Media Insider: Apple Policy Combats Ad-Tech Stalking, Facebook Recruits Journalists for News Tab, BuzzFeed Curates Mood-Based News
Welcome to Media Insider, PR Newswire’s round-up of media stories from the week.
FAST COMPANY | MARK SULLIVAN
Apple doubles down on stopping ad-tech companies from stalking you
Apple announced the expansion of its Intelligent Tracking Prevention technology to stop the use of first-party cookies. For 25 years, interactive advertisers and ad-tech firms have dropped third-party cookies into users’ browsers to track the websites they visit and interact with. However, Apple says not all ad-tech players respect the browser’s cookie rules and/or user preferences and have now figured out how to use first-party cookies to stalk users. Apple’s WebKit team released a strong statement this week: “If a party attempts to circumvent our tracking-prevention methods, we may add additional restrictions without prior notice. These restrictions may apply universally; to algorithmically classified targets; or to specific parties engaging in circumvention.”
Another tech giant pushes for user data-privacy: Google proposes tighter standards around data collected for digital ads
THE NEW YORK TIMES | MIKE ISAAC
In New Facebook Effort, Humans Will Help Curate Your News Stories
Facebook has introduced News Tab, a new section of the app that will compile the most recent and relevant stories for the reader. With this new feature, Facebook hopes to reverse its current reputation of spreading misinformation by hiring a team of veteran journalists to curate a better news experience for its users. Keeping with recent efforts to design a News Feed that focuses more on personal interactions and less on advertisements and news publishers, Facebook clarified that News Tab will be separate from the News Feed. Will News Tab be able to reduce criticism from those who believe the social network unfairly favors some political parties and viewpoints?
ICYMI: Facebook releases year-long audit to refute claims of conservative bias
TECHCRUNCH | ANTHONY HA
BuzzFeed built a tool that recommends content based on how you’re feeling
Feeling curious, stressed, bored, nostalgic, joyful, or hungry? Visit BuzzFeed’s new MoodFeed and enjoy curated content based off your current mood or spin the mood wheel to experience a different mood. BuzzFeed uses its built-in AI tools to identify which stories should be posted under which mood page and when stories should be shared or re-promoted. Talia Halperin, BuzzFeed’s vice president of brand management, hints to future expansion and possibilities for MoodFeed, saying, “This could scale in a really interesting way. You may have noticed that there are only six moods, but of course, there are several different moods that come along with certain events [so we’re interested] in really being able to expand the moods at different times of the year.”
Round-up: People avoid consuming news that bums them out. Here are five elements that help them see a solution
COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW | JEREMY GORDON
Can music journalism transcend its access problem?
Music journalists fear that music journalism is getting increasingly repetitive and less creative and intelligent. Escalating traffic demands have forced music journalists to focus more on coverage of popular artists who guarantee article clicks. Since traffic results are a shared goal for all music publications, this means competing music journalists are writing about the same artists and publishing numerous versions of the same article. Music journalists also face several additional roadblocks which include: the expanding field of publicists who are limiting access to artists to retain a greater degree of control over the artist’s narrative; all of the new avenues artists now have to effortlessly promote their music; and, like other journalists, the vast decline of journalism jobs and existing music publications.
More from the view of journalists: Trans journalists challenge journalism leaders by asking them to confront structural barriers
WIRED | ARIELLE PARDES
Reddit Now Lets You Livestream. What Could Go Wrong?
This week, Reddit cryptically launched a limited-time live video experiment. For this week only, users could share the other side of their screens with Reddit’s new streaming service, Reddit Public Access Network (r/pan). Unsure of how to best implement live video on the platform, Reddit decided to test the waters with a temporary launch with limitations of no more than 100 concurrent streams that run for no longer than 30 minutes each. With this method, Reddit was able to tightly moderate content while seeing what worked and what didn’t. Alex Le, Reddit’s VP of product, shared Reddit’s current vision for the Public Access Network: “We think Reddit will lend itself more toward shorter-form content, capturing something that’s really interesting in the moment, so that users can cycle through and see a bunch of different perspectives.”
Video: Hulu releases documentary about teens who livestream their lives
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Erin Wade is a Senior Customer Content Specialist with PR Newswire. She is also an animal lover and aspiring world traveler. Tune into her insights as a social curator at @TotalCSR.
