”But he brightened when he turned to one of the topics that, according to people close to him, truly engaged his imagination: using AI to keep humans from polluting Facebook.”
”To this emotional story, Facebook had a programmer’s rational response”
Engineers versus investigative journalists
From the WIRED piece everyone is talking about:
”Investigative journalists are like pit bulls. Kick them once and they’ll never trust you again.”
I suspect a team full of engineers was ill-equipped for dealing with this sort of journalist. They’re very different from the mainstream tech jouranlists.
I’m a journalist, and one deeply interested in the future of journalism, and its business models. And I balk at paying £250 a year for Tortoise.
So, who is their market likely to be?
The platforms are not the internet
In reality, the problem we have is not the internet so much as those corporations that ride on it and allow some unacceptable activities to flourish on their platforms, activities that are damaging to users and, in some cases, to democracy, but from which the companies profit enormously.
Couldn’t agree more.
Good piece by James here, pointing out that Assange is a pretty horrible person - but that journalists should probably be defending him against the US charges. The same does not apply to the Swedish rape charges if they’re reopened.
Whatever you think about Assange and Wikileaks, his arrest this morning will do nothing to stop the repercussions his actions have had on journalism, politics and internet culture.
We’ve only scratched the surface of the impact so far.
I really need to stop letting my blogging slip as soon as my life gets busy. It’s such an intellectually rewarding exercise for me that my life is poorer when I don’t do it.
And no, social media does not scratch the same itch at all.
Making a (small) splash on Unsplash.
I’m really passionate about this: the journalism business should be unlocking the incredible value to be found in its archives.
There are so many benefits to this, for the costs involved.