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Wednesday, January 10, 2018
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China’s news agency is reinventing itself with AI“We saw lots of interest in AI in China, and the sector is moving so fast in the country…The U.S. still has the best AI talent, but there are many good engineers and AI researchers in China as well.” By Christine Schmidt. |
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With its new newsletter director, The New Yorker wants to experiment with standalone and international-focused products“Email is kind of like a living room. It's a very personal space. You let in your friends, the coworkers you like, and a couple of brands you really trust — like this one.” By Ricardo Bilton. |
What We’re Reading
BBC
Apple’s iCloud services in mainland China will be operated by a Chinese company →
“The Chinese cyber security rules, introduced in July last year, include a requirement for companies to store all data within China. The firm, Guizhou on the Cloud Big Data (GCBD), is owned by the Guizhou provincial government in southern China.”
Buzzfeed / Alex Kantrowitz
Where is Twitter’s promised ad transparency center? →
“The transparency center — an opportunity for Twitter to show Congress it can regulate itself — is yet another hiccup in the company's uneven response to Washington’s concerns about foreign manipulation of its platform. Twitter's September presentation to the Senate Intelligence Committee was so lacking in substance that Senator Mark Warner, the committee's vice chair, said it ‘either shows an unwillingness to take this threat seriously or a complete lack of a fulsome effort.’ On Tuesday, Twitter missed a deadline to respond to questions from the Senate Intel Committee's November hearing. (Google and Facebook, which are also under Congressional scrutiny, submitted their responses on time.) And although Twitter banned Russian television network RT from advertising on its platform in October, it did so after offering it 15% of its total US elections ad space ahead of the November 2016 vote.”
Gizmodo / Kashmir Hill and Surya Mattu
Facebook is constantly watching you. Now you can watch them back →
“Since Facebook won't discuss the input it uses, the alternative is to study the output it produces: to track your friend suggestions and see how they change from day to day. By looking at recommendations or patterns of recommendations, it's possible to find connections that Facebook's public explanations won't cover and to try to figure out how they happened.”
Recode / Kurt Wagner
Facebook is testing a new section of the app specifically for local news and events →
As part of its Facebook Journalism Project, Facebook is using a mix of humans and machine learning software to surface content in the new section.
American Press Institute / Jane Elizabeth
Can civility save journalism? →
“When news highlighting civility was available, people gravitated toward it. However, when entertainment was available, incivility was more appealing.”
Digiday / Lucia Moses
'We're marching in the same direction': Facebook is emphasizing Groups, and publishers are following →
“People are going to spend a set amount of time on Facebook every day, and I want them to spend as much time with us as possible.”
Reuters / Antoni Slodkowski and Simon Lewis
Myanmar prosecutors are seeking Official Secrets Act charges against two Reuters reporters →
“The two had worked on Reuters coverage of a crisis in the western state of Rakhine, where – according to U.N. estimates – about 655,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from a fierce military crackdown on militants.”
The Atlantic / Adrienne LaFrance
The New York Times’s ‘Glenn Thrush dilemma’ comes front and and center at an event with journalists on newsroom culture →
"I want to challenge you on the notion that you were truly transparent," said Paul Farhi, a media reporter for The Washington Post. "There is an extensive report which you have not made public. Your top management was not available for interviews. And I'd like to know why and why this is a good way to explain to the public what you're doing in the face of a harassment case."
MediaShift / Ozan Kuru
Why Twitter polls should have a warning label →
“Online user interactivity increases persuasion. In other words, the hands-on nature of Twitter polls provides more psychological involvement, and could further amplify people's biases.”