Russian PRISM, Julian Assange, and the ‘end of Twitter’
Our personal weekly selection about journalism and innovation. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter.
edited by Marco Nurra
- How did Putin control the Internet? ‘The Red Web’ explains how the Kremlin has thoroughly co-opted the Russian Internet, turning it into an effective tool for the modern surveillance state. Is it even possible that things could have turned out differently in Russia, given the legacy of the Soviet Union?
🔊 The authors of the book, Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, will be #ijf16 speakers. - “Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been arbitrarily detained by Sweden and the United Kingdom since his arrest in London on 7 December 2010, as a result of the legal action against him by both Governments”, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said friday. And now what happens?
- Davide Dormino’s public artwork ‘Anything To Say?’ will be at #ijf16. It’s a bronze sculpture, portraying three life-sized figures of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, who had the courage to say no to the intrusion of global surveillance and to lies that lead to war. The fourth chair is empty and can be interacted with by members of the public. The statue is on a European tour: Berlin, Ostrale-Dresden, Geneva, Paris, Strasbourg, and it will be in Perugia for the International Journalism Festival (6–10 April 2016).
🔊 Davide Dormino, Sarah Harrison, and Stefania Maurizi will be #ijf16 speakers.
- New York Times reported $52 million quarterly profit. “Although our digital revenue is growing strongly, we continue to feel the impact of declines in parts of our print business”, the newspaper’s executive editor said. “That means the company must continue to carefully manage its costs”.
- The New Yorker’s “End of Twitter” is a false narrative. “As a user, it doesn’t matter to me if Twitter grows to the size of Facebook, since at the current size it provides a tremendous utility”, Anthony De Rosa wrote on Medium. Slate and The Guardian also published positive analysis on Twitter’s health. Additionally, the company is planning to introduce an algorithmic timeline as soon as next week, BuzzFeed News has learned.
- Facebook has declared war on clickbait. Facebook says it rallied a Feed Quality Panel of real people to try to find out what stories people are keen to see, even if they aren’t going to click. The next newsfeed algorithm update will try to rebalance away from stories that are just “designed to get lots of clicks”.
- The Financial Times has a 30-person data team for editing and marketing. The audience engagement team sits in the newsroom so it can work directly with journalists. It includes data analysts, SEO experts, engagement strategists, social media managers and journalists. Its objectives are to get the FT journalism out to more people and evolve the newsroom with digital readers in mind.
🔊 Renée Kaplan, head of audience engagement at FT, will be #ijf16 speaker. - The younger reporters are often running close to burnout. The constant pressure of deadlines and the realities of the journalism economy can lead to feelings of disempowerment. And when journalists feel disempowered, they not only lose their ability to do their jobs well–they also stop caring about whether they do a good job. What are the implications of ‘peak content’ exhaustion?
- News websites are not responsible for “insulting and rude” comments by readers, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday, after a Hungarian website was sued for messages on its forum.
- Al-Jazeera takes legal action against the Egyptian government. Broadcaster pursues $150m international arbitration claim due to the enforced closure of its business in Cairo, and the arrest and harassment of its journalists.
🔊 Peter Greste, who was sentenced to seven years in prison in June 2014, and released in February 2015, will be #ijf16 speaker.
International Journalism Festival is the biggest annual media event in Europe. It’s an open invitation to interact with the best of world journalism. All sessions are free entry for all attendees, all venues are situated in the stunning setting of the historic town centre of Perugia. Come and join us!
