"The fight over the California Journalism Preservation Act is not just a fight for local news’ survival in California, but a fight for democracy."
Whatever happened to Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto? That corporate maxim is apparently gone, and the Internet behemoth has decided to display its super villain side. The latest example is a campaign in California to demonstrate just how easily the company could crush news outlets if state lawmakers dare to pass a law requiring that tech companies, such as Google, share advertising revenue with the journalists who produce much of the content on their platforms. Google announced last week that it...
We have all been guilty of falling under the foundation model spell of the past year-and-a-half, initiated by OpenAI’s unveiling of ChatGPT to the public. But it is not only where large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 are concerned that incredible progress has been made in the field of artificial intelligence. And one company has been behind more impressive milestones than most — DeepMind, acquired by Google in 2014 for a reported £400mn to £650mn. Speaking at the TED 40th...
As GOOGLE pulls news from search, fate of Journalism Preservation Act is unclear (Third column, 4th story, link)
Disney’s flailing Marvel division laid off 15 staffers this week as part of a strategy to reduce its slate of film and TV titles.
The News/Media Alliance, a journalism trade organization and advocacy group, on Tuesday asked federal government officials to investigate Google after the tech giant said it would limit links to California news outlets in its search results. The alliance, which represents publishers in the news and magazine industry, said Google's actions appear "to either be coercive or retaliatory, driven by Google's opposition to a pending legislative measure in Sacramento." The proposed state measure in...
Making users pay is only way to stop bots taking over platform
X owner Elon Musk announced Monday that new users would soon need to pay a small fee to post on the site.
Google's new spam algorithm update also introduced new spam policies including the upcoming site reputation abuse policy that won't go into effect until May 2024. Google has confirmed it will fight site reputation abuse spam using both manual actions (humans) and algorithms (machines).Truth is, Google fights search spam a lot using both methods - algorithms and humans. So it should not come as a shock that Google will also fight the new site reputation abuse spam the same way.Lily Ray asked...
The News/Media Alliance, formerly the Newspaper Association of America, asked US federal agencies to investigate Google’s removal of links to California news media outlets. Google’s tactic is in response to the proposed California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), which would require it and other tech companies to pay for links to California-based publishers’ news content. The News/Media Alliance, which represents over 2,200 publishers, sent letters to the Department of Justice, Federal Trade...
Elon Musk said X will soon start charging new users who want to post on the platform to combat the bot and spam account problem. about X changes, here.