Media
Media
Facebook to be sole distributor of Spanish football series La Liga in Indian markets, will be offered to platform's 348 million users in region, terms of deal not disclosed but Sony Pictures Network last purchased rights for USD 32 million in 2014, part of trend where technology companies compete with traditional TV distributors by offering live sports
German entertainment software regulator rules that "anti-constitutional" Nazi imagery can be shown in video games, previously motion picture films designated as "art" and escaped youth protection censorship laws, decision comes after numerous outcries over German-edition video games having offending imagery removed or altered
The Infowars Official app is the number 4 most downloaded Apple Appstore news app after the Infowars podcast is punted off the Apple iTunes directory service, radio host Alex Jones encouraged his listeners to become "unstoppable" by downloading the app after Apple did not believe the app itself violated their terms of service and left it up
Facebook removes four pages owned by Alex Jones "for glorifying violence" and "using dehumanizing language" which the company states violates its community standards guidelines, Jones' content also recently removed from Apple and Spotify platforms in separate incidents which Paul Joseph Watson labeled a conscious attempt to influence US mid-term elections in favor of Democratic candidates
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh celebrates 30 years on air, gets personal congratulatory call from Donald Trump
Spotify removes "specific episodes of The Alex Jones Show podcast for violating our hate content policy", unclear how many episodes and for what specific content, Facebook as well as YouTube removed Jones' content last week
Charles Krauthammer says farewell to readers, has only weeks to live after reappearance of aggressive cancer
Putin interviewed in Austrian TV about troll factories, says Moscow has no connection to them, tells reporter to look into what George Soros does online
Breitbart London editor Raheem Kassam leaves company, was recruited by Steve Bannon in 2014, now accompanies Bannon on trip to Europe
Barack and Michelle Obama sign multi-year deal with Netflix, say production company Higher Ground Productions seeks to "cultivate and curate the talented, inspiring, creative voices who are able to promote greater empathy and understanding between peoples", will make both documentaries and series
Chinese TV channel Mango TV barred from airing Eurovision song contest after blurring rainbow flags, censoring tattoos and not airing Irish and Albanian entries, European Broadcasting Union says censoring not in line with its values of diversity
Website altright.com shut down, GoDaddy usually respects freedom of expression but says it has made an exception, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law submitted complaint last month
Web.com hands over domain france.com that Jean-Noël Frydman has owned since 1994 to French government after Paris court ruling, Frydman files federal lawsuit in US
Chinese microblog Sina Weibo reverses decision to remove homosexual content as part of three-month cleaning campaign after protests from LGBT advocates
Facebook bans Richard Spencer's page along with two other pages he controlled, alt-right figurehead continues to have active accounts on Twitter and Youtube
Chinese microblog platform Sina Weibo bans gay and violent content including pictures, cartoons and text posts during three-month clean-up campaign, says action aimed to comply with China’s new cyber security law calling for strict data surveillance
The Guardian suspicious of book club run by charismatic PewdiePie, Youtube celebrity makes young people read classic literature, but is problematic since he shares much of alt-right culture and draws attention to Jordan Peterson
American TV producer Steven Bochco dead at 74 after years of battling leukaemia, created some of America's best known police drama series such as Hill Street Blues, LA Law and NYPD Blue
Playboy announces withdrawal from Facebook after Tesla and SpaceX removed accounts on Friday, #DeleteFacebook movement grows while it is noted that companies are still active on Facebook-owned Instagram
Tweaked service agreement from Microsoft enables banning of users publicly broadcasting material containing offensive language, nudity, pornography or graphic violence; agreement applies to Skype, Office 365, OneDrive, Bing and Outlook
Youtube introduces tighter restrictions on videos involving weapons, prohibits videos promoting websites selling firearms and accessories, instructions on how to assemble firearms to be banned
Google sets aside USD 300 million for projects to deal with fake news and develop publisher business models, Disinfo Lab to stop false information from being spread in connection to elections and other major events, new platform to simplify for selected media outlets to sell subscriptions, New York Times, Washington Post, Telegraph and Financial Times partners at launch
#DeleteFacebook movement joined by Whatsapp co-founder Brian Acton in reaction to Cambridge Analytica controversy, gains momentum as Facebook stock down 9% in two days, 50 billion USD stock value eradicated
