The host of The Source on Philadelphia's WURD Radio says questions she asked Biden on July 3 were provided by Biden aides, but she "never once felt pressured" (Michael D. Shear/New York Times)

Mediagazer: The host of The Source on Philadelphia's WURD Radio says questions she asked Biden on July 3 were provided by Biden aides, but she “never once felt pressured” (Michael D. Shear/New York Times)

Top News:

The Hollywood Reporter:

Germany's government pledges to add a 30% film/TV production tax incentive, effective as early as January 2025; Australia raised its rebate to 30% on July 1— German studios have been pushing for the incentive, which they say is necessary to remain competitive in attracting international productions.

RELATED:

Deadline:
Australia raises its Location Offset tax rebate for TV and film productions shooting in the country from the previous 16.5% to 30%Discussion: IF Magazine and The Hollywood Reporter

Discussion:

Brendan Swift /
IF Magazine: Location Offset increase finally passed after long delay

Associated Press:

Former Marion County Record reporter Deb Gruver agrees to accept $235,000 to settle part of her lawsuit over a police raid on the Kansas paper in August 2023— A former reporter for a weekly Kansas newspaper has agreed to accept $235,000 to settle part of her federal lawsuit over a police raid …

Discussion:
New York Times, @apjdhanna and

Discussion:

Emmett Lindner /
New York Times: $235,000 Settlement Is Reached in Police Raid of a Kansas Newspaper

John Hanna /
@apjdhanna: Gruver's lawsuit is among five federal lawsuits filed over the raid. One was filed by a fellow Record reporter, one by the paper's office manager, one by the paper and its publisher, and the fifth by a city council member whose home also was raided. #ksleg

Dow Jones Newswires:

Netflix, Disney, and other US streaming companies ask a Canadian court to block imposition of a fee of 5% of sales to help finance local news and other content— OTTAWA—Netflix, Walt Disney and other U.S. streaming companies have asked a Canadian court to stop plans by authorities to force …

Discussion:
Media Play News, IndieWire, New York Post, MobileSyrup, @fagstein, @mgeist, @hertzbarry, @paulvieira, MEDIANAMA, CBC News, Cartt.ca, Agence France-Presse, Reuters, Globe and Mail, CBC News and Bloomberg

Discussion:

Erik Gruenwedel /
Media Play News: U.S. Streamers File Appeal of Canadian 5% Tax on All Localized Revenue

Tony Maglio /
IndieWire: Netflix, Paramount, and Crunchyroll Do Not Want to Subsidize Your Canadian Local News

Alexandra Steigrad /
New York Post: Netflix, Disney ask Canada court to stop proposed tax on streaming revenue: report

Bradly Shankar /
MobileSyrup: Canada's new digital services tax could lead to higher subscription fees

Steve Faguy /
@fagstein: Considering how much money is at stake, it's unsurprising the foreign streaming giants are throwing whatever their lawyers can come up with at the courts trying to overturn the CRTC.

Michael Geist /
@mgeist: The battle over the CRTC's mandated 5% payment is heating up. The video streamers led by @MPACanada asking federal court to quash payments for news in Bill C-11 ruling. Argue CRTC acted unreasonably in compelling news payments and provided inadequate reasons for doing so. [image]

Barry Hertz /
@hertzbarry: BREAKING: @MPACanada, which represents major Hollywood studios and streaming services, files applications to appeal CRTC's recent Bill C-11 move to compel foreign streamers to pay percentage of Canadian revenues to support local news. C-11 levies set to come into effect Sept. 1 [image]

Paul Vieira /
@paulvieira: Netflix, Walt Disney and other U.S. streaming companies have asked a Canadian court to stop plans by authorities to force them to fork over 5% of their sales in the country to help finance local broadcast news and other domestic content. https://www.morningstar.com/ ...

Kamya Pandey /
MEDIANAMA: Global streaming platforms like Netflix and Disney+ challenge Canada's demand for a 5% levy to support local news content

Peter Zimonjic /
CBC News: Liberal government enacts controversial digital services tax, raising trade concerns

Ahmad Hathout /
Cartt.ca: Amazon, Apple join chorus of foreign streamers challenging CRTC's contribution decision

Marie Woolf /
Globe and Mail: Streaming platforms launch multiple legal challenges to Bill C-11 payments in Canada

Jenna Benchetrit /
CBC News: Foreign streamers must pay into fund to boost Canadian content, CRTC says

Randy Thanthong-Knight /
Bloomberg: Netflix and Disney Caught by Canada's New Media Funding Rules

Variety:

At the half-year mark, Hollywood media giants have had double-digit stock price declines, except Disney and Fox, and will likely stay underwater in 2024— Disney and Fox Corp. buck the downtrend for showbiz shares at the midyear mark — As always, the numbers tell the tale.

