FEED issue 29 Web

8 NEWSFEED Updates & Upgrades

In the fact of ongoing criticism and its troubled history in handling news, Facebook has launched its newest feature: Facebook News. Introduced in October 2019 as a limited test in the US, the news section of the platform has now been launched officially, and Facebook has also added local news. Facebook has gained a reputation for spreading fake news. To combat this, the company has been doing trial and error with its algorithms. This new attempt at adding news functionality uses journalists to program it, as well as algorithms to personalise story selection. Users will be able to react and share articles but, significantly, will be unable to comment. On top of this, users will be able to hide articles, topics and publishers that they don’t want to see. Only top news publishers and outlets will be qualified to feature in Facebook News, and ones that officially follow integrity standards. Although there has been no exact detail given behind its determination methods, it is said it looks for signals of misinformation identified by third-party fact checkers. Facebook is now also testing news video, and it has introduced a local news section. The latter brings thousands more local and regional publications into the news experience across more than 6000 towns and cities. The mobile news feature is now live, but the desktop tab has yet to launch. FACEBOOK NEWS

STINGY ABOUT STREAMING

While the Covid-19 pandemic has meant a boom in the number of people turning to streaming, a new report by advertising tech firm The Trade Desk found many are keeping an eye on how much they spend. According to the report, 70% of UK viewers don’t want to spend more than £20 a month on their streaming video services – a drop of £5 since September 2019. One third of Brits said £10 per month is their maximum spend. The Trade Desk suggested this could mean a drop in revenue for streaming services

of up to almost £100m. The report added that audiences are happier to watch advertising if it means being able to watch their favourite shows for less, and if the ads are more relevant to their needs. This follows a Trade Desk report published in January, which said more than half of Americans reported that they wouldn’t want to spend more than $20 a month for streaming TV service. Furthermore, 53% of US TV watchers would be open to watching ads if it meant lowering the cost of subscription services.

Twitch streamers have come under attack, with copyright takedown notices popping up in their inboxes. The claimant listed is the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the infringing content is mainly clips from past live broadcasts. Many of these clips are years old, and streamers who have been on the platform long enough have accumulated a lot of them, and now have a backlog rights holders can mine to file takedowns. Twitch doesn’t have the toolset to allow creators to mass-delete clips, let alone go through the hundreds that could contain copyright infringement. Twitch has to abide by these takedowns under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

(DMCA) which is the law that controls copyright online. Well-known streamers such as Fuslie and Jakenbake are some of those affected by DMCA notices – with some of the infringing videos being well over a year old. Fuslie said on Twitter: “Have talked with multiple Twitch staff all telling me my best option is to delete all of my clips ever. I feel so helpless right now. I’ve built this channel up for five years and to potentially lose it all so fast to something like this would be devastating.” Twitch’s director of creator development broadcasted an educational stream detailing what the DMCA means for streamers. His expert guest attorney, Noah Downs,

suggested that some content creators could start getting DMCA claims during live broadcasts. Downs also suggested there’s a company with investment interests from Universal Music Group and Warner that’s monitoring Twitch streams, and the company has the ability to hand out DMCA claims mid-stream. He also warned streamers about responding to a DMCA claim. “If you counter-notify, and this is important to understand under the DMCA, Twitch has to put that content back up as long as it’s a validly submitted counter-notification. At that point, that rights holder has no other option but to sue you. If that content goes back up, you’re risking a lawsuit.”

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