When lies looks like truth, tech giant's democratic obligations, and start-ups in newsrooms

Friday, December 09, 2016      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!

Here are Karin's choices for this week:

It’s clear that fake news is a problem: 75% of American adults are unable to distinguish between fake news, and the more people rely on social media sites for their news the more accurate they view the headlines. But the issue is not just about the traffic fake news (or misleading news) is getting as a result of social media, it’s also an issue of aesthetics and media literacy. On a Facebook timeline or Google search feed, all articles come prepackaged in the same skin; there’s no visual differentiation between ‘legitimate’ news sources and fabricated clickbait. While the people who click through links to the articles on publishers’ homepages can more easily distinguish between a credible and unreliable sources - for instance, in terms of layout, website design, repetition of articles, spelling and grammatical errors or inconsistencies - within the walled gardens of the social media sites these visual cues are lacking. The result is that Facebook and Google are disguising content so everything appears equally credible. Both sites are making steps towards tackling the spread of fake news and improve trust in the media, neither appear to be taking much responsibility for what appears in premium layouts, leaving it to the readers to determine whether news is credible or not.

News organisations react against the spread of fake news. Reuters has built its own algorithmic prediction tool to help it spot and verify breaking news on Twitter. The Reuters News Tracer monitors Twitter to detect major breaking news events early, but it also identifies the newsworthiness of the tweets, filters out opinions while keeping facts, and verifying whether the tweets are accurate. The tool is particularly useful in identifying and informing about live events, as witnesses take to Twitter to describe the scene.

Real-life consequences of fake news. In the last week, the proliferation of fake news has also been shown to have some very real consequences (for instance, the guy in D.C. who discharged a rifle inside a pizzeria in order to self-investigate ‘Pizzagate’, a fabricated news story about Hillary Clinton running a child pornography ring from the back room) that extend beyond the role fake or misleading news played in elections.

Do tech giants have a democratic obligation to share data? As Facebook, and to a lesser extent Twitter, become the primary platforms for political conversation, Philip N. Howard, professor of sociology, information and international affairs at Oxford University argues that they have a democratic duty to not just reign in the spread of false news, but also to use the data they collect to support democratic practices – such as developing systems for measuring public opinion. This call for more transparency in algorithmic decisions and data collection can also make a difference when it comes to the impact search results have on civil society.

Prejudice in search and social media clearly exists, and the European Commission is currently pushing big tech companies to combat illegal hate speech. A code of conduct was created in May 2016 and agreed with IT companies (Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft), with initial results showing that 28% of all notifications of alleged illegal online hate speech lead to the removal of the flagged content, but 60% was removed only after the 24-hour deadline. In addition to the consultation the Commission is running, Google, Facebook Twitter and Microsoft have also pledged to work together to remove extremist content on their platforms through an information-sharing initiative. While this action is a step in the right direction, it’s clear that there’s still a lot that needs to be done in order to ensure that the internet is not overrun by inaccuracies and hate speech.

Grabbing attention in an information-saturated world. The abundance of information prevalent on the internet today has also caused publishers to question how they can grab the attention of their audiences and encourage them to keep coming back. A new study by Nic Newman (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and a Future Media Mind) shows that the battleground for attention could play out in the form of news alerts and the lock screen. In fact, the research indicates that there is an incredible growth potential for publishers, particularly those that put user needs at the centre of their decisions.

Startups in the newsroom: The Global Editors Network talks to the CEOs of startups working with newsrooms and has developed a list of tips on how to bridge the media and tech worlds in order to improve cooperation. The key seems to be on building relationships: to be successful you need to create a network, listen to feedback and turn demands into real proposals.

Crisis of print media – but not for luxury brands. It’s no surprise that the print publishing industry is facing some constraints. With print circulation falling and revenue pressures increasing, many titles have closed or switched to a digital-only model. However, luxury publications are still able to leverage their status as a selling point for advertisers who are able to self-select their ad space in luxury titles, controlling the context in which print audiences view the brand and limiting the risk of reputational damage that is possible with digital ads.