NewsScape

The social media scene began define itself and to take off with the arrival of viable and affordable smart phones in 2010 - so it was time for NewsScape to dust off the early ideas and see how if they had stood up to the test of time. If a video of a duck on a skateboard could go viral and gather 10 million views, what might properly worthy content get? Well, not that many! The triviality of popular content reminds us that internet is far more easily stirred by entertainment and light relief than “worthy”.

Other way-points on this journey have been determined by the evolution of video platforms and video editing. The multiplicity of analogue world TV broadcast standards has been reduced to mostly 1280x720 and 1920x1080 (full HD) - and even then it doesn’t matter, as software can now “transcode” trivially between different formats around the base of MPG4 transport standards. In 2018, technology no longer represents any sort of barrier: we are able to concentrate on the proposition that “content is king”.

The next barrier is distribution of content. The 800lb Gorilla of “social media” video hosting is Google’s YouTube service, which solves the storage and delivery problem for billions of users - but it doesn’t solve the problem of getting attention and seeding viral content. Facebook is more of a one-stop community where carefully constructed viral content can infect the whole community with a few well placed sneezes; but it is still far from the ideal solution of an independent web presence and user community. Attempting to establish any sort of dialogue with Facebook has been futile; we have more success holding a conversation with the office Yucca plant. With such pathetic communication, it makes no sense to attempt to build any sort of business with a “partner” that can - and does - act arbitrarily to devise, interpret and impose so-called “community standards”.

Facebook operates well beyond the limited scope of a mere “judge and jury”, Facebook conflates the roles of jurisdiction (international!), legislature, judge and jury - all blended with a good measure of subjectivity and inconsistency, and executed from Dublin - in a nation not renowned for the clarity of its comprehension and interpretation.

Political turmoil is still increasing - globally - and the wisdom of trusting any service provided by a company under the control of foreign ownership and/or government has to be considered. It is “strategically unsafe” to wholly rely on services like Facebook, Google or Amazon which are based and/or controlled outside the UK. These companies are going to be increasingly conflicted by contradictory trans-national legislation, and under all manner of inconsistent political and commercial pressures. And so, at any time, these services may act arbitrarily to move goalposts and change rules - like has just happened here when Facebook deleted 700 users without any warning.

The future...

The future for NewsScape is to build its own independent internet platforms (www.newsscape.com), based in facilities in the United Kingdom; although following recent assaults on freedom of thought and expression by EU law and then Sajid David’s less than perfectly considered knee-jerk white paper, we may be forced to reconsider. We may use "heavy lifting" cloud services based anywhere when we can, but we will not risks any eggs in those baskets that are not backed up in”safe jurisdictions”, which sadly may no longer include the UK. As for the USA, the revelations of Deep State involvement with UK security services in the slowly emerging Russiagate (aka Duckgate) scandal reminds us that the US Patriot Act allows US security services to access and do anything to anyone anywhere, in total unmonitored secrecy.

Are we being unduly paranoid? Some of our reporters tell us we are not being nearly suspicious enough! Managing this mindset within a news operation is traditionally tricky, and the entire news service an easily gain a reputation that reflects on its entire output. Fox News is dismissed by the left as extreme right, The Guardian/BBC is slightly more respectfully regarded by those not within the curtilage of of its “liberal” political positioning.

Conspiracy theories abound. Given a “liberal left establishment” climate that tries to marginalise and dismiss any notion that can be contrived to hint of conspiracy as the work of paranoid extremists - and the success with which Establishment campaigns manage to cast controversial populist figures like T0mmy R0binson as Beelzebub incarnate - the best place for the extreme Left to “conceal and misdirect” is now in plain sight. It plays well with the naivety of the recent recruits to political causes based on unquestioned assertions, from the ranks of the unworldy, inexperienced and easily led youth.

Thanks to the unique independent channel format of the NewsScape Federation, we can spin off a channel to address almost any emergent need or opportunity - and crucially we can spin off more than one channel per topic to be curated by different people/teams who have different perspectives. cf brexit.NewsScape and remain.NewsScape. The same story can generally be spun at the point of delivery to address quite divergent points of view - the fact that NewsScape’s structure allows this to be done under one umbrella brand and administration makes the platform uniquely adaptable and versatile.

To help define our way forward, we refer to something a NewsScape founder wrote in a 1994 blog, wherein was predicted the emergence of what are now known as “influencers”:

"...Sooner or later, the Internet will be too vast for statistics to matter. How can anyone get their mind around the notion that there is 80MByte of fresh data added each day? A million new users each month?

The art of making the most of the incredible treasure troves and resources of the Internet is just that: an art. The application of science in the form of "agents" that can attempt to profile the users’ requirements is a partial solution, but in the end, all Internet users will have to rely on the editorial skills and judgement of a few people who have acquired the mystic skills necessary to appreciate, collate and understand just enough to achieve the guru status necessary to be able to steer and form opinion of all others.

Much the same already applies in many walks of life: no-one had time to sample all the delights of the West End or Broadway, and so a breed of professional browsers grew up known as the "theatre critics". When the theatre-going public accepted that some of these people expressed views in line with their own, they granted them the most astonishing powers of life and death over the theatrical producers and performers.

This critical process evolved to encompass the new industries of radio and TV-although in the case of radio and TV, this was a lot more accessible to casual browsing by the public, who for a long time had relatively little choice anyway.

In the case of the Internet, it is easy to gain the impression that everyone is a critic. It is in the nature of the system that such people will be attracted to become the early adopters, and share their views with anyone who will read them. But there is also a growing element of "dark subscribers" who eagerly graze the information, but keep themselves to themselves as the more flamboyant Internet users establish a hierarchy of guru-ness.

These people are happy to use email as a valuable tool, and treat the rest much as you might a CDRom encyclopedia. The importance of steering and guiding this mass of endeavour cannot be underestimated if the Net is to fulfil its purpose...."

(C) NewsScape; 1993-2020