Bloomberg:

Discovery investors reach a $125M settlement over claims that company insiders reaped improper benefits worth $1B+ in its $43B merger with WarnerMedia— - Settlement involves payment by Advance/Newhouse partnerships — Merger created one of world's largest entertainment companies

Discussion:
Deadline

New York Times:

The host of The Source on Philadelphia's WURD Radio says questions she asked Biden on July 3 were provided by Biden aides, but she “never once felt pressured”— The host of “The Source” on WURD in Philadelphia said officials provided her with a list of eight questions to choose from.

Discussion:
Mediaite, Fox News, The Wrap, Axios, @jonkarl, @jabeale, Mother Jones, @victorblackwell, @alexthomp, @aghamilton29, New York Post and WURD Radio

Discussion:

Caleb Howe /
Mediaite: Approved Questions To Ask Biden Given To Radio Hosts By White House Before Interviews, Says Talk Host Fox News: Radio host who interviewed Biden after debate reveals campaign sent her questions beforehand

Stephanie Kaloi /
The Wrap: White House Gave Radio Hosts Questions to Ask Biden Ahead of Interviews | Video

Jonathan Karl /
@jonkarl: This is malpractice. When you give the interviewer questions, it is no longer an interview. Why did the White House do this?

Jason Beale /
@jabeale: The radio host who interviewed Biden two days ago - Andrea Lawful-Sanders - just told @CNN that the White House sent her 8 questions in advance and she picked four of the 8 WH questions to ask Biden during the interview. @victorblackwell: A radio host who interviewed President Biden Wednesday tells me the White House sent her the questions before the interview. [video]

Alex Thompson /
@alexthomp: New: Biden's team drafted the questions for his 2 first post-debate interviews (both on Black radio). The WH was involved in drafting the q's, per person familiar WH Black media director wasn't part of the process Biden campaign denies WH's involvement. https://www.axios.com/... @aghamilton29: Holy smokes. The Biden camp has been pointing to the local radio interviews he did after the debate as evidence that he's fine, but the radio hosts who conducted those interviews told CNN this morning the questions were scripted and provided by the White House. [video]

Rich Calder /
New York Post: Radio host says White House gave her questions for Biden interview— and he still managed to make a massive gaffe

New York Times:

How xenophobic content on Chinese social media, directed towards Japan, the US, Jews, and others, became the subject of a debate and spreads despite censorship— Violent attacks on foreigners have prompted a debate about extreme nationalism online in a country that heavily censors information the government bans.

Discussion:

Kenneth Roth /
@kenroth: “To stop the Chinese public from talking about Xi Jinping, a social media platform censored 564 names that users had come up with to refer to him....A regulator gave a video platform a database of more than 35,000 terms about Mr. Xi that it wanted policed.” https://www.nytimes.com/...

Gabriele Iuvinale /
Gabriele Iuvinale on LinkedIn: The video posted last year on Chinese social media showed more than 100 Japanese children, supposedly at an elementary school in Shanghai, gathered in their schoolyard. …

Li Yuan /
@liyuan6: China has the world's most sophisticated censorship system.Yet its internet is laden with hate speech toward Japanese,Americans,etc. Now violent attacks on foreigners have prompted a debate whether online xenophobia is teaching real-world hate. My latest https://www.nytimes.com/...

Alfons López Tena /
@alfonslopeztena: China's dictatorship has the world's most sophisticated system to censor the internet when it wants to. Yet the Chinese internet is laden with hate speech toward Japanese, Americans, Jews, and Africans, and violent attacks on foreigners are spreading https://www.nytimes.com/... @scs_disputes: “In the past, if CCTV made a significant error in its reporting, you could mock it, right? But now, even if they blatantly lie, there's nothing you can do about it.” Misinformation incl state-sanctioned xenophobia thrives in Xi's ‘Thought Unity’ world. https://www.nytimes.com/...

