Among all of his mistakes, don’t forget Elon Musk is singlehandedly crushing a big chunk of Internet research for no good reason

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Tuesday, April 4, 2023 [Among all of his mistakes, don’t forget Elon Musk is singlehandedly crushing a big chunk of Internet research for no good reason]( Access to Twitter’s API has been mostly free to researchers for more than a decade. So how does $210,000 a month sound? By Joshua Benton. [A former Protocol editor buys part of the company’s email list to launch something new]( What We’re Reading MIT Technology Review / Melissa Heikkilä [Three ways AI chatbots are a security disaster →]( “…But the way these products work—receiving instructions from users and then scouring the internet for answers—creates a ton of new risks. With AI, they could be used for all sorts of malicious tasks, including leaking people’s private information and helping criminals phish, spam, and scam people. Experts warn we are heading toward a security and privacy ‘disaster.’” The Verge / Elizabeth Lopatto [Elon Musk’s obsession with blue checks is a verified problem →]( “The basic truth of cool, as anyone can tell you, is that trying to be cool is not cool, and paying to be cool is for suckers.” The Guardian / Lucy Knight [Amazon is shutting down Book Depository, the online bookstore it acquired in 2011 →]( “While originally a rival to Amazon, it was acquired by the retail giant in 2011, causing some in the publishing industry to worry about the tightening of the American company’s ‘stranglehold’ on the UK book trade.” Al Jazeera [Algerian journalist Ihsane El Kadi sentenced to five years in prison after being accused of accepting foreign funding for his businesses →]( “El Kadi, who owns one of the few independent media groups in the country and is critical of the government, was given a sentence of five years, three of which he must serve in jail, the court ruled on Sunday. In addition, the court ruled that Interface Media, which operates Maghreb Emergent and the other outlet El Kadi runs, Radio M, should be dissolved. The court levied a number of fines on the company and on El Kadi himself totalling 11.7 million Algerian dinars ($86,200).” The New Yorker / Clare Malone [The return of the non-stop Trump news cycle →]( “It’s important to cover deviations from historical norms that Trump and others have made and will make. The challenge of covering Trump was that his entire Presidency was a deviation. When journalists clocked his every move, it was done in the correct spirit—vigorous attention to the most important public figure in the country, if not the world—but it failed because the rules changed.” The New York Times / Kate Conger and Ryan Mac [Twitter users are still waiting for a check-mark reckoning →]( “The inaction around the verification check marks showed ‘Twitter has a real crisis of credibility,’ said Graham Brookie, a director at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which studies online misinformation. ‘When they say they’re going to do a thing right now, they haven’t proven that they are consistently doing those things.’” Atlanta Magazine / Heather Buckner [In Atlanta, new indie outlets are finding ways to make journalism work while bringing in important voices →]( “In just the past five years, Atlanta Civic Circle, Capital B, Canopy Atlanta, the Atlanta Community Press Collective, and local bureaus of Axios and the national investigative news site ProPublica have all set up shop here.” Dirt.xyz / Terry Nguyen [Death of the podcast →]( “Audiences are, of course, still tuning in, although not as much or as often as during the pandemic’s peak. Listenership growth in general has slowed. Remember that brief period of mass psychosis in early 2021, when we were fooled into thinking that Clubhouse was the future of audio-forward social media? As post-Covid life became more ‘normal,’ podcast habits have unsurprisingly and inevitably changed.” The Daily Beast / Justin Baragona [Trump spent the morning of his arraignment whining about Fox News →]( “Hours ahead of his criminal arraignment in a Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday, the twice-impeached ex-president spent the morning raging against the conservative cable giant for occasionally featuring Republican guests that Trump now passionately hates.” Analyst News / Aan Chaudhry [Meet the Uyghur journalist working to protect her family — and her people →]( “Like many Uyghurs living abroad in exile, [Gulchehra Hoja’s] own family has fallen victim to the systematic repression her reporting has revealed. But she’s also been uniquely targeted: In retaliation for her work, two dozen of her family members were arrested in one night, and she herself has been put on China’s ‘most wanted’ list.” Esquire / Nicole Chung [The unbearable costs of becoming a writer →]( “I can point to what I’ve gained writing books, pursuing bylines, taking on cherished writing and editing roles. But I am also aware of my losses, deep and unrecoverable. It’s hard not to question how much more I might have been able to do for my parents had I pursued work they would have not only understood, but materially benefited from sooner.” CNN / Tierney Sneed [Judge won’t let news cameras broadcast Trump’s full court appearance →]( “Trump’s arraignment — like most arraignments in the Manhattan courthouse — is a public proceeding, but news cameras are not usually allowed to broadcast from inside the courtroom.” The Rebooting / Brian Morrissey [The non-partisan news dream →]( “The quest for non-partisan news will continue, even if there’s little evidence of market demand. And that’s because rich elites love the concept.” [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](