Media
Media
Fox News averaged 3.5 million viewers during prime time in February, 35% more than same month previous year, highest rating since channel was founded 24 years ago, top shows by Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham also sets records, Trump's State of the Union address month's most watched telecast with 11.6 million viewers
More than 80% of workers in UK cultural sector say controversial opinions are punished with ostracism, 70% would not criticise a funder and 40% have been pressured by funders not to speak out, according to survey by journal ArtsProfessional
Twitter tests adding brightly colored labels to lies and misinformation posted by politicians and other public figures, corrected data by verified users to be shown directly beneath the tweets and visibility to be reduced, also tries system where users can earn points and badges by acting "like a good neighbor" and providing critical context to help people, the company calls misinformation a critical issue and says they're testing many different ways to address it
Scandinavia's largest airline SAS deletes commercial about nothing being truly Scandinavian, ad claimed windmills were invented in Persia and meatballs in Turkey along with a black man stating that we are not better than our Viking ancestors, heavily criticised online with numerous comments referencing #BoycottSAS and #GetWokeGoBroke
Digital publishers fills void left by dying local press in US, some through hyperlocal news platform Patch which has 1,200 such sites, successful projects focus heavily on local reporting and make money through subscriptions and donations
Donald Trump awards conservative radio legend Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom during his State of the Union address – says the highest civilian honor is in recognition of his decades of tireless devotion to the country, the millions of people he inspires per day and his incredible charity work
Conservative radio profile Rush Limbaugh reveals advanced lung cancer diagnosis, says he has a great team of doctors assembled and intends on keeping as close to the regular daily schedule as circumstances permit
Mark Zuckerberg says new stand for free speech will "piss off a lot of people" but that people need to know what the company stands for to trust it, that political advertising will not be banned even though profits aren't worth the controversy, and that "the goal for this next decade isn't to be liked, but to be understood"
George Soros: Facebook and Trump has formed alliance to help Trump win elections and protect Facebook against regulation, the corporation is a publisher rather than a platform and should be held accountable for all content on its site
Facebook hires Jennifer Williams to lead curation of video material in upcoming news tab, Williams has previously worked as a producer at Fox News running shows Fox & Friends and The Daily Briefing
Rupert Murdoch launches UK radio channel Times Radio with opinion-led talk shows without breaks for advertising, primarily aims to compete with BBS Radio 4
News aggregator Knewz launched by News Corp, combines human and machine curation of content from more than 400 sites and lets users compare how multiple sources cover the same events, aims to help publishers become more independent of social media platforms and to let users avoid filter bubbles
Facebook launches "Off-Facebook Activity" tool that lets you access how the company is tracking your activity and provides option to turn off that tracking, the launch follows longstanding promise from CEO Mark Zuckerberg who during the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal vowed to provide a "clear history" tool
MSNBC anchor Alison Morris flubs by mashing up basketball team names "Knicks" and "Lakers" during live coverage of Kobe Bryant's death, Twitter users accuse her of using the n-word
BBC's Director General Tony Hall says he will leave the company in six months to allow a new person to lead financing negotiations with Boris Johnson's government, the 68-year-old joined the company as a news trainee in 1973 and defended it as the gold standard of impartiality and truth in a fake news era
The Sun launches US edition, tabloid owned by Murdoch family says UK edition has 16 million monthly readers in US, team based in New York City will produce unique content for American readers
Instagram and Facebook remove posts voicing support for Soleimani to comply with US sanctions, Iran's government calls the actions undemocratic and creates portal where removed posts can be submitted
Over 100 CollegeHumor employees laid off when parent company InterActiveCorp cuts its losses, project had been losing money for years, other subsidiaries include Vimeo, Match.com, Tinder and The Daily Beast
Convington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann wins settlement from CNN in $275 million lawsuit for defamatory assertions about Sandmann's personal convictions, exact settlement figure unknown
Benjamin Netanyahu accidentally refers to Israel as a 'nuclear power' while reading brief on energy policy, quickly corrects himself to say 'energy power'
Google and Apple removes ToTok from app stores after millions of downloads in Middle East, reason thought to be that United Arab Emirates developed the app to spy on its population, security researcher Patrick Wardle says to New York Times that there is a beauty in approach of letting users offer up information instead of hacking them
YouTube updates harassment policy to ban insults based on race, gender and sexual orientation, also prohibits language that "goes too far", creators on platform expect mass censorship of videos and comments
Jimmy Wales launches social network to compete with Facebook, projekt described as reboot of journalism project WikiTribune
Steve Bannon launches radio project from basement of his DC house, War Room: Impeachment to broadcast live every day until senate votes on impeaching Donald Trump, former White House chief strategist thinks president needs more support as threat from Democrats in congress is more serious than most Republicans think
Kik Messenger app with millions of active users shuts down, enabling company to concentrate on its Kin cryptocurrency, staff cutbacks reduce overheads by 85%, giving it a much better chance of winning legal fight with US Securities and Exchange Commission over launch of Kin
Comic Shane Gillis fired from Saturday Night Live four days after his announcement as new cast member, the dismissal occurred following pressure from several entertainment publications and leftist outrage on social media calling for his termination for making jokes about minorities as a white man, Gillis comments "I was alway a Mad TV-guy anyway".