@scs_disputes:
When information - on everything - is routinely weaponised, censored and rewritten by the single-party state, what is allowed to be read, seen and discussed is itself a state message. @LiYuan6 [image]

David Mulroney /
@david_mulroney: Is Xenophobia on Chinese Social Media Teaching Real-World Hate? https://www.nytimes.com/... “If the backbone of a society is completely submerged by the tide of nationalism, the future fate of the country is predictable”

Michael D Pendleton /
Michael D Pendleton on LinkedIn: “Xenophobic online content like the schoolyard video is the subject of debate in China right now. Last week, a Chinese man stabbed a Japanese mother and her son in eastern China. …

Dr. Nils Seibert /
Dr. Nils Seibert on LinkedIn: „Yet the Chinese internet is laden with hate speech toward Japanese, Americans, Jews and Africans, as well as Chinese who are critical of the government. …

TechCrunch:

Cloudflare launches a tool that aims to block bots from scraping websites for AI training data, available free for all its customers— Cloudflare, the publicly traded cloud service provider, has launched a new, free tool to prevent bots from scraping websites hosted on its platform for data to train AI models.

Discussion:
The Cloudflare Blog, Neowin, @rami_bball_fan, @theobsguy, @jenstirrup, @digitalbizweb, @alex, @rustybrick, @nfergu, @cloudflare, @carlhendy, @mattfthompson, @gergelyorosz, @scottkrauss, @drale2k, @iliedaboutcake, @gergelyorosz, @youraimarketer, Dataconomy, Hackaday, Computerworld, TechSpot, The Verge, Decrypt, SiliconANGLE, Engadget, TechRadar, The Register, CMU and Windows Copilot News, more at Techmeme »

Discussion:
The Cloudflare Blog: Declare your AIndependence: block AI bots, scrapers and crawlers with a single click

John Callaham /
Neowin: A major internet hosting company has made it easier for customers to block AI training bots

Rami Sufian /
@rami_bball_fan: @Cloudflare I'm impressed by Cloudflare's proactive move to protect content creators from AI bots! This easy button solution is a game-changer, especially with the rising concerns about AI-generated content. @theobsguy: Kudos to Cloudflare for this. The AI companies need to act responsibly and ethically. Hoovering up terabytes of data from the public web without the consent of content-creators does not constitute fair use. #cloudflare #llms #Ai https://blog.cloudflare.com/ ... @jenstirrup: Cloudflare has launched a new feature allowing customers to block AI bots, scrapers, and crawlers. Decision-makers must now consider how this could affect the quality and breadth of AI training data, potentially impacting future #AI tools. https://blog.cloudflare.com/ ... @digitalbizweb: Watch @Cloudflare become the most valuable company in the world. I am activating this feature right away. @thatkatieberry and friends you need to see this. https://blog.cloudflare.com/ ...

Barry Schwartz /
@rustybrick: Ooo - @Cloudflare lets you block AI crawlers with one click https://blog.cloudflare.com/ ... [image]

Neil Ferguson /
@nfergu: @Cloudflare Seems like a nice feature but I'm skeptical about this claim. How would you know if you got a false negative if you don't know the ground truth? [image] @cloudflare: To help preserve a safe Internet for content creators, we've just launched a brand new “easy button” to block all AI bots. It's available for all customers, including those on our free tier. Read our blog post for more details: https://blog.cloudflare.com/ ...

Carl Hendy /
@carlhendy: Cloudflare has launched a new feature to block AI bots, scrapers, and crawlers with a single click, and it's free. As AI crawlers continue to swallow up web content, this tool helps protect your content from being used without consent. Many AI crawlers ignore robots txt [video]

Matt F. Thompson /
@mattfthompson: As robots.txt is increasingly ignored, Cloudfare launches functionality to block all AI bots. https://blog.cloudflare.com/ ...

Gergely Orosz /
@gergelyorosz: Notice how many companies w creatives or creators as paying customers have misread what those customers want from AI. They attempt to train their own AIs on their paying customers' work, without seeking opt-in (and enraging customers.) Cloudflare, again, showing how it's done.

Gergely Orosz /
@gergelyorosz: I've decided to move my blog as well over to Cloudflare - I block AI crawlers in robots.txt, but clearly this is not respected. Almost all AI crawlers are a parasocial relationship, where they offer no value to any website: it's extraction in exchange for nothing (by design.)

