WEB 2.0 Crowdfunded StopFundingHate targets tabloid advertisers

Once again, we see alternatives to formal regulators springing up.

Chomsky recognised the power of advertisers, one of the five filters in his propaganda model; Curran and Seaton argue that the government encouraged press industry reliance on ad revenue to ensure that radical papers would struggle; the NoTW was closed by Murdoch when advertiser boycotts were organised online and major advertisers began to announce they'd cease paying for ads in the paper (he feared this would widen to the Sun/Times and Sky), while the Times in the 60s changed their editorial policy to be more right-wing, and alienate the new swathe of working class readers they picked up (advertisers refused to pay any extra for these new readers); Facebook and Google refused to consider any action on racist and other right-wing ads until a threatened advertiser boycott ...

Like Hacked Off, this is a citizen pressure group, making use of new media to push their agenda, including crowdfunding to launch the campaign:








Crowdfunder link.

WEB 2.0 Media giants faking online following

A bizarre but significant twist - with pressure to show a strong online footprint growing in relation to declining print and linear viewing figures, it seems falsely boosting the numbers may be a common strategy. (see yournewswire)

There is much dispute over how papers calculate online readership, and similar arguments over online viewing figures (with YouTube's changing policies seeing huge drops in published figures for many channels and uploads).

According to one source at least the mainstream corporate media have also engaged in using specialists to set up 100s of 1000s of fake social media accounts to create a false sense of engagement ... AND to campaign against their critics, something that Chomsky and Herrman's near 40 year-old classic, Necessary Illusions, with its radical propaganda model, would recognise as flak (one of the five filters they argue systematically removes counter-hegemonic content from mainstream media discourse, or at least undermines it).

CHINA Live lyrics checked: Metallica Master of Muppets

Blabbermouth report on Metallica's willingness to allow Chinese authorities to censor the songs they select or song lyrics to play live there.

WEB 2.0 Citizen journalism Guardian of truth with unregulated press

Another example of the failure of formal (self-) regulation leading to alternative action online (see Prescott's successful tweet against Sunday Times made-up quotes, completely ignoring PCC/IPSO but getting swift action).

Readers of the Guardian newspaper, fed up at its drift away from accurate reporting, not least through its blatant antagonism to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, grouped together to create their own online news outlet.

This would clearly not be necessary if IPSO was doing the job its very name reflects: improving press STANDARDS - not least on accuracy, Clause 1 of the Editor's Code. Clause 1 breaches are routine for a right-wing press accustomed to throwing flak at left-wing leaders, policies and ideas, and building over decades British hostility to immigrants and the EU through content dripped of often inaccurate, sensationalist reporting ... but the (supposed) centre-left press, in the form of the Guardian, has joined in the ritual slaughtering of Corbyn, misrepresenting his speeches, selectively ignoring his successes etc.

LIBEL GLOBALISATION Bend it like Beckham: UK injunction sunk by Euro papers

Libel law remains a generally hidden form of press regulation; along with privacy laws and the ever growing powers of police and security forces to ignore the once sacred press/journalist right to protect the identity of their sources, the law courts play a significant role.





Publication of hacked David Beckham emails renders injunction worthless: the Sunday Times printed a front page story telling their readers they had a celebrity scandal they were injuncted (blocked: thats what a media injunction is, a ban on sharing, publishing or repeating information) from revealing. It turns out this was on David Beckham, and they were soon able to report it once the story was widely published in France and elsewhere; globalisation, and the sharing of global media content through twitter and others, often undermines UK court injunctions.