Facebook shuts down page of Britain First after several warnings, says controversial opinions can only be expressed in robust way which does not denigrate others on basis of their identities
Vice Media co-founder Shane Smith resigns from CEO position to renew corporate brand after work place harassment scandal, Nancy Dubuc becomes new head of company
Israel will broadcast football world cup to Arabic neighbor countries over satellite, viewing the games will be free of charge and there will be comments in Arabic, breaks Qatari monopoly and challenges channel biIn Sports which charges 45 USD per home
UK considers not renewing RT's broadcast permission in and from country, Russia responds with threats to stop all British media in Russian, tensions between countries escalate in wake of spy drama
Google bans all ads related to cryptocurrencies in its channels, follows Facebook implementing similar rules, takes effect from June 2018
More affordable internet data plans behind YouTube's increasing popularity in India, new users more prone to getting tricked by fake news according to organization monitoring media trends
Germany's largest newspaper Bild retires traditional featuring of topless female models, will continue to publish topless pictures as part of news reporting
Canadian conservative Lauren Southern stopped and detained by UK-Calais border, questioned about her religious and political views and relation to English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson, denied entry to United Kingdom for previous distribution of fliers about Allah as LGBT-person in densely Muslim populated Luton, follows Islam critics Michael Savage and Pamela Geller who've previous been denied entry
Gerald Sussman: Majority of Americans distrust MSM, not surprising as they are troll farms, accusations of Russian interference in presidential election should be compared to US trying to influence foreign elections 81 times between 1946 and 2000, excluding invasions, blockades, sanctions and assassination attempts
Joseph Bernstein: Prager University converts young Americans to conservatism through famous lecturers, focus on evergreen topics and high quality videos
Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984, pictures of Winnie the Pooh, phrase Xi Zedong and letter n among targets of Chinese internet censorship, tolerance of criticism expected to decrease
Conservative talk radio star Mark Levin gets own show on Fox News, inaugural broadcast this Sunday for Life, Liberty & Levin with economist Walter Williams as guest
Identity verification through physical mail to stop usage of false identities for buying Facebook ads mentioning candidates in US elections, other political ads not affected, Google My Business already has similar method for authentication
Israel boycotts Israeli film festival in Paris due to plans to show controversial drama Foxtrot about how IDF tried to cover up murders of young Palestinians, film repeatedly criticized by Israel culture minister Miri Regev, director Samuel Maoz wishes for his work to be seen as national self-criticism aiming to improve society
Facebook launches "Keeping Muslims Safe Online: Tackling Hate and Bigotry" guide together with Faith Associates, in line with Zuckerberg promise following San Bernardino massacre to "create a peaceful and safe environment" for Muslims
Washington Post reporter Janell Ross placed on leave after speaking at top-secret liberal meeting including George Soros last November without notifying superiors
Steve Bannon steps down from Breitbart, is a valued part of news organization's legacy according to CEO Larry Solov
Reactionary political theorist and software engineer Curtis Yarvin, known as Mencius Moldbug, escorted from Google headquarters by security personnel after visiting employee for lunch, his presence triggered silent alarm
Macron announces overhaul of French media legislation during 2018 to fight spread of fake news on social media, says strong legislation needed to protect liberal democracies
UK may impose taxes on tech giants unless they do more to combat extremism, security minister Ben Wallace calls companies ruthless profiteers who sell user data while not giving them to democratically elected governments
After selling 21st Century Fox to Disney for USD 52.4 billion Rupert Murdoch returns to news and sports, which has been his core business since 1952
Murdoch family to sell 21st Century Fox to Disney, says source to Bloomberg
Google to dedicate more than 10,000 staff to rooting out content on Youtube claimed to be extremist, has already begun redirecting users who search for certain keywords towards playlist of videos that debunk violent messages
Millions of comments to the FCC against net neutrality possibly counterfeit according to Jeff Kao
Facebook purges and bans some 40 goat-related slurs including their grammatical cases, terms said to allude to bestiality and having been used Islamophobically
Twitter's verified check marks perceived by users as endorsement, company enacts new rules regarding hate speech and removes verified statuses of Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler
Amazon announces multi-season Lord of the Rings TV adaptation, will tell new stories based in period preceding The Fellowship of the Ring with potential spin-offs
