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Category: Journalism/Media

Did OpenAI carry out the biggest IP heist of all-time?

Did OpenAI carry out the biggest IP heist of all-time?

The Hollywood Reporter reports: VCR recordings. Book digitization. The use of existing code to build a new operating system. The legality of some of the most consequential technology and products in the last century have come down to a singular question: Are they protected under fair use, the legal doctrine allowing the use of copyrighted works without a license? Now, that question has become the central battleground in landmark lawsuits between publishers, studios and recording companies against artificial intelligence companies…

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Trump’s widening attacks on the First Amendment

Trump’s widening attacks on the First Amendment

Adam Serwer writes: On the first day of his second term in the White House, President Trump signed an executive order on free speech stating that his administration would ensure that “no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.” He has gone on to violate that order many times. Trump announced today on his social-media network, Truth Social, that he is banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White…

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‘Doom loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft admit LLMs are destroying the web and are built on theft

‘Doom loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft admit LLMs are destroying the web and are built on theft

404 Media reports: Executives working on AI at Microsoft and OpenAI admitted what its critics have been saying all along: Large language models are predatory pieces of technology that have been built on what a Microsoft executive called “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” and the “largest theft of labor in human history.” An internal Microsoft document said generative AI products have created a “doom loop” that is killing “the entire web.” Those statements and a series of other mask-off…

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Corporate cowardice: Universal is getting cold feet on releasing the new Elon Musk documentary

Corporate cowardice: Universal is getting cold feet on releasing the new Elon Musk documentary

The Hollywood Reporter reports: If Universal opts against releasing the movie, it would mark an extraordinary reversal at a moment when media companies are already under scrutiny for bowing to various forms of political pressure. Amazon backed out of releasing Artificial as it got into business with Sam Altman’s OpenAI, while ABC News and Paramount/CBS News each paid millions to settle lawsuits with the Trump administration many legal experts felt would be quickly dismissed. Universal would be required to pay…

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How Trump wields power to stifle free speech

How Trump wields power to stifle free speech

The New York Times reports: The Justice Department has sent F.B.I. agents to reporters’ homes to serve subpoenas and, in at least one case, flashed a warrant to seize devices. The Pentagon has fired the editor and publisher of its traditionally independent newspaper, Stars and Stripes, and blocked access to other journalists who refused to sign pledges that would limit their reporting. Regulatory agencies are using their powers to pressure media organizations over their content. The administration has stripped funding…

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Washington Post ordered to reinstate opinion writer fired over Charlie Kirk posts

Washington Post ordered to reinstate opinion writer fired over Charlie Kirk posts

The Guardian reports: An independent arbitrator has ordered the Washington Post to rehire the high-profile opinion columnist Karen Attiah, abruptly fired by the news organization last September over comments she made on social media about Charlie Kirk, the then recently slain conservative activist. On Monday, an arbitrator ruled that the Post had violated her rights as a union-protected employee and ordered the newspaper to reinstate her and compensate her for lost wages. “This decision confirms what we’ve said from the…

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Fake news spreads like an epidemic. Here’s how to stop it

Fake news spreads like an epidemic. Here’s how to stop it

The Straits Times reports: More than five years after the outbreak of Covid-19, most of us still remember the shape of the pandemic. It started small and distant. Then it passed from one person to another quickly, and we often did not even know we were spreading it. Today’s misinformation epidemic has the same shape: Fake news spreads quickly, and those “infected” by a rumour are often unaware it is untrue before passing it on to others. The “pink salt…

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There’s no ‘middle’ between neofascist corporatism and democracy

There’s no ‘middle’ between neofascist corporatism and democracy

Robert Reich writes: The statements seem as belligerent as Pete Hegseth on a bad hair day. “We are preparing for the next war that is coming,” says Jonathan Cowan. Cowan is president of Third Way, described by The New York Times as a “leading centrist Democratic group.” Cowan’s Third Way is preparing a $15 million war chest to “discredit democratic socialism.” Pointing to Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in the Michigan Senate primary last week, Cowan warns that “it is deeply…

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Fired ‘60 Minutes’ journalist says she was pressured to report on events that ‘never happened’

Fired ‘60 Minutes’ journalist says she was pressured to report on events that ‘never happened’

