✅ Monday briefing #15: Twitter moderation, channel planning, influencer inequality, brand banter, podcast directory, meeting a troll, anti-trust TLDR, AI fail…
Social media platforms, tools, sponsored story, must read, mainstream media and artificial intelligence
Good morning. My name is Stephen Waddington. This is a weekly summary of news from my blog and topics discussed in a community of practice that I run on Facebook. You’d be welcome to join us. My thanks to all the contributors.
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Social media platforms
⚠️ TWITTER MODERATION: New changes ahead of the US election include: notification when a user shares a tweet labelled as misleading; dodgy tweets throttled in the newsfeed; and candidates prevented from claiming a win before an official announcement. Spotted by David Gallagher.
📜 CHANNEL PLANNING: Twitter is fading for public discourse. It's noisy, abusive, and polarised. The Ofcom Communications Market Report 2020 has Twitter in sixth place with 25 million users. Ahead of it are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Messenger and WhatsApp. Source Dan Slee.
😒 INFLUENCER INEQUALITY: Black influencers are regularly paid less than their white counterparts. AGM talent agent Adesuwa Ajayi spotlights the issue, sharing anonymous pitches and proposals via the @InfluencerpayGap Instagram account. Spotted by Sarah Waddington.
👄 BRAND BANTER: 26 million people have watched Nathan Apodaca skate along a highway with nothing but a bottle of Ocean Spray and Dreams by Fleetwood Mac for company. Inevitably, both the band and Ocean Spray have responded and it’s gorgeous. Spotted by Tamara Littleton.
Tools
📧 GMAIL TIP: Append a plus (“+”) sign and any combination of words or numbers after your Gmail address or insert one or several dots (“.”) to create variations of your email for filtering and to spot when people share your email address when they shouldn't. Spotted by Andrew Smith.
🎥 VIDEO STAR: Mmhhmm, founded in May, has raised $31m led by Sequoia. It brings TV style news production to liven up video conferencing and webinars. It is set to launch formally before the end of the year. The Beta is still open. Spotted by Stephen Waddington.
🔧 PR TOOLS: Jonathan Hughes has been investigating the PR tool market for PRMoment. He found tech adoption mainly superficial and focused on workflow. Agility and integration are the main areas of transformation. The integration of earned media into enterprise CRM is a big opportunity. Source Jonathan Hughes.
📻 PODCAST DIRECTORY: Podchaser is a free directory of creators and podcasts. Its curated lists are useful for media planning. Spotted by Stephen Waddington.
Sponsored story
📕 PR FOR PR: Releasd has published a free ebook called How to PR your PR team. It includes a practical, step-by-step guide for communication teams looking to engage executives who may not have a good understanding of PR. Source Releasd.
Must read
👹 MEETING A TROLL: After a series of online attacks Guardian journalist Sali Hughes met a troll in a bid to understand their motivation. It raises important questions about civil discourse. Hughes discovers that trolls are motivated by righteousness and their own unhappiness. Spotted by Shavaun Glen.
👨⚖️ ANTI-TRUST TLDR: The US House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust has criticized the big four tech giants: Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Google. It calls for a breakup to make the market more competitive for smaller companies. Spotted by Michelle Goodall.
🐕 RAISE THE WOOF: An article about sled dogs is an unusual source of inspiration in the New York Times’ series on resilience. Dogs take care of themselves. They eat, rest and sleep, and when they hit the trail, they give it all they’ve got. Spotted by Lyanna Stallard.
💬 DIALOGUE PROJECT: A new research project aims to educate and inspire business leaders to do more to solve the twin societal issues of poor conversation and growing polarisation. It's important work. Source Stephen Waddington.
Mainstream media
🖥️ MEDIA MONITOR: Press Gazette has launched a free weekly email newsletter that aims to provide intelligence for news industry leaders. It includes profiles of platforms and aggregators, analysis of audience data and investigations into the future of news. Spotted by Alan Morrison.
👨💻️ JOURNALISM HIRES: Future plans to make more than 150 new hires as it looks to expands. The majority will be in specialist editorial areas including technology, games and entertainment, women’s lifestyle, and B2B brands. Spotted by Alan Morrison.
Artificial intelligence
⌨️ AI FAIL I: Facebook’s overzealous image recognition AI blocked an image of onions deeming it inappropriate. The over sexed algorithm identified the image as breast or buttocks. Spotted by: Stephen Waddington.
📱 AI FAIL II: Women with darker skin are more than twice as likely to be told their photos fail UK passport rules when they submit them online than lighter-skinned men, according to a BBC investigation. Spotted by Stephen Waddington.
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