Google's Robocop editor kills publisher sites, Canada kicks back against OpenAI, and deceased bosses revived

Canada fights back against Big Tech on multiple fronts, while the principles behind Google's decision to decide what publishers' sites can show is winning them no friends in the industry.

Published: 16:59, 05 December 2024

Talk without insight is just noise
When news breaks even the biggest social channels need the insight brought by traditional media to make it all make sense. Our master of perspective Rob looks at the value of news media to social platforms.
Read

"The internet's editor" spikes publisher sites
Vast numbers of media and publishing sites worldwide have seen sections disappeared from Google search, after manual delisting of commerce pages by Google staff handpicking which to kill off. While doubtless some "bad" sites have essentially gone invisible, so have plenty of good ones too. Of greater concern, it moves the ultimate arbitration of what you can do with your site to random decisions by a third party's contractor or employee, tackling an issue that came about almost solely because of how that third party dictated how the modern internet actually works. Confused? So are countless SEOs and publishers.
Read

The vibe in the room
Speaking of SEOs and publishers, the manual delisting of commerce pages and sites was a major topic of talk at the Glide- and AWS-organised SEO for News Meetup in London this week, which saw nearly 100 SEO and publishing people descend on the Amazon London HQ for an appearance by SEO legends Barry Adams and John Shehata. If you could not make it, keep your eyes peeled for similar events in the future.
Read

Canada vs Google
Canada's Competition Bureau is "doing a US Department of Justice" and suing Google for anticompetitive behaviour in online advertising, alleging its control over ad tech tools allowed it to monopolise the ad market. The Bureau is targeting a sell-off of ad services to reduce control. Google insists the online ad industry remains "highly competitive", which is about as believable as Santa insisting there is lots of competition in the chimney-delivered gifts market.
Read

Canada vs OpenAI
Canadian media are "doing a NYT" and suing OpenAI for industrialised copyright theft to train AIs, seeking up to CA$20,000 per article lifted. Canada had previously established a cash-for-content protocol for usage of content which Google signed up to and it's likely that similar principles will be asserted in this case; it would be interesting for Google to be called as a witness to outline why it pays in comparison to OpenAI which so far does not. OpenAI notably claims it excels in the "display, attribution and links to [publisher] content in ChatGPT search”. Does it? See next link...
Read

ChatGPT's search bot: trustworthy, or rambling liar?
Does doing deals with OpenAI to feature content in search results do much good for surfacing results which correctly attribute citations to publishers? Not really, according to Tow Center researchers. The ChatGPT searchbot is little better than the rambling drunk at the end of the bar for making things up and misremembering where it heard things, if it remembers at all.
Read

Panasonic's "God of Management" comes back to life
Almost straight from a Terminator movie, Panasonic has just created a creepy AI clone of their deceased CEO, Kōnosuke Matsushita, to preserve his management philosophy for future employees. If this becomes the norm - we hope it doesn't - what editors and writers would you like to see commenting on the matters of the day?
Read

Keep it up(right)
Are you using upright video on your pages yet? Here are the experiences of some major brands who got tired of tilting their heads.
Read

Sounds like money for news
A next-gen Amazon Alexa will be much closer to being a live news reader, according to reports which say the firm is cutting licensing deals with media firms for live news content. Are you signing up?
Read

PRESS Act stuck in Senate
The PRESS Act, a US federal bill to protect journalists from being forced to reveal confidential sources, has passed the House but stalled in the Senate. Despite the apparent obviousness of the bill's merit, it faces some stubborn opposition in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The chilling effects on news gathering if journalists are forced to disclose confidential sources is more than known, especially for smaller, independent outlets that lack the resources to fight legal battles.
Read

Big Tech and the need for stronger governance
If the next decade will be characterised by the relationship between governments and Big Tech, then it's worth hearing from a former EU politician and now director of policy at Stanford and expert on AI on the topic, Marietje Schaake.
Read

Journalists flee X for Threads and Bluesky
Many journalists are leaving X in favour of Threads and Bluesky. Why, and what awaits them? Poynter has a look.
Read