Beyond Section 230: Three paths to making the big tech platforms more transparent and accountable

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Monday, January 9, 2023 [Beyond Section 230: Three paths to making the big tech platforms more transparent and accountable]( Among them, two words: “Twitter court.” By Robert Kozinets and Jon Pfeiffer. What We’re Reading Axios / Sara Fischer [First Look Media is spinning off The Intercept as an independent nonprofit →]( “First Look Institute will provide The Intercept with a significant, multi-year financial grant to help ensure a smooth transition, the company said in a statement.” Axios [Axios is launching a new centralized news hub to bridge its national and local coverage →]( The name “1 Big Thing” is available. Big Technology / Alex Kantrowitz [The creator economy was way overblown →]( “…the creator economy is suffering in particular because its middle class hasn’t yet emerged. Online content creation is still mostly viable for the very top echelon of online creators only. And when mid-sized creators can’t make it, the VC-funded platforms meant to serve them can’t scale. So it’ll likely be a while before ‘link-in-my-bio’ startups raise at $1.3 billion valuations again.” Financial Times / Alex Barker [Succession, Season 4: How a Fox-News Corp merger could affect control of Rupert Murdoch’s empire →]( “As Murdoch acknowledged in 2000, ‘If the kids fought hard enough, the whole thing would break down; there is no mechanism against that happening.'” Semafor / Max Tani [A lot of Capitol Hill reporters think Punchbowl News and Kevin McCarthy are too close →]( “Either out of a sense of professional propriety or competitive jealousy (in some cases both), over a dozen staff and fellow Hill reporters pushed me to write a piece about Punchbowl News that would expose their ties to McCarthy.” Digiday / Sara Guaglione [Media businesses are (slowly) getting less white and male, stats from Condé, WSJ, NYT, others show →]( The shares of some major newsroom staffs that are non-white (latest data available): 43% (L.A. Times), 38% (Vice Media, BuzzFeed News, USA Today), 37% (NPR), 35% (Condé Nast), 34% (Washington Post, Vox Media, New York Times). Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt [The U.K. TV show asks comedians to report front-page stories for local newspapers →]( “The scariest editor in the first four episodes of the series however is the Yorkshire Post’s James Mitchinson: Kumar and Widdicombe variously call him ‘scary,’ ‘intimidating,’ a ‘serious newsman because he’s expecting quality and quantity,’ and, sarcastically, the ‘touchy feely face of Yorkshire news.'” Bloomberg / Davey Alba and Kurt Wagner [Twitter cuts more staff overseeing global content moderation →]( “At least a dozen more cuts on Friday night affected workers in the company’s Dublin and Singapore offices…They included Nur Azhar Bin Ayob, the head of site integrity for Twitter’s Asia-Pacific region, a relatively recent hire; and Analuisa Dominguez, Twitter’s senior director of revenue policy. Media Matters for America / Alex Kaplan [Roku has allowed hundreds of thousands of installations of a QAnon-devoted channel →]( “The content featured on Burrow includes sections for videos dedicated to the false QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories, along with sections for ‘Human Trafficking / Elite Pedophelia’ [sic] and ‘Rituals and Satanic Cults.'” The Washington Post / Paul Farhi [The flailing, tedious thrill of reporting on the House leadership fight →]( “Congressman, is there a deal?” “Any progress, congressman?” “Congressman…?” The Washington Post / Erik Wemple [The New York Times exposed the ills of forced arbitration. It’s now a company policy. →]( “The company’s statement didn’t respond to another question we posed, about how the arbitration clause jibes with the paper’s history of critical coverage regarding this corporate legal maneuver.” The Washington Post / Geoffrey A. Fowler [Twitter’s “verification” still isn’t verification →]( “Last week, up popped a blue checkmark on my @SenatorEdMarkey account. Oops! I did it again.” Sports Business Journal / Austin Karp [The top 50 TV shows of 2022: 46 football games, and some other stuff →]( The other four: one night of the Winter Olympics (the one NBC aired after the Super Bowl), the State of the Union address, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and the first prime-time hearing of the January 6 House Committee. The New York Times / John Koblin [Never mind “The White Lotus”: Police procedurals are the real winners of streaming →]( “Part of the appeal is that the procedurals have a low barrier to entry. They are, to a fault, uncomplicated — if viewers zone out or scroll through their phones, they won’t be missing much; nor is there a need for an online recap or podcast to help decode intricate plot points.” The Verge / Emma Roth [Apple may finally debut its mixed reality headset this spring →]( “The headset, which could cost as much as $3,000, is expected to provide both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experiences using Apple’s new xrOS operating system.” The Guardian / Jim Waterson [Prince Harry book leaks is letting newspapers have their cake and eat it, too →]( “Lots of books come out with lots of pre-publication coverage and serialisations and it doesn’t seem to do any damage to sales. There’s always more in a book than the media can reproduce. If you’re a Harry fan or a Harry watcher you’re still going to want to read it in his own words.” Digiday / Kayleigh Barber [Vice Media is ready to sell ads on Twitch →]( “Live shopping and e-commerce opportunities will also be explored as part of the content deal with Twitch…the number of views per video really runs the gamut. The most viewed stream [in the past 60 days] has just over 20,000 views while the video with the fewest views only has four.” Agence France-Presse [This South African journalist, 90, hand-delivers news in the desert →]( “The rise of the internet has hit readership but is seemingly yet to reach his newsroom, which looks like a museum. The office is adorned by an old Heidelberg printing press and paper cutting machines. Staff use computers and software from the early 1990s.” The Bulwark / Steven Waldman [On phantom candidates and ghost newspapers →]( “For instance, a few days after [The New York] Times piece [about Rep. Santos], the website of the Mineola American, which covers the county seat of Nassau County, still hadn’t mentioned the story. But maybe that’s not a surprise: The site hadn’t been updated since May.” [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. Nieman Journalism Lab Harvard University 1 Francis Ave.Cambridge, MA 02138 [Add us to your address book](