Editorial Director of antiwar.com Justin Raimondo diagnosed with late-stage adenocaricinoma cancer and is undergoing experimental therapy, will continue to write as much as possible
Satire writer Paul Horner found dead at the age of 38, known to have produced a lot of false news during the 2016 US elections as political satire
Hugh Hefner dies at the age of 91, founded Playboy in 1953, ran casinos and nightclubs, praised by his son for the work for freedom of speech
Amazon accused of "censorship" after removing homosexuality-themed Bible version where Rihanna created the world, Jesus turned water into mimosas and Trump took Satan's place, book briefly ranked top new release in Christian ebooks and Bibles category on US Amazon version
Conservatives in Silicon Valley communicate through underground network according to fired Google employee James Damore, high admission requirements since leftists try to infiltrate groups
YouTube shuts down two North Korean propaganda channels with 38,000 subscribers in total, academics using channels to study regime's missile programs urge company to revoke decision in interest of national security
Journalist Eric Bolling leaves Fox News, was accused in August of having sexually harassed colleagues
Clothing company John Lewis introduces gender neutral children's clothing and decides to remove boy and girl tagging, campaign backfires immediately in the form of angry appeal on Twitter
China tightens Internet censorship ahead of Communist Party's 19th National Congress, service providers to be held responsible for ensuring government can identify users, pseudonyms still allowed but must be tied to real identities
Russian dating app Mamba attempts to boost voter turnout by offering service where users swipe through pictures of potential voting partners, company's CEO says it has been advised to launch feature
Spotify removes several white supremacist bands after review by the site Digital music news, according to Spotify, the record labels and aggregators were at first hand responsible for delivering artists to Spotify
The Daily Stormer moves to Dark Web since Alphabet and GoDaddy decided to cancel the site's registration
Patreon shuts down Defend Europe's account, claims group's mission to obstruct NGO vessels from rescuing migrants on the Mediterranean "likely to cause loss of life"
Discord shuts down altright.com chat server and accounts associated with Charlottesville events, claims to want to take action against all forms of hate
Pakistani Taliban launches publication for women to encourage them to become terrorists, magazine targets educated English speakers and features in its first issue article which brings up benefits of child marriage
YouTube plans hiding and demonetizing “controversial religious and supremacist” videos via automated system combined with human flagging, several right-wing YouTubers worried about potentially fuzzy algorithms and system abuse
Patreon bans right-wing libertarian freelance journalist Lauren Southern, claims her activities "likely to cause loss of life"
HBO says Game of Thrones-directors David Benioff and Dan Weiss making a new series for the company, story in Confederate revolves around alternative history where slavery is allowed and the southern states has seceded while the US is headed for third civil war
Facebook will run ads in marketplace for free as a way to test effectiveness, Facebook tells investors they are running out of places to put ads in News Feed
SoundCloud fires 40% of staff, runs out of money in Q4, morale among remaining employees at rock bottom, future of company and vast sound collection at risk
Newspaper owners and billionaires Bezos, Buffett and Slim claim economic hardship and demand antitrust exception for collective negotiations with Google and Facebook
CNN prime time ratings fall below re-runs of decades old shows, channel in hot water over made-up Trump stories and extortion of Reddit user
Turkish site sendika.org applies to Guinness World Records for recognition as world's most censored news website after 48 attempts to block it
China introduces obligatory propaganda in cinemas, film lovers to be informed about Communist Party's latest directives and policy visions to better understand and accept them, according to state media agency
CNN threatens to disclose name of Reddit user who created video where Trump is depicted as wrestling with media company's logo, promises to respect his privacy as long as he behaves according to CNN's wishes
US intelligence agencies and armed forces have affected script and production of over 800 movies and 1,000 TV shows according to 4,000 documents obtained via Freedom of information act, more widespread influence than previous estimates
War on Trump gives media record ratings, makes reporters into overnight celebrities, MSNBC viewership up 73% year-over-year, hostility expected to continue as long as it draws viewers but erodes confidence in media according to analysts
China bans displays of homosexuality in online videos, comes one week after ban on live streaming on platforms like Sina Weibo, iFeng och ACFUN
O'Reilly stops selling books through its own internet shop to focus on its digital subscription service Safari, will continue to sell books through Amazon and retail
Michael Bond dead at 91 following short illness, most known for writing Paddington Bear series