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Media Bits and Bytes – No Fooling

Tech for the global majority

Big Bird spotted working at local Starbucks after PBS cuts. Credit, The Onion
  1. NYC: Socialist Candidate’s Media Strategy
  2. Oscars Support No Other Land Co-Director (Finally) 
  3. Signalgate: Anatomy of a Chat
  4. OpenAI Loosens Access to Hateful Images
  5. Book Publishers on the Far Right
  6. Trump’s Own Public Enemy
  7. A Rumble in the Tech Jungle
  8. Tech for the Global Majority
  9. How to Support Striking Video Game Actors
  10. Remembering Robert McChesney

 

NYC: Socialist Candidate’s Media Strategy

By Mark Chiusano 
Politico

Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist and upstart NYC mayoral candidate, is comfortable taking stages stuffier politicians wouldn’t. The performer’s approach to modern mediums has paid off in massive fundraising wins. He beat the whole Democratic primary field in his first filing period and now boasts 17,000-plus contributors.

Oscars Support No Other Land Co-Director (Finally)

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By Benjamin Lindsay
The Wrap

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences apologized Friday for withholding explicit support for the Oscar-winning co-director of documentary “No Other Land” Hamdan Ballal after he was beaten and detained in the West Bank last week. The organization had sent an email to its members, but failed to name the documentary’s title or Ballal’s name, sparking a backlash from members.

Anatomy of a Chat

By Luke Winnie
Slate

By now you know that several members of the Trump administration unwittingly leaked high-level discussions about military strikes against Yemen to the Atlantic. Reading through the full transcript released Wednesday, it became clear to me that beyond a secretive attack-planning committee, the dynamics of the discussion reminded me of the typical boys group chat.

OpenAI Loosens Access to Hateful Images

By Maxwell Jeff
TechCrunch

OpenAI launched a new image generator in ChatGPT, which quickly went viral for its ability to create Studio Ghibli-style images. It also changed content moderation policies, which now allow ChatGPT to, upon request, generate images depicting public figures, hateful symbols, and racial features. OpenAI previously rejected these types of prompts for being too controversial or harmful.

Book Publishers on the Far Right

By Amanda Crocker
Jacobin

The publishers that dominate the book trade have all created special imprints that cater to ultraconservative readers. They don’t want their brands associated with racism and misogyny, but they’re happy to profit from this growing ideological niche.

Trump’s Own Public Enemy

By Adam Gabbatt
The Guardian

The anti-media rhetoric has ramped up from Trump officials, Trump has suggested some media groups should be “illegal”, funding has been cut from organisations like Voice of America and last week the White House lambasted journalist Jeffrey Goldberg and the Atlantic magazine for breaking a scoop about national security lapses on a Signal messaging app.

A Rumble in the Tech Jungle

By Yasmin Curzi de Mendonça and Camille Grenier
The Conversation

A global struggle over digital platform governance is brewing. And in this battle, U.S. platforms are increasingly leaning on American laws to challenge other nation’s regulations. It is, we believe as experts on digital law – one an executive director of a forum monitoring how countries implement democratic principles – a form of digital imperialism.

Tech for the Global Majority

By Burcu Kilic and Renata Avila
Progressive International

Tech CEOs’ alignment with Trump reflects not ideology but a bid to expand their surveillance capitalist empires, exposing the misplaced trust in Big Tech as defenders of democracy. With Silicon Valley poised to exploit global trade policies under Trump, urgent, coordinated action is needed to resist digital dependency and reclaim tech sovereignty.

How to Support Striking Video Game Actors

By Jennifer Maas
Variety

The SAG-AFTRA strike against major video game companies has nearly reached the 250-day mark and there’s no deal yet. And while nothing seems to have changed from the outside, real progress is being made behind the scenes.

Remembering Robert McChesney

By Amy Goodman and John Nichols
Democracy Now!

Robert McChesney, co-founder of the advocacy group Free Press, tireless defender of media and democracy, died at the age of 72. Bob McChesney was a prolific author of nearly three dozen books on media, democracy and digital rights, including Rich Media, Poor Democracy, a beloved professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.