Bonum Certa Men Certa

Journalism Cannot and Quite Likely Won't Survive on the World Wide Web

Video download link | md5sum e3ede3d7dd345b50f318851a770811cf Demise of the WWW and Newsrooms Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: We're reaching the point where the overwhelming majority of new pages on the Web (the World Wide Web) are basically junk, sometimes crafted not by humans; how to cope with this rapid deterioration is still an unknown -- an enigma that demands hard answers or technical workarounds

THE media was persistently shifting to the World Wide Web in the 1990s or later. People kept insisting that the days of printer media were numbered and that it was time to evolve or perish.



"In some cases, for each real article there are about 10 spam pieces, i.e. a ratio of 1:10. This makes news very hard to find or curate."So some time in the early 2000s all the major newspapers had at least some presence "online". It did not work out as well as they had hoped. The general de-funding and consolidation of the media meant journalists kept losing their jobs. Only this past day or two we learned about Gannett's strike. It's not going to improve. Gannett owns and controls a ton of news Web sites in the US; actual journalists are being clobbered. The video above explains the threat of bots, CG druft, PR drones (such as Clickfraud Spamnil), plagiarism sites, corporate propaganda sites in disguise, and sponsored spam like SiliconANGLE, where articles about companies are funded if not composed by those companies themselves.

We're accordingly adapting with Daily Links and pondering what to do when the signal-to-noise (s/n) ratio becomes way too poor on the World Wide Web. Once-reputable sites go offline and some become spamfarms. In some cases, for each real article there are about 10 spam pieces, i.e. a ratio of 1:10. This makes news very hard to find or curate.

Where does the World Wide Web go from here? What does that mean for real journalism -- the sort of work that requires a lot of time-consuming investigations, fact-checking, and hiring of domain experts rather than random graduates with an English or History degree?

The saddest thing is that getting any real news (reports, commentary etc.) about GNU/Linux and Free software has become very hard. There's scarcity. Some days there's almost nothing at all. But the problem isn't limited to this domain; it's a general trend across all spectra. Once the trend or the general inertia drifts in this direction it is irrational to expect a rebound or some miraculous "comeback" for news online.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Speed of GNU/Linux
The media seldom speaks of the dangers of "proprietary software"
Proprietary Windows Versus "Linux" News (Trying to Keep People on Windows, Never Exploring GNU/Linux)
Good editors know better how to recognise threats and not give them lip service
Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigation
Links for the day
What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: The Purge, the Cover-up, and the Witch-hunts
OSI has gone "full Microsoft"
 
Central African Republic (CAR): Vista 11 is Only ~0.2% Market Share
99.8% to go!
BSD and GNU/Linux Replaced Microsoft in Secure Servers, All Microsoft Has Left is LLM Slop for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)
the FUD machine never rests
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: A Simple Task Tracking and Auto-Prioritization Tool and Other Programs
Links for the day
Links 28/04/2025: Canada's Election, Pakistan-India Conflict
Links for the day
Glue Inside Your Pizza (or Why People Will Get Fed Up With Slop)
People are given "answers" from non-intelligence word dumpsters
Links 28/04/2025: Cyberattacks Happening, Chatbots Disappointing, and "Free Speech Under Fire"
Links for the day
Phone Adoption Very Low in Vatican, Windows Usage Fell Nonetheless
Even in places where people still use desktops/laptops most of the time (and have access to these) Windows is gradually losing ground
GNU/Linux 9% in Cuba, Vista 11 Waning, Android Dominant
Microsoft has pretty much lost Cuba
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 27, 2025
In 24 Countries Observed by statCounter Vista 11 is Still Less Than a Quarter of Windows Users Despite All Other Versions Being 'Expired'
They ought to move to GNU/Linux
Links 27/04/2025: Pope Goodbyes, "Politics of Fear", Slop Redux and More Google Shutdowns (Google Debt Had Grown This Year)
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Serenity Dialectics, Hockey Jersey Ethics, and More
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Death of Nest Thermostats, Death of Metaverse
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Projects Workflow and Discovering Technology
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 26, 2025
Microsoft Isn't on the Map in USSR
To them, it's either Google or Yandex
In Central America Windows Became a Small Force
These are countries where Windows used to have well over 95% of the "market"
What's Very Vexing to GAFAM, EPO and Others Is That It's Incredibly Hard to Censor Us (and Nobody Ever Successfully Did That Before)
resist, do not capitulate
Site May be Even Faster Now
It basically takes less than a tenth of a second to serve the page
Receiving SLAPPs and Collecting Them Like Trophies (the SLAPPs Always Fail)
People who file lawsuits bring even more attention to themselves (or to embarrassing statements about them)
Year of GNU/Linux on the Laptop?
It's not happening only in Lenovo
What People Must Understand About the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
some facts about the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
Many of the Scandals Are Interconnected (Overlapping People and Corporations)
We're only getting started
More Copyright Lawsuits Against LLM Slop Providers and Suppliers of LLM Slopfarms Would Benefit Society
It's not just bad for the Web and for society; it's also legally dangerous
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025