Friday Reading S06E08

Friday Reading is a weekly series of recommended reads from the Guardian’s Social and New Formats Editor Martin Belam, covering journalism, media and technology. It sometimes comes out on Thursday. And sometimes not at all. It is also available as an email newsletter – sign up here.

I spent last weekend in Perugia for the International Journalism Festival, and I’ve blogged about some of the sessions I watched. You can find them all here. Highlights include this session on live video ethics, a panel on using data-journalism in investigations, a discussion on the British press impact on the Brexit vote, and Beth Aston’s notes on how Le Monde do Snapchat. I also made some notes about what I said on a panel about algorithms and chatbots: “3 ways we’ve been looking at working with algorithms at the Guardian”

Loads of discussion at the festival was about the phenomena of “fake news” or “false news”. Iain Collins here has a good round-up of the approaches that Facebook and Google are taking to the problem, where they differ, and how it could be improved.

Here’s some stuff Google definitely aren’t getting right: “Google’s featured snippets are worse than fake news”

“US President Donald Trump’s decision to launch strikes against Syria in the wake of a major chemical weapons attack provoked outrage from the far-right groups who were his most aggressive supporters. As rumors of the impending strikes broke, they launched an online campaign claiming that the chemical attack had been a hoax.”

“How the dickweeds alt-right brought #SyriaHoax to America”

“We grew monthly Facebook video views 500% to 100M in six months. Here’s what we learned” – Al Jazeera English spill the beans

[WARNING: INCLUDES THE WORD WEBINAR] Chris Messina interesting here on “The future of messaging bots and chat for business” – you can watch his slides and then he has spelled out the Q&A afterwards.

This makes me absolutely furious. From bitter experience I can tell you that I don’t think the jury system is fit-for-purpose in sexual assault trials. Here is another example. Incredibly proud of my friend Abi refusing to be cowed into silence by this.

“I always thought of blogging as a way to give voice to the little guy (or gal, or non-gender conforming individual). We had a chance to create our own media, to be the antithesis of everything that frustrated us about the mainstream. Now every other thing I see in my timeline is an influencer spouting how much they love whatever their brand of choice is that day, with professionally taken photographs, Photoshopped within an inch of their lives. With all the tools and opportunity to create a media of our own, we’ve become walking advertisements for brands. Ethics and values – all up for the highest bidder.”

Good rant, this. “Oh blogging, where art thou?”

Why Citizens Advice removed the most visited advice page on their website.

Interesting from Vincent Bevins on the militant center and making false comparisons between the hard-right and the far-left: “The militant center and the alt-whatever – everyone outside the rickety reasonable center looks the same”

Twitter changed the way replies worked and everybody threw their arms up in the air and lots of people said “Let’s switch to Mastodon“. What is Mastodon & why is it the social network everyone is talking about by Madeline Buxton

This is the line of attack that the Conservatives will be taking against the new BBC regulation set-up – it still won’t tell off the people they want telling off.

“Owen Jones and the jacket”

A fellow Leyton Orient fan faces the ultimate dilemma. When you know how shit you are, is it still immoral to bet against your own team

Amazing piece of reportage from Jen Williams at the Manchester Evening News – “The pale, wasted figures caught in a Spice nightmare that’s turning Piccadilly Gardens into hell on earth“…

…and a moral panic that wasn’t: “This Is How A Teenager’s Suicide Sparked Panic Over ‘Blue Whale’ Online Communities”

This article does not fail to deliver: “Here are some of the world’s most stupid time zones”

Someone has put a two hour long Mark Stewart/Gary Clail gig from 1987 up on YouTube. I would have been in the audience for one of the shows on this tour, so bless that person.

Doctor Who Paul McGann is going to be unveiling a blue plaque on a street in Walthamstow where I used to live.