What journalists and independent creators can learn from each other

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Tuesday, April 23, 2024 [What journalists and independent creators can learn from each other]( “The question is not about the topics but how you approach the topics.” By Neel Dhanesha. [Deepfake detection improves when using algorithms that are more aware of demographic diversity]( “Our research addresses deepfake detection algorithms’ fairness, rather than just attempting to balance the data. It offers a new approach to algorithm design that considers demographic fairness as a core aspect.” By Siwei Lyu and Yan Ju. What We’re Reading NOTUS / Evan McMorris-Santoro and Katherine Swartz [Campaigns have a new favorite tactic for dealing with reporters: Public shaming →]( “Reporters — doing the traditional thing of asking campaigns questions or giving them a chance to respond to reporting before publishing a story — are increasingly finding their emails to campaign staff, and their names and sometimes contact info, screenshotted and posted online like footage from a hidden-camera video.” The Daily Beast / Corbin Bolies [Columbia University’s student-run newspaper is working “overtime” to get protest coverage right →]( “When Columbia is sort of restricting access to press, we have an especially important job in documenting things going on, and we’ve tried to.” SFGATE / Amy Graff [KQED offers buyouts (and says layoffs may be next) →]( “As part of the buyout program, early retirement packages are being offered to employees 55 and older who have been with the organization for at least 10 continuous years, according to the email. The organization will also consider buyouts for other interested employees.” Technical.ly / Kaela Roeder [The Washington Post is developing an AI-powered answer tool informed by its coverage →]( “The Washington Post is partnering with Virginia Tech’s Sanghani Center for Artificial and Data Analytics to develop the new tech. It’s a generative AI project where readers can get answers to questions, using data taken from the Post’s previous coverage. The plan is for it to be built to understand intent in user questions, rather than just relying on keywords like some other AI platforms.” The Verge / Nilay Patel [Newsletter platform Ghost adopts ActivityPub to “bring back the open web” →]( “Ghost says it’s working with Mastodon and Buttondown, another newsletter platform, on ActivityPub support. The company also says it will be working to improve its reading experience as it prepares to let people follow other fediverse authors on its platform. Importantly, the project FAQ also says that paid content ‘should work fine’ with ActivityPub as well — something no other platform has really tried yet, as far as I’m aware.” The Atlantic / Judith Donath and Bruce Schneier [It’s the end of the web as we know it →]( “Eventually, people may stop writing, stop filming, stop composing—at least for the open, public web. People will still create, but for small, select audiences, walled-off from the content-hoovering AIs. The great public commons of the web will be gone.” The New York Times / Steven Lee Myers and Jim Rutenberg [New group joins the political fight over disinformation online →]( “The inception of the group, the American Sunlight Project, reflects how divisive the issue of identifying and combating disinformation has become as the 2024 presidential election approaches. It also represents a tacit admission that the informal networks formed at major universities and research organizations to address the explosion of disinformation online have failed to mount a substantial defense against a campaign, waged largely on the right, depicting their work as part of an effort to silence conservatives.” Columbia Journalism Review / Jon Allsop [Watches and watchdogs in Peru →]( “In a country with dysfunctional political institutions, ‘what makes the arrival of the social internet liberating is also what makes it dangerous,’ Brunella Tipismana wrote last year in [an article for the North American Congress on Latin America](. ‘By allowing for a multiplicity of perspectives, technology has both opened up space for underrepresented voices and, simultaneously, deepened the nation’s epistemic crisis.'” 404 Media / Jason Koebler [AI is poisoning Reddit to promote products and game Google with “parasite SEO” →]( “For years, people who have found Google search frustrating have been adding ‘Reddit’ to the end of their search queries. This practice is so common that Google even [acknowledged the phenomenon]( in a post announcing that it will be scraping Reddit posts to train its AI. And so, naturally, there are now services that will poison Reddit threads with AI-generated posts designed to promote products.” Axios / Sara Fischer, April Rubin, and Maria Curi [ByteDance’s web of apps could get tangled up in TikTok ban →]( “The bill only directly names ByteDance and TikTok, but its reach is much broader. It restricts any app that is ‘operated, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate),’ owned or controlled by a company based within the borders of a foreign adversary.” The New York Times / John Koblin [Networks covering Trump’s trial are forced to get creative →]( “All morning, CNN deployed a rolling on-screen graphic running down the left side of its screen with a steady stream of updates from within the courtroom to try to help fill the maw — often a shorter version of what the network was updating on its website. Soon after court was in session, CNN’s Jake Tapper told viewers that Mr. Trump apparently had no reaction to a ruling by the judge, and then began jabbing his finger toward an on-screen graphic that said as much.” [Nieman Lab]( / [Fuego]( [Twitter]( / [Facebook]( [View email in browser]( [Unsubscribe]( You are receiving this daily newsletter because you signed up for for it at www.niemanlab.org. 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