Massachusetts lawmakers consider a tax on streaming services to help fund public access media

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

Massachusetts lawmakers consider a tax on streaming services to help fund public access media Massachusetts would be the first state to use fees on streaming services specifically to support community media. By Samantha Henry.

The Guardian keeps growing internationally, in both revenue and journalism What We’re ReadingTechCrunch / Sarah PerezThe owner of @x Twitter handle says no one reached out to him ahead of Twitter’s rebranding →“According to [account owner Gene X Hwang], no one from the company formerly known as Twitter has yet to reach out to him about the @x account he operates, but notes he would be happy to have a conversation if they ever did so. ‘I’m kind of waiting to see what might happen,’ Hwang tells TechCrunch. ‘And I would be willing to part with the handle if they made an offer for it that made sense.’”Digiday / Kayleigh BarberHow Wirecutter’s social strategy led to increased Prime Day affiliate revenue →“Publishers, like Wirecutter, also focused on audiences who come from platforms other than search. [Wirecutter’s executive director of commerce Leilani Han] said these shoppers, coming from social media platforms and on-site traffic coming funneled through The New York Times’s website, were particularly impactful to increase pageviews of commerce content.”Rest of World / Michael ZelenkoThe world’s last internet cafes →“‘What was lost is the gathering space for in-person gathering and hanging out — the communal sharing of food, sharing a dream, being together in the same space,’ Ricardo Gomez, an associate professor at the University of Washington who conducted a definitive survey of public internet access in the late 2000s, said.”TechCrunch / Amanda SilberlingTwenty years ago, the AIM chatbot SmarterChild that out-snarked ChatGPT →“SmarterChild wasn’t the first AI-powered chatbot, but it bridged the gap between current technology like Siri and Alexa and earlier efforts like Dr. Sbaitso on MS-DOS and ELIZA. Like SmarterChild, these earlier bots could process natural language, but they didn’t have large swaths of data like SmarterChild to make its conversations more productive or useful.

SmarterChild grew from zero to 30 million users in under six months, solidifying itself as a phenomenon of the early aughts internet.”

TechCrunch / Aisha MalikGoogle Search is making it easier to find relevant information on women’s sports →“Google notes that although its systems are getting better at surfacing women’s sports coverage, it recognizes that there are imbalances across the web in terms of how men and women’s sports are covered. For example, if there’s a prevalence of content about men’s sports, that might mean Search is more likely to surface such information. To address this, Google is working with content creators and news publishers to increase the amount of relevant and high-quality media coverage of women’s sports.”Platformer / Casey NewtonTwitter becomes X →“…the true shape of Musk’s project, which is best understood not as a money-making endeavor, but as an extended act of cultural vandalism. Just as he graffitis his 420s and 69s all over corporate filings; and just as he paints over corporate signage and office rooms with his little sex puns; so does he delight in erasing the Twitter that was.”Bloomberg / Thomas SealThe United Kingdom wants to crack down on Google and other advertising platforms for pushing scam ads →“The U.K. said it will force social media platforms and services like Alphabet Inc.’s Google Ads to stop scam advertisements, including fake celebrity endorsements, and take tougher action to prevent children from age-restricted ads for drinking and gambling.”Nieman Reports / Vidya KrishnanA billionaire, A TV network, And the fight for a free press in India →“With the acquisition [of NDTV] going through, the free press in India has been whittled down to a handful of newsrooms, including The Wire, Scroll, and The Caravan, that cover the government critically. India’s veteran journalists — elbowed out of legacy newsrooms — mostly eke out a living as freelancers by taking their investigative work to digital platforms.”The Objective / Jacob GardenswartzThe investigative outlet Reveal laid off all Black unionized staff →“During a bout of financial instability nearly three years later, however, Reveal laid off six people of color from its staff of roughly 50 workers, including every single Black employee working on the editorial side of the company except the radio program’s host, Al Letson.”The Washington Post / Cate Cadell and Tim StarksA Pro-China influence campaign is getting stories placed on U.S. news websites →“The articles — which have appeared in financial news subdomains of at least 32 websites including the Arizona Republic and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — include Chinese state media stories and scathing critiques of U.S. policymakers, academics and others critical of Beijing.”Digiday / Kayleigh BarberMeta wants Threads to keep a light tone, but some publishers say the audience is ready for news →“In an initial poll posed to its Threads followers, Texas Monthly asked what content they wanted to see on the platform: a good news story, a true crime story or a story from its BBQ coverage. The majority of the 150 replies were split evenly between good news and BBQ. Based on that response, Texas Monthly hasn’t shared true crime, hard news and political coverage on Threads, but that’s not to say that O’Donnell and her team will outright avoid posting any of that content on there forever.” Le MondeA French newspaper’s staff has been on strike for a month after the owner appointed a new far-right editor →“Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the action was now the longest strike in French media since a 28-month strike by staff at the daily newspaper Le Parisien began in 1975.”The Jewish Chronicle / Hannah GillottIsraeli newspapers publish all-black front page ads in protest of the government’s plans to overhaul the country’s judicial system →“The plain black pages, which appeared in Yediot Aharonot, Calcalist, Israel Hayom and Haaretz, were paid for by the Hi-Tech Protest movement. The Hi-Tech Protest movement is a group comprising of representatives and employees from hi-tech companies.”El País / Tereixa ConstenlaCristiano Ronaldo wants to buy the Portuguese newspaper that he’s sued several times →In Spanish: “Correio da Manhã is the best-selling newspaper in Portugal (41,810 circulation copies in the first quarter of 2023), although with low digital penetration. The private life and business of the star, who now plays for the Al-Nassr club in the Saudi League , has been a gold mine that the tabloid’s front pages have conscientiously exploited.”VTDigger / Paige FisherThis hyperlocal website is serving as a hub during “catastrophic” flooding in Vermont →“Front Porch Forum is a hyperlocal for-profit website and newsletter with over 230,000 active members, almost exclusively Vermonters … The site hosts reports on anything from lost cows to major state and federal government updates.”

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