PewDiePie cancels USD 50,000 donation to far-left Anti Defamation League, says he made the mistake of picking a charity he was advised to instead of picking one he is personally passionate about, saw it as an opportunity to put an end to alt-right claims thrown against him
Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey has own account taken over by hackers, group referring to itself as the Chuckling Squad claims responsibility, account tweeted out remarks using the n-word and anti-Semitic comments referencing the Holocaust
Sky News New Zealand fined equivalent of USD 2,500 by Broadcasting Standards Authority for broadcasting clips of Christchurch massacre, watchdog rules video had potential to cause significant distress to Muslim community as well as family and friends of victims
Facebook collects audio from voice chats on Messenger and pay contractors to listen to and transcribe them, tech giant says it only affect users who have given their consent, but doesn't disclose in its data-use policies it transcribes user audio, Bloomberg reports
India's government contacts international media such as Al Jazeera and BBC over alleged fabricated Kashmir videos, claims only 20 people were present at protest which report says 10,000 took part in, news organisations say videos are geniune and they can provide raw footage if required
Federal judge orders Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin to pay Jewish woman Tanya Gersh USD 14 million in damages, Gersh and her family were harassed for years after Anglin posted her name and contact information in article covering her dispute with Richard Spencer's mother
Facebook offers news outlets millions of dollars to license their content for its new News tab, to be launched later this year, no longer interested in driving traffic to traditional news sites
The movie The Hunt portrays liberal elites kidnapping and hunting "deplorables" who express pro-life positions or are deemed racist, hits theaters in September
Network provider Cloudflare terminates 8chan's service, says evidence shows suspected El Paso shooter as well as the Christchurch shooter posted to the website before the attacks, wishes to work with policy makers regarding "lawless platforms" such as 8chan and Daily Stormer
Ines Pohl, Deutsche Welle editor-in-chief: The Frankfurt tragedy where an Eritrean man threw an 8-year-old in front of a train will have serious consequences for an already-tense societal debate, balancing insecurity with maintaining Germany's identity as a prosperous country – important to report truthfully and impartially, and the perpetrator's origin is a part of the full truth
Russian Embassy in Syria has Twitter account suspended after posting video showing fully functional Idlib market the White Helmets said was destroyed by Russian airstrikes, Russian Foreign Ministry calls suspension flagrant freedom of speech violation
Federal judge dismisses Nicholas Sandmann's USD 250 million lawsuit against Washington Post, rules newspaper's seven articles and three tweets about the smirking MAGA hat teen protected by First Amendment
YouTube stops Christian veterans Mighty Oak Foundation from using Christian as ad keyword, says religious beliefs are personal and not allowed to be used to target users, foundation's founder Chad Robichaux says term has been used for years and entering keyword Muslim instead works without issue
Polish newspaper Gazeta Polska to issue "LGBT-free zone" stickers with next issue – move criticized by US ambassador to Poland Georgette Mosbacher who says we must side with diversity and tolerance, and deputy mayor of Warsaw Paweł Rabiej who compares it to German Jew-free zones, Instagram removes newspaper's post about the stickers citing it as hate speech
34 years after Svetlana Alexievich published Poslednie svideteli, a collection of memories from Soviet children during World War II, an English translation titled Last Witnesses is released
Apple and Google introduces 72 new emojis to represent gay, straight and lesbian couples in combinations of five races and multiple disabilities, lacking understanding they are a symbolic shorthand, Ken Broni, calling himself an emoji researcher, says to be truly inclusive companies must introduce 80,000 emojis
Tommy Robinson found guilty of breaching contempt law by Old Bailey judge after filming suspects outside sex abuse trial, awaits sentence which could see him back in prison or keep his freedom having already served two months
Satire magazine Mad ceases publication after 67 years, has struggled to find niche in new media landscape competition with internet cartoons and late night shows, after next two issues with original content, remaining subscription responsibilities will be fulfilled using reprinted material
German authorities fines Facebook EUR 2 million for under-reporting complaints about illegal content, Facebook says it received 1,048 complaints during second half of 2018 compared to Twitter and Youtube who reported more than quarter of a million complaints each for the whole year, Facebook says it complies with the law and reserves the right to appeal
Mark Zuckerberg admits mistake taking too long to flag doctored video of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that had been slowed and made her appear incoherent, describing it as an execution mistake, addresses firm's struggle with "deepfake" videos
Reddit quarantines subforum The_Donald, says users have promoted violence against politicians and police officers, group has 754,000 followers and is thought to have significant political impact, seen by critics as bridge between radicals and mainstream where content flows from 4chan and Gab to mainstream politicians and Trump supporters, quarantine makes forum harder to find, imposes warnings and in some cases complete blocking
