Author: Mathew Ingram

Facebook has grown so dominant that it is one of the world’s largest nations, and co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is effectively the dictator of that country, according to Peter Sunde, the co-founder of the Pirate Bay file-sharing site.

Sunde made his remarks during an interview with CNBC at a conference in Amsterdam organized by The Next Web. “Facebook is the biggest nation in the world and we have a dictator, if you look at it from a democracy standpoint,” Sunde said. “Mark Zuckerberg is a dictator. I did not elect him. He sets the rules.”

You can’t opt out of Facebook. I’m not on Facebook but there are a lot of drawbacks in my offline world. No party invitations, no updates from my friends, people stop talking to you, because you’re not on Facebook. So it has real life implications.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

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Gawker Media, the New York-based blog network founded by Nick Denton, has already had to seek outside funding from a Russian investment fund as a result of a $140 million judgement recently won by former wrestler Hulk Hogan. Now, the company is said to be exploring a sale of some or all of its assets.

The only question is: Who would agree to buy it knowing that billionaire Peter Thiel is determined to destroy it by whatever means necessary?

Earlier estimates, including one from Nick Denton himself, have pegged Gawker’s value at about $250 million. Any offer for the company’s assets, however, would have to include a potential payment of as much as $140 million to Hulk Hogan and Peter Thiel, so a bid of $50 million or so is still within the ballpark of what Gawker is theoretically worth.

In an emailed statement, a Gawker spokesman said that nothing has changed, and that the company has “always said we’re exploring contingency plans of various sorts” in case the Hogan judgment is upheld on appeal. The spokesman went on to say:

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Targeted for destruction by a billionaire, Gawker puts itself up for sale”

Some billionaire venture capitalists fund bizarre research into how human beings might become immortal, while others want to set up a series of islands on which people could live without being subject to the laws of a specific country. And some get their lawyers to shop around for lawsuits they can fund in order to help put a news website out of business.

Peter Thiel, the man best known for his early investment in Facebook and for being a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, isn’t just any billionaire VC. He’s doing all of those things at the same time. The Immortality Project and the Seasteading Institute seem harmless enough, for the most part, but Thiel’s funding of a $140-million lawsuit against Gawker Media is anything but—if you have any interest in a free press, that is.

After Gawker founder Nick Denton suggested earlier this week that a wealthy benefactor was helping fund wrestler Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against the company, Forbes named Thiel as the one providing the cash. Finally, late on Wednesday, the billionaire came forward and admitted to the New York Times that he helped to finance not just Hogan’s legal case, but at least one other case against Gawker, as part of a plan he has been working on for several years.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Billionaire Peter Thiel says to defend journalism he needs to crush it”

The legal fight between former wrestler Hulk Hogan and Gawker Media inevitably lends itself to metaphors taken from the WWE. But is Hogan the “face,” or good guy, and Gawker founder Nick Denton the “heel,” or bad guy—or is it the other way around? To further complicate things, a new character has now been added to the drama: The rich benefactor who has been bankrolling and possibly also controlling the heavyweight battle from behind the scenes.

After a report by Forbes, which the New York Times eventually corroborated, billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel gave the NYT an interview in which he admitted to helping fund Hogan’s legal case. Thiel is probably best known for being an early investor in Facebook and a co-founder of PayPal.

To recap, Hogan sued Gawker for invasion of privacy after the site published a story in 2012 about the wrestler having sex with a friend’s wife, and included a short clip from a recording of the act. Hogan said he was unaware he was being recorded and that his reputation was besmirched, and earlier this year he won a judgement of $140 million that Gawker is appealing.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “The Gawker vs. Hulk Hogan case just got a lot more important”

Controversy continued Thursday over the question of Facebook’s influence on the news that more than a billion people see every day. In the latest developments, the company’s editorial guidelines around its Trending Topics feature were leaked to The Guardian, and the social-networking giant quickly published its own version, along with another internal document that describes how it decides what news to include and what not to.

The controversy got started earlier this week, with a piece by Gizmodo that looked at how several journalists who worked on the Trending Topics feature were treated by the social network, and what they were expected to do.

The original story mostly focused on how these editorial contractors believed they were simply training Facebook’s news-filtering algorithms, and didn’t feel that the social network cared about journalism much, except as raw material for its engagement engines. Then a second piece appeared that featured comments from an anonymous editor about how staff routinely kept certain sites and topics out of the Trending feed.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Facebook and the news: trends, filter bubbles and algorithmic bias”

Don’t blame me for the prominence of Donald Trump, says Jeff Zucker. At least, that was the gist of what the CNN boss told BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith in a Q&A session with journalists on Wednesday. In a nutshell, the network is covering the front-runner in a hotly contested presidential race, he said. In other words, CNN is just doing its job. But is it really that simple?