MS Now reports: Former CBS News “60 Minutes” correspondent Cecilia Vega, one of several prominent journalists fired from the network’s signature broadcast this spring, said she was pressured by the news division’s editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, and other executives to include misinformation and political bias in reporting that aired this year. Vega’s account of Weiss interfering with independent reporting is similar to those of two other veteran “60 Minutes” correspondents, Scott Pelley and Sharyn Alfonsi, who were fired after David Ellison,…

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Trump’s aggressive crackdown on leaks is not unprecedented

Trump’s aggressive crackdown on leaks is not unprecedented

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration sought the phone records of several New York Times journalists and their relatives — including one reporter’s mother — in its effort to unmask the confidential sources who had provided information for articles about the security capabilities of President Trump’s new Air Force One jet. The Justice Department told The Times late last week that it had issued subpoenas to third-party phone service providers seeking several journalists’ phone and text messaging records….

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New York Times journalists subpoenaed as Trump escalates pressure on media

New York Times journalists subpoenaed as Trump escalates pressure on media

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration issued subpoenas on Friday to several journalists for The New York Times, after the news outlet reported this week on security concerns involving President Trump’s new Qatari-donated Air Force One. The subpoenas — which seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday — were an extraordinary escalation in President Trump’s efforts to threaten and intimidate independent news organizations. In some cases, the subpoenas were…

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A Peter Thiel-backed tribunal is putting journalists on trial. I’m its first target

A Peter Thiel-backed tribunal is putting journalists on trial. I’m its first target

Gary Baum writes: For many journalists, blowback is just part of the business. The irate call to the editor or publisher, often expressed through the promise of litigation. The online pile-on, often expressed through personal invective. Occasionally, the threat of violence, often expressed through all-caps derangement. It’s rare to encounter a novel variant. But on April 21, I received a remarkable email. “Someone has filed an objection against something you wrote,” explained Austin Livingston, pointing me to a web page…

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Scott Pelley: Bari Weiss tried to make 60 Minutes lie about the killing of Renee Good

Scott Pelley: Bari Weiss tried to make 60 Minutes lie about the killing of Renee Good

  Lulu Garcia-Navarro: You’ve now accused Weiss of injecting “falsehoods and bias” into at least one of your politically sensitive stories. What did she specifically ask for? What story? Scott Pelley: That’s February, and my team and I are doing a story about the protests in Minneapolis against the ICE crackdown there. We’ve interviewed Senator Rand Paul, Republican, because he’s going to hold hearings into this, and the fact that a Republican was going to do that was quite newsworthy….

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States preparing lawsuit to block Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros, sources say

States preparing lawsuit to block Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros, sources say

Reuters reports: A group of U.S. ​states including California and New York are preparing a lawsuit ‌to block Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday. The lawsuit is expected to be filed in the coming weeks, the ​sources said. The case would mark the boldest move yet by the ​states in their effort to be at the forefront of U.S. ⁠antitrust enforcement, as their better-funded counterpart agencies in the Trump…

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How Fox News viewership increases belief in the anti‑immigrant ‘great replacement theory’

How Fox News viewership increases belief in the anti‑immigrant ‘great replacement theory’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks on Capitol Hill on June 8, 2022, about a resolution condemning the great replacement theory. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta By Adam Eichen, UMass Amherst; Jesse Rhodes, UMass Amherst, and Tatishe Nteta, UMass Amherst During a Washington Nationals baseball game on May 17, 2026, three people unfurled a large banner from the upper deck of Nationals Park displaying a link to a white nationalist website. The website, warning of the replacement of whites by people of…

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60 Minutes hatchet man: ‘Nick’s politics are consistent with a lot of the tech people he’s covered’

60 Minutes hatchet man: ‘Nick’s politics are consistent with a lot of the tech people he’s covered’

Page Six Hollywood reports: Like [Bari] Weiss, it is hard to pin down exactly where [Nick] Bilton falls on the political spectrum. The central tension is that Bilton, who regularly criticized Donald Trump during his first term in the pages of Vanity Fair, now finds himself inside a company that many see as friendly, if not subservient to the Trump Administration. Interviews with friends and former colleagues suggest any political shift within Bilton has been subtle. Sources paint a picture…

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