What I'm Reading - 10/15/23
The relationship between news and online platforms gets more complicated
I’m having my favorite kind of weekend. After six weeks of nonstop go, go, go, I finally have a bit of a chance to breathe. It’s rainy here on the shore, and after I write this newsletter, I plan to read and watch football. I need to finish
’s book “Extremely Online” and Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk book. I’m very much enjoying Taylor’s. The Musk book is a bit harder to get through.Speaking of Musk, check out the new Frontline documentary about his takeover of Twitter. The documentary goes up to the end of September, so it’s up to date. It interviews folks like Yoel Roth, Renee DiResta, Nina Jankowicz, and Kara Swisher. They also talk to Matt Taibbi, who wrote on many of the Twitter files, and Congressman Jim Jordan. I appreciated how Frontline pushed all these folks to react to their critics. Though Taibbi and Jordan’s answers left a lot to be desired. (Not surprisingly.)
I also thank all of you for giving me the space and time to think about my posting schedule for the newsletter and the podcast. Last week felt really weird for me not to be doing what I had been doing, so right now, I’m not going to change anything. Writing this right now is bringing me so much joy that I missed out on by skipping my usually scheduled programming. (Though I love the piece
and I put out, in case you missed it.) Part of the reason I was panicking was if I would have enough podcast material, but I now have four interviews in the hopper, with another two being taped this week. So, I think I’m good for a bit. 🙂This leads me to my last thing before we get to the links. This week's big topic has been how X/Twitter isn’t the same as it once was for breaking news. Much of this has been focused on the conflict in Israel, but the Speaker’s race is worth looking at, too. Jake Sherman from Punchbowl News has been invaluable on Twitter to get the latest on what is happening with the House GOP conference.
However, many journalists have been discussing whether Threads should become the new place for the community that was once on Twitter, and boy, are they split. And Adam Mosseri continues to say that they won’t amplify news. I’ve been thinking about it all week, and on the drive out here listened to podcasts by Alex Kantrowitz and Casey Newton/Kevin Roose. I also listened to Ben Thompson’s thoughts on his Sharp Tech podcast.
Part of what’s been gnawing at me is this Morning Consult poll showing that people like Facebook more now that they are deprioritizing politics and news. I get it, but I worry about what it means in the long term if people stop paying attention to the news or what is happening politically. Or should I just get over myself that my old employer is never getting back together with politics and news and be okay that new platforms like
might fill the gap?I wrote a bunch more after this, but I want to save it for Wednesday. I bring this all up because I’m curious - where do you stand? What other perspectives should I be taking into account? All of this is intertwined, from what was discussed in the Frontline documentary to this question of online platforms and news. Feel free to reply, leave a comment, or do a quick vote in this poll.
BTW, if you are wondering what in the world bad idea jeans are, watch this.
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Newsletter of the Week - Campaigns and Elections
If you want to keep up with how campaigns use technology like AI, look no further than
. They are doing a phenomenal job of providing the political consultant's point of view as we consider new rules for things like AI in political ads. For instance, this past week, they looked at how consultants would love to use AI to create imagery that is hard to find, such as a wide-shot image of a farmer in a field where you could see the farmer’s back. However, the consultant isn’t sure if that would be allowed under the proposed regulations not allowing AI in these ads. I highly recommend subscribing.What I’m Reading
Washington Post: How Twitter lost its place as the global town square
Bloomberg: Hamas War Shows Facebook, Twitter Have Pivoted From News
The Atlantic: The Israel-Hamas War Shows Just How Broken Social Media Has Become
Nieman Reports: Six Months Ago NPR Left Twitter. The Effects Have Been Negligible
Washington Post: Hamas vows to broadcast hostage executions. Tech firms can't stop them.
Politico Tech: How Hamas used social media to amplify its attack on Israel
DFR Lab: In Israel-Hamas conflict, social media becomes tools of propaganda and disinformation
Bloomberg: TikTok Videos of Israel-Palestine Conflict Show New Role for the Platform
Twitter: Response to EU’s letter on how they are handling Israel-Hamas war content
Huffington Post: Disinformation Experts Change Tactics For 2024 Election
New York Times: ‘A.I. Obama’ and Fake Newscasters: How A.I. Audio Is Swarming TikTok
Wired: An Alleged Deepfake of UK Opposition Leader Keir Starmer Shows the Dangers of Fake Audio
Tech Policy Press: What You Need to Know About Generative AI's Emerging Role in Political Campaigns
Public Affairs Council: Americans Worried about Honesty and Openness of 2024 Elections
Axios: AI, social media threaten democracies with misinformation flood
Politico: Lawmakers shift gears on TikTok ban
Meta Oversight Board: Oversight Board announces two cases: Altered Video of President Biden and Weapons Post Linked to Sudan’s Conflict
Knight Columbia: Six Things About Jawboning
- : The Wildest Month of the US Presidency, Part I (Spoiler alert - It’s not this month or this year. It’s October 1973)
Philanthropy: Want to Fund a Healthy Democracy? Stop Focusing on Partisan Politics.
Japan News: Japan Seeking G7 Agreement on AI Development Guidelines, Kishida Announces at Internet Governance Forum
NPR: Guatemalans protest attempts to overturn the results of presidential election
Rest of World: 40 global technology companies beating their Western rivals
CNN: Australians vote No in referendum that promised change for First Nations people but couldn’t deliver
New York Times: New Zealand Elects Its Most Conservative Government in Decades
Reuters: Southeast Asia eyes hands-off AI rules, defying EU ambitions
Michael Geist: Canada plans to regulate search and social media use of artificial intelligence for content moderation and discoverability
Euractiv: Tired of Disinformation, Some EU Politicians Dream of Bluer Skies
Meta: Safety and Integrity Quarterly Roundup - Q4 2023 Edition
OpenAI: OpenAI Technology Explained
OpenAI: OpenAI Red Teaming Network
- : The Suspense is Terrible
Another line that's been sticking with me all week? "I might say I want financial security, but maybe what I really want is to protect my creative flame, even at a cost."
Washington Post: How much did Taylor Swift actually make from the Eras Tour?
New York Times: My Delirious Trip to the Heart of Swiftiedom
Please support the curation and analysis I’m doing with this newsletter. As a paid subscriber, you make it possible for me to bring you in-depth analyses of the most pressing issues in tech and politics.
Sounds like you are doing a lot of pondering as you soak up various bits of information. I do this often. Ruminate on it all for some time and eventually land on where I stand or how I feel about something. The dichotomy between social sites and news is a good one. I didn’t want my FB page to be a news page about news of world. I wanted news about my cousins in Sweden and family and friends living farther away. One it stopped being that. I stopped FB.
Thank you so much for the mention Katie! I was so surprised to be browsing all these links and then randomly encounter it, not even from a notification :) Thank you for all the great curation you’re doing 🙏❤️