Washington, United States | AFP | The New York Times reported a spike in subscriptions since the November 8 election, despite being called “fools” by president-elect Donald Trump for its coverage. The newspaper said in a statement Thursday it saw a net increase of 41,000 paid subscriptions in the week …
Read More »Google, Facebook cut ad revenue to ‘fake’ news sites
Washington, United States | AFP | Google and Facebook moved Tuesday to cut off advertising revenue to bogus news sites, acting after criticism of the role fake news played in the US presidential election. “We’ve been working on an update to our publisher policies and will start prohibiting Google ads …
Read More »Twitter rolls out tool to curb online abuse, bullying
Washington, United States | AFP | Twitter on Tuesday began rolling out a new weapon in the fight against harassment by “trolls” whose often anonymous vitriol can make the messaging service an unwelcoming place. The move comes as online social networks struggle to balance free speech with intimidation and aggression …
Read More »Media warned on inciting ethnic tensions after Lugogo shooting
The Media Council of Uganda has cautioned a leading Kampala daily newspaper, accusing the publication of taking advantage of Kanyamunyu’s incident to “publish content containing hate speech and tribal sentiments”. In his letter addressed to the management of The Red Pepper on Monday, the council chairman Paul Ekochu, said that it had come …
Read More »Facebook in spotlight over tool to weed out fake news
Washington, United States | AFP | Facebook had a tool to weed out fake news circulating on the social network this year but declined to deploy it for fear of offending conservatives, a report said Monday. The report by the online news site Gizmodo comes with Facebook under fire for …
Read More »President-elect Trump back to tweeting with abandon
Washington, United States | AFP | Donald Trump during the presidential campaign tweeted with fierce abandon and at all hours. Would he feel restrained by last week’s presidential election victory to give his thumbs a rest? It seems not. The newly minted Republican president-elect let loose his latest Twitter barrage …
Read More »Trump credits social media with election win
Washington, United States | AFP | President-elect Donald Trump credited his provocative use of Twitter and other social media with helping him win the US elections, saying it gave him a way of “fighting back.” In an interview that airs in full on Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Trump said …
Read More »In The Independent: Makerere University exposed
COVER STORY: Makerere Breaking up the future? : The Makerere University campus in Kampala has been a quiet and abandoned place since President Yoweri Museveni on Nov.01 ordered it closed after a strike by lecturers demanding pay was joined by a strike by students demanding lectures. THE LAST WORD Museveni’s …
Read More »Sudan security agents seize newspapers
Khartoum, Sudan | AFP | Sudanese security agents seized all copies of three newspapers Sunday, a journalists’ association said, just days after they covered a fuel price hike in reports seen as critical of the government. Members of the powerful National Intelligence and Security Service, or NISS, took copies of …
Read More »‘Bots’ step up for 2016 election news coverage
Washington, United States | AFP | If you’re reading about the US election, some of that news is likely to come to you from a “bot.” Automated systems known as “bots” or “robo-journalism” have been around for years, but they are playing a bigger role in coverage this year amid …
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