-year-old girl for sexual photos. There are a wide range of topics and […]

Media consultant Simon Galperin wants to create a system whereby local communities could use tax revenue to create a news and information entity called a Community Information Cooperative. The idea is that a fee levied on residents—similar to fees for fire services, water, sanitation, etc.—would allow a community to essentially self-fund their own local reporters. […]

Serial media entrepreneur Steven Brill and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz launched a startup on March 4 called NewsGuard, which they hope will create a ranking system for the credibility of news. The startup is hiring human journalists and editors to evaluate 7,500 news sites that account for 98 percent of engagement with news online in the […]

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has acknowledged—not for the first time—that harassment and abuse are a problem on the platform, and says he is committed to helping “increase the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation, and to hold ourselves publicly accountable towards progress.” How exactly the company plans to do that isn’t clear, but Dorsey […]

So-called “fake news” has become a hot-button topic of late, since Donald Trump and his followers have made it a mantra to describe any story they disagree with. After initially dismissing the problem, Facebook has promised to crack down on disinformation in a number of ways, and so has Google. Experts, however, say what they […]

The New York Times published an article earlier this week describing how a number of celebrities, athletes, and even politicians—including a member of Britain’s House of Lords who is also on Twitter’s board—bought fake Twitter followers. An online company sold fake accounts by the hundreds of thousands, including some that were copies of existing accounts […]

BuzzFeed co-founder and CEO Jonah Peretti is the kind of guy who never sees the cloud, only the silver lining, no matter how dark things get. Revenue last year came in between 15 and 20 percent below targets (Peretti won’t say exactly how much), and more than 100 people were laid off. Then Facebook announced […]

A toxic combination of misinformation, hate speech, and online harassment is pushing several European countries to take action against social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. But some believe their actions—however well-intentioned—run the risk of stifling free speech and putting dangerous restrictions on freedom of the press. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are all […]

Changes to Facebook’s News Feed algorithm often have the air of a Biblical pronouncement: Media companies know they will face consequences because of their reliance on Facebook for traffic and advertising revenue, but just how serious those consequences will be is always unknown. This week brought another in a series of such proclamations, triggering a […]

Let’s face it—Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, is a classic Twitter troll. The Troll in Chief, if you will. He routinely uses the platform to lash out at his critics, he peddles fake news and conspiracy theories, and he has repeatedly threatened to start a nuclear war with North Korea. But […]

Plenty of startups are trying to reinvent the news business by adding features such as micro-payments or mobile video. But a startup called Civil is trying to take a quantum leap beyond these efforts: It’s not just inventing its own platform for news and journalism, it’s also inventing its own currency. Civil, founded by Matthew […]

Misinformation distributed by social platforms like Facebook has almost become old news in the United States, thanks to all the attention focused on Russian troll armies trying to influence the 2016 presidential election. But in some countries such as Myanmar, “fake news” doesn’t just interfere with people’s views about who to vote for—it leads to […]

Free-speech advocates—including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology—are afraid that a bill currently making its way through Congress could significantly weaken existing protections for online speech. In the United States, one of the most critical planks supporting free expression online is a section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act known […]

The major tech companies did what they probably hoped was the requisite amount of bowing and scraping before the assembled members of both the House and the Senate intelligence committees on Wednesday, after being called on the carpet for their role in distributing Russian-backed ads and fake news during the 2016 election. But tangible commitments […]