pEver since Elon Musk completed his $45 billion takeover of Twitter last month, there has been a steady stream of users, including a number of journalists, signing up for Mastodon, an open-source alternative. No one controls Mastodon—or rather, everyone controls their own version of it. There are thousands of servers running the software, and each […]/p

Come for Josh's rant on the future of the internet, stay for his conversation with Vincenzo Natali, director of 'Cube,' 'Splice,' and your favorite episodes of 'Hannibal,' who has taken on William Gibson's reality-bending book 'The Peripheral' and turned it into electrifying TV. The two discuss how horror is in our DNA, his creative relationship with AI, and the difficulties of turning 80's sci-fi into modern art. Discussed: Ray Harryhausen, math that kills you, "big" iPads.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Future News 130

Navigating a strange new world through tech.

From the Beatles to One Direction — her new book on the history of fans

Is it time for journalists to get off Twitter? One of the nation’s leading newspapers has made a presence on the social platform optional. We’ll talk about why, and what effects this could have on the quality of reporting and the safety of reporters. Also, Warner Bros. Discovery’s takeover of CNN and HBO, the collapse of Black News Channel and the USA Today’s innovative use of comic journalism. From Missouri School of Journalism professors Amy Simons, Earnest Perry and Kathy Kiely: Views of the News.

pResponses to this report written by journalists and media scholars. Each focusing on a specific issue raised,  including legal considerations (Victoria Baranetsky), online harassment (Michelle Ferrier), representation (Leonor Ayala Polley), audience trust (Benjamin Toff), and objectivity (Laura Wagner), can be read here. Executive Summary Journalists increasingly rely on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter […]/p

Yesterday, we published a report that explores journalists’ experiences with and views of newsroom social media policies. Below are five responses to the report written by journalists and media scholars. Each of these focuses on a specific issue raised in the report, including legal considerations (Victoria Baranetsky), online harassment (Michelle Ferrier), representation (Leonor Ayala Polley), audience trust (Benjamin Toff), and objectivity […]

What comes next.

Twitter Blue charges for what should be free improvements to Twitter.

There’s an economic theory here: Free customers are more valuable than captive ones—to themselves, to the companies they deal with, and to the marketplace. If that’s true, the intention…

A seminal 2004 study was among the first to investigate the connection between deception rates and technology. What does a 2021 update show?

Snap Inc. is a camera company. Our products empower people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world, and have fun together.

He really loves big knees

One influencer was able to snag free meals for two weeks straight.

This article explores the new voice-based app, Clubhouse, and whether the app is truly creating an experience that promotes equity.

Studies of the social impact of the Internet must consider the changing lifestyle of the new economy and not relate solely to industrial-age concepts.

And they own everything about the show.

Twitter announced today it’s partnering with news organizations The Associated Press (AP) and Reuters to expand its efforts focused on highlighting reliable news and information on its platform. Through the new agreements, Twitter’s Curation team will be able to leverage the expertise of the partnered organizations to add more context to the news and trends […]

Joy and pain, harmony and discord, organization and chaos—there’s no single way to define Black Twitter’s complex, ongoing legacy.

Today, we’re sharing that we have made the difficult decision to discontinue Periscope as a separate mobile app by March 2021. First off, we want to be transparent about why we’re making this…

Trump said earlier this week that "nobody gets hacked."

While you can quibble with the details, the social platforms did the right thing in initially limiting the distribution of last week’s New York Post article on Hunter Biden. As others have noted, in the wake of the 2016 election, platforms like Facebook and Twitter were forced to make certain ...

Plus: Twitter and the New York Post, revisited

There's a button at the top of the Reddit homepage called "Random." When pressed, the algorithm will serve you up one of the 138,000 subreddits bobbing around the website's depths. We've all found our own languid methods to pass the time during the mounting months of quarantine, and this has been mine. Days and nights, passively logged on, pressing that button over and over again, greeting a new subcommittee of brilliant obsessives and weirdos. Reddit, by its nature, is home to both vast ultra-generalized superboards, (like the self-explanatory r/WorldNews or r/Politics,) and the microscopi...

The move follows a whirlwind moderation debate from Republicans

Moments of social mobilization enliven and expand our political imagination. Among the things that sorely need reimagining is our technology.

One of Twitter's summer experiments — to get people to read news articles before retweeting them — will be rolled out to the rest of the platform "very soon." Twitter announced the experiment in June in an effort to "promote informed discussion", as one of a few projects …