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Situational awareness: Fox News' new streaming service "Fox Nation" launches today. The New York Times calls it "The Netflix for conservatives." Go deeper.
Thanks for subscribing to Media Trends. Tell friends to follow along by signing up here.
Situational awareness: Fox News' new streaming service "Fox Nation" launches today. The New York Times calls it "The Netflix for conservatives." Go deeper.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Misinformation bots are increasingly deploying more sophisticated techniques to game social media platforms, even as the platforms are making changes to weed them out, according to new studies.
Why it matters: Most Americans say they can't distinguish bots from humans on social media, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.
Driving the news on bots:
Social platforms have been trying to reduce the content-elevating signals that are easily gamed by bots. Twitter, for example, has made follower counts appear less prominent on its iOS app by making the font size smaller in a new redesign effort, per The Verge.
What's next: The best way to tackle the problem at scale is by identifying the source of inauthentic behavior, says Joshua Geltzer, executive director of Georgetown University's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.
"Although it's improved over the past two years, there needs to be an even better collaboration between the government and the private sector about detection of bad activity in the early stages. While the government doesn't normally share this type of information with the private sector, they should be doing so in order for platforms to act on it and vice versa."— Joshua Geltzer
Go deeper: Fake News 2.0: The propaganda war gets sophisticated
More than half of internet traffic is bots, but an increasing number of internet bots are being developed to game social platforms.
Illustration: Caresse Haaser, Sarah Grillo / Axios
Facebook is under intense political pressure around the world, with hearings on both sides of the Atlantic today that challenge its commitment to treating users fairly.
Why it matters: Facebook's year of controversies in the U.S. still isn't over, and it might be the beginning of many more to come abroad.
Between the lines: What's happening today in the U.K. is highly-unusual and noteworthy.
Be smart: It's unusual for countries from four different continents to band together in an effort to hold a U.S.-based company accountable for its actions in this way. The move suggests that Facebook's public relations crisis in the U.S. is spilling over globally.
Go deeper... ‘Generally amoral’: Facebook’s 6 million advertisers will keep it afloat no matter the scandal, via Digiday's Kerry Flynn.
Photo by: Adam Jeffery/CNBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Glamour, the decades-old fashion and beauty magazine owned by Condé Nast, announced last week it was ending its regular print publication.
Why it matters: Fashion and beauty media has been hit particularly hard by the transition to digital, in part because newer bloggers and digital upstarts have been able to develop deeper relationships with consumers using direct-to-consumer products and influencers on social media that seem more authentic.
By the numbers: According to data from consumer intelligence research firm CivicScience, more people are interested in fashion trends, but fewer trust the legacy fashion media as sources of inspiration.
Driving the news: In the past year, several legacy fashion magazines have either ceased print editions or reduced frequency, including Glamour, Self, Teen Vogue, W, Brides and more. Most are putting more efforts into digital alternatives, like video and social media, but even there the competition is fierce and growing.
Media rights are the biggest sector within the sports industry in North America, according to a new report from PwC.
Between the lines: More digital streamers are vying to win the rights to lucrative sporting events, many of which are up for renegotiation over the next few years.
Yes, but: As Bloomberg's Gerry Smith notes, "Sports is moving to the internet. But the internet still isn’t ready for sports."
The bottom line: Digital streamers want to win sports rights to lure customers, but they're going to have to prove that their service will be a better live experience than linear television.
The top 10 most expensive cable affiliate fees in the U.S. last year were all sports channels — mostly regional sports networks (RSNs) — with ESPN being by far the most expensive, per SNL Kagan data provided to Axios.
The big picture: They're expensive because the bulk of their content comes from licensing sports rights, which as noted above, are getting more expensive.
So why would Amazon want to get into such a business?
A new report from Cisco forecasts an alarmingly slow internet traffic growth rate for Latin America, especially when compared to the other lagging regions, like the Middle East and Africa.
Why it matters: Latin America's slow internet growth will make the adoption of digital technologies, like streaming, more difficult, as companies like Netflix and Amazon try to push more aggressively into the region.
Details: Latin America is behind its competitors in Europe, North America and Asia in offering more public wi-fi access points and home broadband access, per Cisco's latest Visual Networking Index (VNI).
Between the lines: When it comes to internet speed, Latin America is far behind all other regions and will continue to lag over the next five years, per the report.
Be smart: A weak regulatory framework for increasing connectivity is likely to blame for this gap, according to Cisco senior director of technology and spectrum policy Mary Brown.
"If I were a regulator in Latin America, I'd be looking at this data with some degree of concern. Because Latin America is not doing what the Middle East and Africa are doing, which is using regulatory frameworks to create more internet competition."— Brown
Screenshot: Disney
"Only 24 hours after posting the teaser trailer for the new live-action/CGI Lion King—on Thanksgiving no less—Disney already had a lot to celebrate. And the film doesn’t even hit theaters until next summer," per Vanity Fair.