Jordan Peterson to launch pro free speech platform Thinkspot, will according to Peterson not yield in to online de-platforming campaigns
Infowars and Pepe the Frog creator Matt Furie reach settlement over company's use of the frog on posters, Infowars will pay USD 15,000, stop using the frog and destroy all posters in stock
Donald Trump calls on Twitter to restore accounts of conservatives banned from platform, citing freedom of expression and saying the social media platform is making a giant mistake – CEO Jack Dorsey last year said majority of company's employees share left-leaning editorial bias but are trying to operate with impartiality
Vietnamese blogger Nguyen Ngoc Anh sentenced to six years in prison for Facebook posts allegedly urging for peaceful protests, government crackdown on social media has been escalating since 2017
Youtube bans thousands of channels not in line with company's guidelines on harmful content, including channels they claim promotes Nazi ideology or denies well-documented violent events such as the Holocaust or the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary took place, also removes videos promoting phony miracle cure for serious illness or claiming earth is flat
HBO miniseries Chernobyl tourism boom in area around the plant and ghost town Pripyat, bookings have risen by 30-40% because of the show, a visit gives a person around two microsieverts radiation
Russia requires Tinder to hand over data on its users, including messages, to national intelligence agencies, the dating app included on list of 175 online services affected by demand, Russia banned Telegram last year, claiming extremists used it to plot terrorist attacks, but the messaging app is still available
YouTube restricts younger minors from streaming unless accompanied by an adult, recently YouTube disable comments on videos featuring minors
Twitter apologizes for suspending accounts critical of China Communist Party ahead of Tiananmen massacre anniversary, claims it happened by mistake during ongoing cleanup of spam accounts
16 year old girl stands trial for filming herself during sex act, charged with distribution of child pornography, ruling expected this year from Maryland Court of Appeals
Amazon removes books claiming homemade bleach can cure conditions ranging from malaria to childhood autism, social media sites also grapple with the issue
Chinese robot censors calibrated with unprecedented precision ahead of Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary to block all content related to the event, domestic version of internet under increasingly tight control by Communist Party Propaganda Department
Facebook announces it has deleted another three billion fake accounts, rise in number of fake accounts because actors use automated methods to create them, company also removes seven million "hate speech" posts as well as posts for selling drugs and guns, about 5% of active users believed to be fake accounts
France threatens three French journalists with jail time and fine for using secret documents to reveal lies about country's involvement in Yemen war
State broadcaster China Central Television switches scheduling amid US-China trade war, anti-American Heroic Sons and Daughters (1964), Battle on Shangganling Mountain (1954), and Surprise Attack (1960) shown at prime time — films all set during Korean War, otherwise known in China as the War to Resist American Aggression and Aid Korea
Australian DJ Adam Sky dies in accident on Bali, was badly injured smashing through a glass door while trying to help friend who had fallen from their private terrace, Singapore-based Sky was ranked as third most popular DJ in Asia
Snoop Dogg backs Louis Farrakhan who was kicked off of Facebook and Instagram, urges his fans to post their favorite videos of the Nation of Islam leader on their Instagram and Facebook pages, challenges social media platforms to ban him
Facebook and Instagram bans Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson, Milo Yiannopoulos and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan after extensive evaluation, will remove pages and not allow promotion of events when it knows banned individual is participating
British left-wing newspaper The Guardian breaks even for first time in recent history, increased financial contributions from readers major contributing factor
Scientific journal refuses article by professor Ton van Raan over Sleeping Beauty metaphor referring to scientific research lain dormant suddenly being rediscovered as scientific breakthrough, sexualising to women and offensive to other cultures, Journal of the Association for Informational Science and Technology editor Julia Khanova claims, Van Raan will not rewrite his article but publish it in another journal
Facebook blocks 17 pages belonging to three right wing networks ahead of Spanish general election on April 28, social media giant says decision not based on content, but on page coordinators using duplicate and fake accounts, together pages had more than 1.5 million followers and accumulated over seven million interactions since beginning of year
Netflix expects subscriber growth to slow as firm continues to roll out price rises in US, Brazil, Mexico and parts of Europe, prices lifted to help fund production of its own content, says it is excited to compete with new rivals Disney and Apple
Mainstream media gives Katie Bouman credit for first images of black hole while her contributions only represent 0.26 per cent of code, meanwhile Andrew Chael wrote over 850,000 of the total 900,000 lines of code
WhatsApp launches fact-check service Checkpoint Tipline in attempt to combat fake news in India, local start-up Proto will classify messages sent to the service by users as true, false, misleading or disputed
