Tootfinder

Scattered Spider Is the Most Imminent Cyber Threat, Experts Warn (Wired, 3 July 2025)
#MediaLit …

Interesting numbers about US top websites.
https://pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/media_metrics/most-popular-websites-news-us-monthly-3/

Top 50 news websites in the US: AP shrugs off Trump row with huge traffic boost
Press Gazette lists the top 50 biggest websites for news in the US. Monthly updated top 50 listing based on data from Similarweb.

TONIGHT: Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes discusses The Power of Editorial Cartoonists for Democracy!
Ann Telnaes resigned from WaPo when this cartoon was rejected.
She wrote, “...My job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job.”
Sign up here: #FreePress #Democracy #Media

Control How Your Content Is Used for AI Training With Cloudflare (Cloudflare Blog, 1 July 2024)
#MediaLit

Control content use for AI training with Cloudflare’s managed robots.txt and blocking for monetized content
Cloudflare is making it easier for publishers and content creators of all sizes to prevent their content from being scraped for AI training by managing robots.txt on their behalf, and allowing targeted blocking of AI crawling on sites that serve ads.

BBC bias on Palestine, letter from journalists
"We believe the refusal to broadcast the documentary ‘Gaza: Medics Under Fire’ is just one in a long line of agenda driven decisions. ...
"We are not asking the BBC to take a side.  We are asking to be allowed to do our jobs in delivering facts transparently and with due context. ...
"As an organisation we have not offered any significant analysis of the UK government's involvement in the war on Palestinians. We have failed to report on weapons sales or their legal implications.  These stories have instead been broken by the BBC’s competitors. ...
"In some instances staff have been accused of having an agenda because they have posted news articles critical of the Israeli government on their social media. By comparison, [Robbie] Gibb remains in an influential post with little transparency regarding his decisions despite his ideological leanings being well known. ...
"There is a gulf between the BBC’s coverage of what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank and what our audiences can see is happening via multiple credible sources including human rights organisations, staff at the UN and journalists on the ground. ...
"We believe the role of Robbie Gibb, both on the Board, and as part of the Editorial Standards Committee, is untenable. We call on the BBC to do better for our audiences and recommit to our values of impartiality, honesty and reporting without fear or favour."
Full text here, Owen Jones article up-thread:
#BBC #media #bias #Israel #Palestine #Gaza #RobbieGibb #UKPol

Not a #social #media researcher, but this seems wrong on many levels.
https://fediscience.org/@tsch…

Bob Vylan, Palestine Action etc - analysis from Archie Bland in Guardian
"It isn’t just that people are angry that the catastrophe in Gaza isn’t being given due attention: it is that their encounters with observable reality are being flatly denied. ...
"Those people have been told that Gaza protests are hate marches; they can see it’s not true. They have been told that US campus protesters are largely motivated by antisemitism; they can see it’s not true. They have been told that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation because it spray painted military aircraft; they can see it’s not true. They have been repeatedly told, by Benjamin Netanyahu, that opposition to Israel’s war is antisemitic; they can see it’s not true. They have been told that the British government finds Israel’s actions “intolerable”; they can see it’s not true.
"Now they are being told that opposing the IDF is antisemitic, that the Glastonbury crowd is more virulent than the one at Nuremberg, and that direct action is a form of terrorism. They can see all that’s not true, either, and however far their view is from the front pages, they know that they are far from alone."
#BobVylan #PalestineAction #media #bias #Palestine #Gaza #Israel

I’m using the “1 Blocker” extension for iPadOS and iOS to block ads / enhance web browsing privacy:
#MediaLit

‎1Blocker - Ad Blocker
‎1Blocker lets you block obtrusive ads, sneaky trackers, and annoying elements on sites. With 1Blocker, you’re safe online and nothing will distract you from enjoying sites. 1Blocker is very easy to use — just flip a couple of switches to start blocking ads and trackers. The app will automatically r…

Creative Commons 4.0 Has Arrived on Flickr! (Flickr, 18 Jun 2025)
#MediaLit

Just got invited to a #media briefing about #energy #climate in #SoutheastAsia featuring 3 white guys based in North …

Ich hoffe ja sehr, dass das #ZDF gerade mit Hochdruck daran arbeitet, die neue #Mediathek noch einmal gründlich zu überarbeiten. Die jüngsten Bewertungen im App Store sprechen Bände 👀😭

