“The need for immersive distraction seems to rise in tandem with how relentless the news is…The id of the Internet has taken its place in front of the cameras, driving the news from Washington.”

“Local projects that tell the stories of Arkansan people and their stories and their histories and their struggles — those stories could be lost if they lose this funding,” Democratic state senator Jamie Scott of North Little Rock said.

“‘Internal HR reps assure us all is well, that DEI programs and employee resource groups will remain unchanged,’ [a Ziff Davis employee] told 404 Media. But they’re still concerned about the changes to the website…‘It’s scary enough when a Walmart or Hobby Lobby caters to the right, but when a massive media company starts complying in advance with Orwellian Newspeak the potential ripple effects feel extra scary,’ the employee who spoke to 404 Media said.”

“‘This is exactly the kind of seemingly obscure data that would pique a foreign adversary’s interest,’ says Justin Sherman, CEO of Global Cyber Strategies, and author of the upcoming book Navigating Technology and National Security. ‘It’s not necessarily held in every dataset, but it speaks to a medical condition, it speaks to use of a powerful drug, and it speaks to something that could potentially be exploited in an intelligence context.’”

“Previously, creators have been able to share videos in Notes, which is Substack’s Twitter-like feed, but the Notes feature doesn’t support paywalls. Plus, subscribers aren’t notified when a creator posts a Note…Substack says that video creators who are worried about their future on TikTok can join its platform to build a subscription-based video business and that creators on Substack can reach their audience directly, without relying on algorithms.”

The new program will include “providing training for local newsrooms in areas such as open source investigative techniques; using AI for local investigations; producing localized investigative guides; connecting local newsrooms with AP editors and other subject matter experts; and working with AP’s data team to provide data analysis services, consultations and data distributions,” AP executive editor Julie Pace wrote in a memo to staff.

“AI-recorded audiobooks are already permitted on Spotify, albeit with several restrictions. Spotify’s audiobook distribution platform, Findaway Voices, only accepts digitally recorded audiobooks from ‘specific partners’ — having previously also partnered with Google Play Books — and requires each recording to undergo review before publishing. ElevenLabs is one of the most recognizable AI voice providers on the market, however, which could lead to a surge in synthetically voiced audiobooks on Spotify’s platform.”

“The study, conducted by Spanish fact-checking site Maldita, ranked professional fact-checkers among the three most cited sources on Community Notes, a feature on X that lets users add context to misleading posts. The top sources also include other posts on X and Wikipedia. The study also found that users trust notes citing an accredited organization more, helping them appear faster on misleading posts and allowing misinformation to be addressed before it spreads further.”

“‘I’ve been in this business for five decades and I’ve never seen anything quite like this,’ [Wyatt Emmerich, the president of Emmerich Newspapers, which owns The Press Register] said in an interview, adding that the judge had targeted ‘an editorial that is pretty plain vanilla, criticizing the City Council for not sending out the appropriate notices.’” Emmerich plans to fight the order at a hearing next week.

“State-controlled media has reported that the government wanted to reduce the number of BBC staff working in the country to one. The BBC says its team of journalists in Baku have suspended their journalistic activities while it seeks clarification on the instruction, but that it remains committed to continuing to report in the Azerbaijani language.”