“The Joe Rogan Experience,” one of podcasting’s longest-running and most popular shows, will be launching on Spotify exclusively this year. From a report: The Rogan-hosted comedy talk-show series will debut on Spotify on Sept. 1, 2020, on a nonexclusive basis — before becoming exclusive to the platform later later in 2020 under the multiyear licensing deal. With Rogan, Spotify has landed…
Tag: Tumblr
How Russian Trolls Spread Propaganda Using Uplifting Tweets
Two associate professors of communication at Clemson spent two years studying online propaganda and state-affiliated disinformation campaigns on social media. This week in Rolling Stone they explain how professional trolls share uplifting “Trojan horse” tweets meant to gain hundreds of thousands of followers, and then “use that following to spread messages promoting division, distrust, and doubt.” Professional disinformation isn’t spread by…
Should We Build A Publicly-Funded Social Media Platform?
What if the problems with social media just can’t be solved by a for-profit platform? Writing in the New York Times, a former Tumblr executive argues the solution might require the creation of a nonprofit publicly-funded social media platform. The mechanics of how a public social media product would work have been fairly well figured out by now: It would be…
US To Collect Social Media Profiles From Immigrants, Asylum Seekers, and Refugees
The Department of Homeland Security plans to expand its social media profile collection program from US visa applicants to also include data from immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. From a report: The DHS published a notice on the federal registry describing its future data collection practice this week. The agency plans to ask immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees to provide usernames…
Verizon To Sell Tumblr To WordPress Owner
According to The Wall Street Journal, Verizon has agreed to sell its blogging website Tumblr to the owner of popular online-publishing tool WordPress. Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo for $1.1 billion in 2013, and was later included in Verizon’s $4.5 billion purchase of Yahoo’s web assets in 2017. Bloomberg reports: Automattic Inc. will buy Tumblr for an undisclosed sum and take…
Is The Internet Making Us Better Writers?
The New Yorker reviews linguist Gretchen McCulloch new book Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language For McCulloch, the primary feat of the digital writer has been to enlist typography to convey tone of voice. We’ve used technology to “restore our bodies to writing”: to infuse language with extra-textual meaning, in the same way that we might wave our hands…