Well, the US Senate actually went and did it. The wheels are in motion to ban TikTok there. This is something very new to those of us in the western world: a government trying to shut down a social media app. When I started writing here over 21 years ago, what we now call social media was largely a joke to the majority of people. Those of you old enough will remember Andrew Marr calling bloggers “inadequate, pimpled and single”, and people dismissing Instagram as people posting what they had for their lunch.  Social media today? It’s now part of the great game of global politic ..read more

There's been a minor storm brewing around journalism ethics, that's centred on one of the most popular journalists in the world. But, because he's a YouTuber and a reviewer, the storm hasn't moved much out of the tech world. Massive YouTube star Marques Brownlee ruthlessly deconstructed the Humane AI Pin, a badge that aims to replace your phone. (Notice that every new hardware product needs an AI component…) You can get the general tenor of his review from the headline: If you don't fancy watching the whole of that video, you can get the general idea from this excerpt on X: NEW Video - Huma ..read more

Another would-be Twitter replacement is dead. Founder Noam Bardin: It is with a heavy heart that I share this sad news with you. Despite how much we’ve accomplished together, we will be shutting down Post News within the next few weeks. Post News, just in case you’ve forgotten, was a web-based would-be Twitter successor that had forged close relationships with a handful of newspapers. But it never got much traction, and part of that might have been due to the lack of a mobile app. John Gruber: But I think Post shot itself in the foot right out of the gate going web-only. They eventually got a ..read more

I've been busy researching LLMs and their use in journalism while I've been quiet here — and I'm beginning to suspect that I'm a natural contrarian. Back in 2008, when nobody thought Twitter would be important, I was out there bigging it up. In the early 2010s, I was warning against Facebook while the publishing world thought it was the answer to our prayers. I've been banging the drum for on-site community building for over a decade — and finally the world is coming around to my view. And, right now, I'm deep in AI, pulling together a practical training course for newsrooms and journalists t ..read more

The questions about the power and influence globally of a social network based in China — which bans most others social networks — just won't go away. It's shot itself in the foot over the US attempt to force a sale of TikTok - or see it banned — by flexing its power: MG Siegler: Riddle me this: if you're a Chinese-owned entity under fire due to the concern that your app has immense power in swaying your user base to influence aspects of American life such as politics, what do you do to assuage such concerns? The answer, according to TikTok, is apparently use your immense power to sway your u ..read more

Om Malik These days, it is pretty common to hear venture capitalists wax eloquent about “AI”. But before the “official” launch of “OpenAI” and its sudden rise to prominence, most of the new experts were busy diddling around with crypto and web3. Buzzword bingo is a popular sport for the investor crowd. It’s clear that the tech industry has been flailing around looking for the next big thing for nearly a decade. From crypto and Web3 to the Metaverse, they’re constantly looking for the next engine to generate ever bigger profits. Merely obscene profits are not enough, it seems. They need to be ..read more

TikTok and AI under regulatory attack The days of governments only acting on tech when it’s too late — see the Internet Explorer debacle two decades or so back (Remember when IE had a monopoly on the browser market? If so, you’re old. Sorry.) — are well and truly over. Governments are getting antsy about new tech, and acting fast to bring it to heel. Tick-tock to the end of TikTok? In the US, a TikTok ban draws closer. The House has passed a bill, which has bipartisan support, which will ban TikTok unless its owner divests it. Why? Because the suspicion is that China is using it to both track ..read more

Those of you with long memories will recall that many moons ago, I wrote that Facebook was going through an ongoing, slow breakup with journalism: In the end, though, the relationship we once “enjoyed” with Meta properties is over. The divorce is underway and, perhaps, once it’s finalised, we can renegotiate a new relationship, that’s more like casual acquaintances than and deeply unhealthy relationship with co-dependence and toxic power relationships. Well, now it’s truly over. We’re in the “splitting the CD collection (ask your parents…) and bitching about your ex” phase of the divorce. No ..read more

Another wee round-up of podcasting news, loving culled from the internet firehose for the edification of the MA Podcasting students — and you! Here comes PSO — Podcast Search Optimisation This is a press release. Be warned. It's hard to read without throwing up a little. But it does mark something interesting. The growth in importance of SEO, and specific aspects of it, can be tracked through the rise of tools to support that. And now we're seeing the rise of PSO — Podcast Search Optimisation — as a skillset, with tools to support that. Podcast discovery is a huge issue. Demand for skills and ..read more

If you needed evidence that digital content is the new oil, fuelling the AI “revolution”, look no further: Tumblr and WordPress.com are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documentation referring to the deals. Yup. Automattic is going to sell access to your content, that you might be paying them to host, to the AI companies to train their models on. That’s unsettling. What’s worse is that some companies may have already been given data they shouldn’t have: One internal post made by Cyle Gage, a produc ..read more