On this episode of News Take, Alliance President & CEO David Chavern is joined by Rand Fishkin, cofounder and CEO of audience research software firm SparkToro, for a fascinating conversation about the big tech platforms, their algorithms, and how the Internet has evolved to favor only a handful of giant tech platforms today.
News and magazine publishers have larger audiences than ever — but also need to create new products and distribution systems to drive a better future. ‘Expanding the View’ is designed to highlight interesting ideas and provoke some thinking.
News publishers and magazines have larger audiences than ever — but also need to create new products and distribution systems to drive a better future. ‘Expanding the View’ is designed to highlight interesting ideas and provoke some thinking.
Expanding the View is a monthly list of stories I’ve read in the last month to get you thinking. Examples of topics you’ll find here include things on Web3, digital business models and other topics that have the potential to intersect with news publishing.
The News Media Alliance applauds the European Union for reaching an interinstitutional agreement on the long-awaited Digital Services Act (DSA), which includes measures aimed at reducing the dissemination of illegal and harmful content, services and goods online to increasing protections for minors, banning targeted advertising based on sensitive data, and addressing the use of dark patterns to influence consumer choice.
Reacting to yesterday’s congressional hearing and testimony by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, former Facebook data scientist Roddy Lindsay agrees with Haugen’s proposed solution to address the problem of big tech platforms spreading harmful misinformation and fake news – make the platforms liable for content they promote via their algorithms.
On February 19, 2020, Alliance President & CEO David Chavern will testify at the Department of Justice Workshop on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
News Media Alliance President and CEO David Chavern today called on the major technology platforms, namely Facebook and Google, to take responsibility for the role they play in deciding, via their “secret algorithms,” how and to whom news is distributed, and the subsequent impact of those decisions on civil society.
Given Facebook’s sizable power in driving traffic to news sites, its early 2018 announcement that it was changing how stories are surfaced in the News Feed was a source of concern for many publishers. Following the rollout of these changes, the tracking software NewsWhip used its proprietary technology to quantify the impact of the algorithm changes, which it published in a report in late March 2018.
