The legal framework for AI is being built in real time, and a ruling in the Sarah Silverman case should give publishers pause

[Nieman Lab: The Daily Digest] Monday, November 27, 2023 [The legal framework for AI is being built in real time, and a ruling in the Sarah Silverman case should give publishers pause]( That an AI model was trained on copyrighted material does not make all of the model’s outputs a copyright violation. By Joshua Benton. What We’re Reading The Wall Street Journal / Alexandra Bruell [Your local newspaper might not have a single reporter →]( “The Gleaner, the local newspaper in Henderson, Ky., has sections focused on features, sports, news and opinion. What it doesn’t have: a single reporter on staff. The publication is one of the ‘ghost newsrooms’ that increasingly dot the American media landscape — newspapers that have little to no on-the-ground presence in the localities whose name they bear.” The Washington Post / Paul Farhi [In Alabama, another small-town paper is hit in an “open season” on the free press →]( “The arrests shocked legal scholars and press advocates, who say it’s a violation of the First Amendment to prosecute a newspaper for reporting the news. More specifically, they argue that District Attorney Stephen M. Billy misapplied Alabama’s secrecy law, which criminalizes leaks by anyone directly involved with a grand jury — jurors, witnesses, court officials — but not news outlets that publish the information.” The Wall Street Journal / Keach Hagey, Deepa Seetharaman, and Berber Jin [Behind the scenes of Sam Altman’s showdown at OpenAI →]( “According to people familiar with the board’s thinking, members had grown so untrusting of Altman that they felt it necessary to double-check nearly everything he told them. The explanation baffles Altman’s defenders, who say they aren’t aware of specific episodes that might warrant such an outcome.” The Washington Post / Will Oremus and Pranshu Verma [These look like prizewinning photos, on legit stock image sites. They’re AI fakes. →]( “Responding to questions about its policies from The Washington Post, the stock image site Adobe Stock said Tuesday it would crack down on AI-generated images that seem to depict real, newsworthy events and take new steps to prevent its images from being used in misleading ways.” Twitter / Jake Ward [“Using this process, we published 1,800 articles in a few hours.” →]( How an SEO bro “stole 3.6M total traffic from a competitor” by using AI at scale. From the replies: “Thanks for polluting the internet bro.” “Wow, this is vile.” “Congrats, you just made the internet worse.” “Remember when search engines were good for, you know, finding stuff? Good times.” The Guardian / Lisa O'Carroll [EU laws to protect press freedom are in jeopardy, campaigners claim →]( “‘We are very depressed about the way this is going,’ said Renate Schroeder, director of the European Federation of Journalists. She and others say the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), which is in the final stages of negotiation between member states and MEPs, has been ‘watered down’ so much behind the scenes that its original aim, to give robust protections to the press, may not be achieved.” TechCrunch / Ivan Mehta [Elon Musk: Hey, you know what would be cool to put on links on Twitter? Headlines →]( [Masterful gambit, sir](. “In August, the Tesla CEO said that X planned to stop showing titles with URLs in previews for ‘improved aesthetics’…Because of this change, users had to click or tap on the URL card to actually know the title or read the headline. To get around this change, publishers started to write their own headlines on images and post the link separately or include the headline in the image of the generated preview card.” Committee to Protect Journalists / Kathy Jones [The death toll for journalists in the Israel-Hamas war is at 57 →]( Fifty Palestinian, 4 Israeli, and 3 Lebanese. “Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict during the Israeli ground assault, including devastating Israeli airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages and extensive power outages.” The New York Times / Ryan Mac and Kate Conger [Elon Musk’s antisemitic comments could lose Twitter up to $75 million in ad revenue, according to internal documents →]( “More than 100 brands are shown as having ‘fully paused’ their ads while dozens of others are listed as ‘at risk.’ Many paused on or after Nov. 15, when Mr. Musk wrote in a post on X that the conspiracy theory that Jews supported the immigration of minorities to replace white populations was ‘the actual truth.'” Bloomberg / Alberto Nardelli, Jillian Deutsch, and Stephanie Bodoni [RT and other Russian propaganda channels are using mirror sites to evade EU sanctions →]( “RT.com may be inaccessible in the EU, but a series of less popular mirror sites provides the same content, aimed at undermining the bloc’s support of Ukraine. One is swentr.site, or RT News in reverse. ‘We spit on your sanctions,’ RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said, in comments relayed by her press office.” Blind Magazine / Michaël Naulin [Photographers’ protests pushed the World Press Photo awards to reverse plans to allow AI-generated entries →]( “In response to the strong reaction among the photography community, the World Press Photo organization quickly reversed its decision. Initially responding directly to the letter on Medium, they announced: ‘In response to this honest and thoughtful feedback, we have decided to change the rules for the Open Format category in our contest to exclude Al generated images.'” The New York Times / Natasha Singer [At Meta, millions of underage users were an “open secret,” states say →]( “Using snippets from internal emails, employee chats and company presentations, the complaint contends that Instagram for years ‘coveted and pursued’ underage users even as the company ‘failed’ to comply with the children’s privacy law.” Nytimes [Jeff Zucker may bring The Telegraph to the U.S. if his UAE-backed acquisition goes forward →]( “…his vision for The Telegraph includes a potential expansion into the United States, where Mr. Zucker believes a market has emerged for a center-right news publication, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking who requested anonymity because the deal was not closed.” The Guardian / Adam Lowenstein [Revealed: How the PR firm Edelman uses its “trust barometer” to promote the world’s autocrats →]( “Edelman’s trust barometer is ‘quoted everywhere as if this is some credible, objective research from a thinktank, whereas there is a fairly obvious commercial background, and it’s fairly obviously a sales tool,’ said Alison Taylor, a professor at New York University’s business school. ‘At minimum, the firm should be disclosing these financial relationships as part of the study. But they’re not doing that.'” Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt [Latest Google updates have led to massive traffic changes for news websites →]( “Websites with a traditional focus on scale, often built with the aid of SEO explainer-style articles, appear to be among the hardest hit while sites with a better user experience due to having fewer adverts — therefore many more subscription-focused news brands — report being less affected. Google said it has not specifically targeted publishers but that its aim is to ‘show helpful and reliable results.'” The Washington Post / Joseph Menn [Univision anchor Jorge Ramos rebukes network for not challenging Trump →]( “Ramos devoted his weekly column to making that case in the wake of his network’s recent friendly interview with Trump, which was attended by three senior executives at Univision’s relatively new parent company. Ramos wrote that it had ‘put in doubt the independence of our news department.'” The New York Times / Robert D. McFadden [Charles Peters, founder of The Washington Monthly, has died at 96 →]( “Often called the ‘godfather of neoliberalism,’ the core policy doctrine of the magazine, Mr. Peters was The Monthly’s editor from 1969 until his retirement in 2001. He also wrote five books on politics, government and history, and a column, ‘Tilting at Windmills,’ offering pithy thoughts on politics and current events, from 1977 to 2014.” Press Gazette / Charlotte Tobitt [Formal complaints about BBC coverage of the Israel-Hamas war were not upheld →]( “Law firm Mishcon de Reya acted on behalf of the groups and the complaints were fast-tracked by director-general Tim Davie after widespread criticism of the broadcaster, including its decision not to refer to Hamas as ‘terrorists’…[The BBC’s executive complaints unit] said it was the reporting of what Hamas had done rather than the specific terminology used to describe them ‘that was the test of whether justice has been done to the events.'” Reuters [Kidnappers free two of three journalists taken in Mexico, group says →]( “Silvia Arce and Alberto Sánchez, who lead the digital RedSiete platform, were released during the early hours of the morning, the organization said. Both journalists were kidnapped on Wednesday by armed men who entered the outlet’s central Taxco offices, according to testimonies collected by Article 19.” The New York Times / Tiffany Hsu, Amy Chang Chien, and Steven Lee Myers [Can Taiwan continue to fight off Chinese disinformation? →]( “For years, China has pummeled the Taiwanese information ecosystem with inaccurate narratives and conspiracy theories, seeking to undermine its democracy and divide its people in an effort to assert control over its neighbor…Perhaps as much as any other place, however, the tiny island is ready for the disinformation onslaught.” CJR / Yona TR Golding [Paul Caruana Galizia on his new book about Malta and his mother’s killing →]( “My brothers and I always used to say that ultimately the best way of protecting journalists who are reporting on corruption is to make sure that stories are acted upon. My mother would reveal a major corruption allegation against the government. But then it would just sit there in the public domain. Everyone would read it, but the police would never pick it up and investigate it. Nor would the courts. It left her completely exposed.” Financial Times / Daniel Thomas, Simeon Kerr, and James Fontanella-Khan [Abu Dhabi’s media record under scrutiny after Telegraph deal offer →]( “With Britain’s Telegraph Media Group in its sights, the oil-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi is closing in on its most audacious push into English-speaking media since the launch of state-owned daily The National 15 years ago.” Semafor / Max Tani [WSJ and New York Times journalists pull union away from Gaza statement →]( “Taking public positions on news events we cover damages the confidence our members have earned through decades of impactful reporting in war zones and throughout the world, fueling the misconception that reporters are advocates rather than observers.” Press Gazette / Dominic Ponsford [How Bloomberg Media got to 500,000 subscribers — and how it plans to reach a million →]( “Subscription businesses are just so honest, you know, you kind of put one foot in front of the other every day to serve your users. And they say thank you, and here’s money. So the benefit of being in subscription businesses is unbelievably clarifying and has really helped us say, hey, what do our subscribers need? Great, we’re going to develop that.” POLITICO / Marc Novicoff [This Gen Z journalist is doing shoe-leather reporting from a conservative point of view →]( “[Aaron] Sibarium has done what some people have long been begging conservatives to do more of: pure reporting, digging up and revealing new information … In the 2½ years since he became a reporter, he’s snared some major scoops.” New York Times / Ryan Mac and Kate Conger [The New York Times has “largely stopped” marketing on X but The Athletic continues to purchase ads →]( Internal documents show X may lose up to $75 million in revenue as companies halt ads after Elon Musk’s endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory. 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