For an alternative viewpoint, all we have to do is turn to some recent remarks made by another network executive, in this case Les Moonves of CBS. During a discussion at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom conference in San Francisco, the CBS chairman said that Trump and the Republican race “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” He went on to say:

The money’s rolling in and this is fun. I’ve never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Yes, the media is partly to blame for the rise of Donald Trump”

Back when the news was printed on dead trees, fixing mistakes or changing the tone of a story was impossible without stopping the presses and printing a whole new version. That’s no longer the case, thanks to the internet—news stories can now be updated in the blink of an eye. But as the New York Times has discovered, that can be both a blessing and a curse.

In the latest dust-up over its post-publication editing process, the Times has come under fire for changes to the tone of a story that the paper ran on Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. As far as some Sanders supporters are concerned, the editing is a sign of how the paper is willing to twist the record to favor Hillary Clinton.

The original story was fairly complimentary about Sanders’ record of promoting public-spirited legislation in Congress. It admitted that his record of actually succeeding in getting such bills passed was not great, but the tone of the piece was favorable enough that Sanders’ campaign shared it as though it was an endorsement.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “The NYT needs to be more transparent about when and why it changes the news”

The media had it a lot easier before Donald Trump become the leading Republican candidate for president because it was easier to treat him solely as a sideshow. The Huffington Post even vowed that it would only cover Trump in the entertainment section.

But as his support grew, the media found itself impaled on the horns of a dilemma: Trump is great for ratings, but his campaign—including his treatment of the press—is increasingly disturbing.

Man, who would have expected the ride we’re all having right now? The money’s rolling in and this is fun. I’ve never seen anything like this, and this going to be a very good year for us. Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say. But, bring it on, Donald. Keep going.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Love and hate: The media’s co-dependent relationship with Donald Trump”

As revenues continue to decline for newspapers in the U.S. and elsewhere, many have adopted paywalls or digital-subscription models, inspired by the New York Times‘ metered access plan. But there have been a number of significant holdouts, and one of the most prominent is The Guardian in Britain. Now, the paper’s CEO says it may start to charge readers for content—does that mean its commitment to not having a paywall has crumbled?

Chief executive David Pemsel says no. What the Guardian has in mind, he says, is expanding its existing membership-based program, and potentially offering content to paying members that isn’t available to non-paying readers. As he described it in a recent interview:

That might mean producing some journalism which only our members can access but no, it’s not a paywall. A paywall is a very different route, which of course we have considered, but putting one up now would diminish our reach and influence around the world, which is the opposite of what we’re trying to do.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “The Guardian, paywalls and the death of print newspapers”

A few months ago, a U.S. appeals court ruled unanimously that Google’s scanning and indexing of millions of books was not a wholesale attack on authors and the copyright system, as the Authors Guild has been arguing for years, but is clearly permitted under the “fair use” exemption in copyright law. Unsatisfied, the Guild is now trying to convince the Supreme Court to hear its case.

But the authors’ group is still wrong.

In 2004 Google sent its moving vans to the libraries and carted off some 20 million books. It copied them all, including books in copyright and books not covered by copyright. It asked no authors or publishers for permission, and it offered no compensation for their use.

Clearly, the Guild wants to make it sound as though Google somehow got away with a daylight robbery of 20 million books, stealing them from copyright holders with no thought for the impoverished authors who wrote them. But that’s not how two separate U.S. courts have seen it, and it’s not even close to being an accurate reflection of the case.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “The Authors Guild is still wrong about Google’s book scanning”

After a series of reports about ballooning losses at The Guardian, the British newspaper’s parent company Guardian News & Media announced recently that the company is looking to cut more than $70 million in costs over the next three years, after losing more than that in 2015. The paper has spent the past several years focusing on a mission its former editor called “open journalism.” Is that to blame for its losses?

In a recent column, media critic Michael Wolff said the Guardian “has been something of an ultimate experiment in the migration from paper to digital publishing,” but argues its expansion and online experiments have resulted in nothing but financial ruin, in what he calls a “quixotic test of digital faith.”

Instead of cutting its costs and implementing a paywall like other newspapers, Wolff says, the Guardian maintained its open approach to journalism in the face of overwhelming odds, and now it is doomed. Why? Because advertising revenue alone can’t support media organizations, he says—which he argues was the central digital conceit the Guardian bought into. The British paper, according to Wolff, is to digital media “what Cuba is to socialism.”

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Do the Guardian’s losses mean that its “open journalism” has failed?”

David Bowie, who passed away on Monday after an 18-month battle with cancer, was a musical pioneer, thanks to his artistic blending of rock and pop and also a seemingly endless series of gender-bending personas. But Bowie was also a visionary when it came to the business of music and the future of that business.

In 1998, for example, at a time when most musical artists had probably not even heard of the Internet, Bowie launched his own Internet service provider or ISP called BowieNet. “If I was 19 again, I’d bypass music and go right to the internet,” he said at the time. In 1996 he was one of the first major artists to release a song as an online-only release.

Bowie was also an early fan of music-sharing services like Napster, at a time when the record industry and virtually every other mainstream musician thought the service was the creation of the devil. He accurately predicted a future in which record labels and traditional distribution models would be disrupted, potentially even obliterated.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “David Bowie was a visionary who saw the future of music”