"But there were technologists and open source projects in attendance. Notably, representatives from the Mastodon and Bluesky teams were at the Festival. The Newsmast Foundation was also present, incisively taking part in conversations to help newsrooms onboard themselves onto both of them. I got to hang out with them all, connecting with people I’d spoken with but never interacted with in person. Mastodon has undergone a transformation, has doubled its team, and is working on smoothing out some of its rough edges, while not letting go of its core ethos. It’s also beginning to position itself as a European alternative to American social media platforms, with a community-first values system and new services to directly help organizations join the network.
Bluesky, on the other hand, has done an able job of bringing journalists onto its existing social app, and is now hard at work explaining why its underlying protocol matters. Both want to engage with newsrooms and journalists and do the right thing by them. They each have something different to prove: Mastodon that it can be usable and accessible, and Bluesky that it can provide a return to its investors and truly decentralize while holding onto its values. I’m rooting for both of them.
These platforms’ messages dovetail with my own: news can own the platforms that support them. Lots of people at the Festival were worried about the impact of US big tech on their businesses — particularly in a world where tech moguls seem to be aligning themselves with a Presidential administration that has positioned itself as being adversarial to news, journalists, sources, and, arguably, the truth. The good news is that the technology is out there, the values-aligned technologists are out there, and there’s a strong path forward. The only thing left is to follow it."
#media #Mastodon #BlueSky #Journalism
https://werd.io/2025/notes-from-perugia-journalism-values-and-building-the-web-we

"David Attenborough’s ‘Ocean’ is a brutal, beautiful wake-up call from the sea"
#Oceans #Environment #Film #Media

David Attenborough's 'Ocean' exposes the unseen destruction of the seas
The new film “Ocean With David Attenborough” is both a breathtaking celebration of marine life and a sobering exposé of the industrial forces pushing the ocean toward collapse. With never-before-seen footage from mass coral bleaching to the violent destruction of bottom trawling, it reveals the hidden toll of human activity beneath the waves. But it’s also a story of hope that spotlights thriving marine reserves and the power of protection. Timed to World Oceans Day and the U.N. Ocean Co…

Testify.
#media #journalism #reporters #fascism

Since the #democratic nominee in #NewYork is of #Indian heritage, I can't wait to see all the pride & #media fas…

A New Path Forward for WordPress, and for the Open Web (JOOST.BLOG, 6 Jun 2025)
#edtech

A new path forward for WordPress, and for the open web
Back in December, I wrote about the state of leadership in the WordPress ecosystem. I shared how too much power rests with one person, and how the lack of clear governance puts contributors and businesses alike in difficult positions. That post ended with a call: we need to lead. That wasn’t rhetorical. It was a ... Read more

Reports of Bluesky’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated (MATHEW INGRAM, 18 Jun 2025)
https://torment-nexus.mathewingram.com/reports-of-blueskys-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated/

Newspapers let the fox in and now they dead... Canada too. Even after FB banned news orgs on their platform here in Canada those news orgs STILL used it slavishly.
Like some weird media-version of Stockholm Syndrome.
#canpoli #journalism #media #canada #truth #posttruth #democracy
https://games.ngo/@crecente/114696097895857405

BBC bias on Israel
From Jonathan Cook. (Substack link, sorry.)
"In a confrontation with BBC news chief Richard Burgess, journalist Peter Oborne sets out six ways the state broadcaster has wilfully misled audiences on Israel's destruction of Gaza"
For example,
"... the distinguished Israeli historian Avi Shlaim lives in the UK and teaches at Oxford University. ... Shlaim is both knowledgeable about the history of Israeli colonisation of Palestine and truly independent. He is in a position to dispassionately provide the context BBC audiences need to make judgments about what is going on and who is responsible for it.
"And yet extraordinarily, Shlaim has never been invited on by the BBC. ... He is one of the prominent Israelis we are never allowed to hear from, because they are likely to make more credible and mainstream a narrative the BBC wishes to present as fringe, loopy and antisemitic."
Plus some media analysis stats such as:
"The BBC mentioned “occupation” – the essential context for understanding the relationship between Israel and Palestinians – only 14 times in news articles when providing context to the events of 7 October 2023. That amounted to 0.3% of articles. Additional context – decades of Israeli apartheid rule and Israel’s 17-year blockade of Gaza — were entirely missing from the coverage."
#Israel #Palestine #history #Gaza #media #BBC #JonathanCook