Mark Zuckerberg says he agrees with lawmakers stating Facebook has too much power, wants regulators and governments to play more active role in determine rules on internet content and calls for new regulations in the areas harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability
Chinese censorship removes every line of dialogue mentioning homosexuality or bisexuality from movie Bohemian Rhapsody, some parts of movie’s narrative ends up no longer making sense
Facebook bans white nationalism and separatism following the Christchurch attack, will be treated same as white supremacy, users who try to post such content will be directed to website Life After Hate, policy director of counterterrorism at Facebook Brian Fishman says
Spotify acquires story-based podcasting studio Parcast, third such deal in less than two months, founded in Los Angeles in 2016 and employs around 20 people
Documentary Combat Obscura by former Marine Miles Lagoze aims to display true image of combat in the Afghan war, shows Marines covering up the body of an unarmed shopkeeper and smoking marijuana while on patrol, most of the men in the movie happy the public sees what their experience was like
Owen Benjamin, Vox Day, David the Good and Infogalactic announce streaming site Unauthorized.tv, with hundred hours of free content and a premium service soon to come
Far-left SPLC fires co-founder and former chief litigator Morris Dees as his conduct was deemed not on par with the values of the organization, which declined to elaborate when pressed for details
Facebook blocks Zero Hedge articles citing violation of "community standards", the news site has covered Facebook's many problems including privacy violations, abandonment by younger users, its fake users, and systematic censorship and back door government cooperation
National Association of Black Journalists calls out CNN and its president Jeff Zucker, blasting the company for a lack of diversity in its top leadership, says it placed the company on a media monitoring list so the matter can be studied further after Zucker refused to meet with a four-person NABJ delegation
Britain's Trades Union Congress calls for Tommy Robinson to be banned not only from social media, but from public spaces as well, claims unions have "always come out against fascism and racism wherever it arises"
Comedian Trevor Noah apologises for making jokes about the rise in tensions between India and Pakistan over disputed Kashmir, compared a potential war to a Bollywood dance, caused most anger in India which lacks a well-established tradition of political satire
Facebook deletes former Breitbart editor Raheem Kassams's personal account, picked up by Donald Trump Jr. who says it's funny that these "accidents" only happen one way, Facebook restores the profile and says it was removed in error
BBC and production partner ITV to launch "BritBox" competitor to Netflix in 2H 2019, previous attempts at developing a streaming service in UK had been blocked by regulators
PayPal CEO Dan Schulman admits PayPal works with far-left SPLC when it considers blacklisting conservatives, says most important values are diversity and inclusion
English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson permanently banned from Facebook and Instagram, the company claims he repeatedly violated community standards policies against threatening and bullying messages, Robinson has been known to take a pugnacious stance with investigative journalists by releasing unedited videos of his interviews
Rampant mental health problems reported at Facebook content moderation vendor Cognizant, traumatized employees use drugs during work to cope with reviewing disturbing material, "accuracy" heuristic difficult to hit because of competing interpretations of truth around policies
YouTube bans anti-vaccination channels from monetizing videos, classify such content as "harmful and dangerous" which violate strict ad policies
Disney, Nestle and Epic Games pause advertising on YouTube after reports of pedophile network using the comment section to objectify children and mark time stamps showing child nudity in monetized videos
Washington Post columnist Matt Sears says MAGA hats will have same stigma as Ku Klux Klan hoods one day, claims Trump supporters primarily desire a country without non-white immigrants, argues the iconic campaign headwear is a clear symbol of hate
Canadian DJ Deadmau5 shuts down his Twitch channel after being temporarily suspended for using homophobic language, accuses the streaming platform of having a double standard when it comes to censorship
Facebook under pressure to halt rise of anti-vaccination groups, professor questions why Facebook is unrestrained by the stringent controls against misinformation put on drug companies, WHO points to a 30% worldwide increase in measles
InfoGalactic and OneWay creates social media platform SocialGalactic, alternative to SJW-controlled Twitter as well as Gab which has become hellhole of defamation and Nazi trolls according to InfoGalactic founder Vox Day
Liam Neeson film premiere for Cold Pursuit abruptly cancelled amid fallout from interview, he told a 40-year-old story of when he roamed the streets in search of a black person to kill after someone close to him was raped by a black man, he then sought help from a priest and friends when he realized what he was doing
Wikipedia's top editor Steven Pruitt has made 3 million edits and written 35,000 original articles, has spent more than three hours a day on the site for 13 years, large contributor to project increasing content on women on the platform, lives with his parents and works at US Customs and Border Protection