EU copyright reform could threaten Europe's press, the era of digital exceptionalism and getting a balanced media diet

Friday, March 17, 2017      Future Media Lab.       0

Continuing with our bi-weekly news roundup, Karin Fleming shares the news that caught her eye over the last two weeks. The news round-up is a way for the Future Media Lab. team and members of the Future Media Lab. network to share articles about innovations and developments in the media sector, including references to relevant media policy debates. To get this round-up sent directly to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter!

EU Parliament report on copyright incentivises litigation over licensing. Currently there are ongoing discussions in the European Parliament and European Council on how EU copyright should be reformed. This follows a Commission proposal, which was published last year and addressed the dysfunctional digital ecosystem that is undermining publishers’ potential to invest in professional journalism by including a publishers’ right. However, the European Parliament’s lead committee has published its draft report on this proposal that excludes a publishers such a right, replacing it with a solution that leading newspaper and magazine publishers associations says will prioritise litigation over licensing and cooperation.

Getting picked in a media-saturated world. Thomas Baekdal, a Danish media analyst, wrote a response to a TheMediaBriefing article that put forward the idea that a “Spotify For News” would encourage collaboration among publishers and generate much-needed revenue for publishers. In it, Baekdal says that this is an unrealistic perspective that uses the traditional idea of “media” as a starting point, ignoring the reality of how media is defined and consumed today. “[Spotify for News is] a model designed as a singular answer to a complex market that doesn’t fit it,” writes Baekdal. “…the solution is not to create another newsstand, and especially not one where every publisher has to compete for the same share of the revenue.” Rather, he said publishers need to start addressing the underlying problem: they’re asking people to pay for something that isn’t relevant to them.

Defining fake news. “Fake news” exists across a wide spectrum, which includes everything from intentionally false information and clickbait to untrue things that are honestly presented. This in turn makes the defining “fake news” an impossible task – and opens the door to potential abuse from those trying to exploit the press. In this context, Reporters Without Borders recently warned against “predators of press freedom” who could try to “muzzle the media on the pretext of fighting false information”. While it seems like an easy solution to fine platforms for the spread of fake news and misinformation, the knee-jerk reaction to regulate the spread of fake news via vague descriptions of what constitutes it is a threat to freedom of expression and the free flow of information.

Google-Facebook duopoly not going anywhere. According to a recent eMarketer report, Google will control 80% market share of the US search ad business by 2019 and Facebook will control 43.7% display market share in the US by 2019. While much of the success of these companies is attributed to their ability to uniquely address market gaps and build successful businesses in the digital age, this era of “digital exceptionalism” seems to be at an end. Rather than a result of exceeding genius, much of the success behind online giant’s success can be linked to implicit subsidies that were given by limiting the liability of platforms for the content posted on their site at the advent of the internet. But as the internet giants grow bigger, this free pass is increasingly difficult for regulators and courts to justify.

Brand safety and programmatic advertising. The Guardian has removed all its online advertising from Google and YouTube after it discovered that ads were placed next to extremist content, including YouTube videos of American white nationalists and a hate preacher who has been banned in the UK. As the process of buying and selling advertising becomes more automated with the increase of programmatic trading, ad misplacement and brand safety are big concerns. Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, recently said that Google hasn’t done enough to reassure advertisers that they brands are safe on its platform and that this is a fundamental issue.

Fake news and the search for “the one true answer”. Over the past five years, Google has moved towards providing direct answers to many of the questions users typed into their search bar, recognizing the desire that many people are looking for a quick answer as opposed to a research aid. But while most direct answers on the site are correct, others have been sourced from shady places – such as anti-vaccination groups, white nationalist groups, and fake news content farms – and are branded as “the truth” by being placed above other sourced content in a separate box. This is potentially dangerous, particularly since the increasing popularity of browser-less internet connected devices will result in the growing use of direct answers as opposed to lists of search results. Imagine your Google Home reading statements like, “Obama is planning a communist coup” as if it were fact.

Trying to get a balanced media diet. A new app, Read Across the Aisle, is designed to track how often users read stories from news sources spread across the political spectrum. When a reader skews too far in one direction, the app alerts them, sending a notification to remind them to switch their sources up. While currently limited to only 20 news sources, the idea to get readers to be more aware of their news consumption habits with a technical solution and to think outside of their bubble has gained more traction as the world becomes more polarized. In a recent interview, Bill Gates also discussed his concern about the impact self-segregation could have on people and communities when they rely on sources with narrow worldviews.