Scott Krauss /
@scottkrauss: Two things: 1. There's absolute explosion of bots crawling the web due to GenAI tools. If you want to drive revenue from these platforms you need to ensure bots can find your content 2. I think the wholesale blocking of all GenAI platforms is a mistake https://blog.cloudflare.com/ ...

Drazen /
@drale2k: Interesting chart from Cloudflare. The top 3 AI crawlers are from Bytedance (TikTok), OpenAI and Anthropic. You can now block them with a single toggle using Cloudflare https://blog.cloudflare.com/ ... [image] @iliedaboutcake: @Cloudflare Awesome, was doing this manually via WAF for ChatGPT, but this is easier :) [image]

Gergely Orosz /
@gergelyorosz: A company that “gets” its customers: Cloudflare offers functionality to block AI crawlers, which give zero value to any site (in fact, take away value: the more they crawl, the less traffic the site will later get!) They also consume resources (bandwidth, CPU, etc.) Great move: @youraimarketer: Bytespider, Amazonbot, ClaudeBot, and GPTBot Top four AI web crawlers... Some of these AI scrapers do not respect the robots.txt file and scrape all your content. To prevent this, Cloudflare has launched a new free tool to block AI bots from scraping your website. You can [image]

Eray Eliaçık /
Dataconomy: Cloudflare will block AI bots with this free tool

Paul Barker /
Computerworld: Cloudflare offers simpler way to stop AI bots

Alfonso Maruccia /
TechSpot: Cloudflare offers one-click solution to block AI bots

Richard Lawler /
The Verge: From ChatGPT to Gemini: how AI is rewriting the internet

Jose Antonio Lanz /
Decrypt: Blocking AI Bots From Scraping Websites Gets Boost From Cloudflare

Maria Deutscher /
SiliconANGLE: Cloudflare rolls out feature for blocking AI companies' web scrapers

Anna Washenko /
Engadget: Cloudflare is taking a stand against AI website scrapers

Thomas Claburn /
The Register: Cloudflare debuts one-click nuke of web-scraping AI

Mpesce /
Windows Copilot News: Declare your AIndependence: block AI bots, scrapers and crawlers with a single click

VentureBeat:

ElevenLabs launches Voice Isolator, a freemium AI tool for removing background noise from audio files for film, podcast, and interview post production— ElevenLabs, the AI voice startup known for its voice cloning, text-to-speech and speech-to-speech models, has just added another tool to its product portfolio: an AI Voice Isolator.

Discussion:
Cryptopolitan, ElevenLabs, @elevenlabsio, @racheltobac, Maginative, @ammaar, @elevenlabsio and Hacker News

Discussion:

Enacy Mapakame /
Cryptopolitan: ElevenLabs debuts AI Voice Isolator to remove unwanted noises from recordings @elevenlabsio: Introducing Voice Isolator. Remove unwanted background noise and extract crystal clear dialogue from any audio to make your next podcast, interview, or film sound like it was recorded in the studio. Try it free: https://elevenlabs.io/... [video]

Rachel Tobac /
@racheltobac: Now I don't need to independently edit the voice I want to voice clone out of a noisy environment before cloning it — I can just isolate the voice and then clone it easily. Voice cloning is only going to get easier for hacking, folks.

Richard Banfield /
Maginative: ElevenLabs Launches AI Voice Isolator to Clean Up Messy Background Noise

Ammaar Reshi /
@ammaar: We just launched our Voice Isolator! 🚀 The best way to remove any background noise and extract crystal clear dialog from your content There was a method to our madness yesterday [video]

@elevenlabsio:
We plan to make Voice Isolator available via API in the coming weeks. Share your email in the form on the bottom of the landing page to be notified as soon as it's available: https://elevenlabs.io/...

Washington Post:

A look at Meta's struggles to attract influencers to Threads, due to the platform's focus on text and its lack of a clear purpose for users— Threads launched a year ago Friday but has a fraction of the users of Meta's other platforms. Content creators say they don't consider it important.

Discussion:

Antone Johnson /
@antonej@threads.net: Agree 100%. Text-based social media have been on the decline for more than a decade. The play here needs to be gaining market share (at Xitter's expense) of a shrinking pie and leveraging synergies with much larger IG. …

Renee DiResta /
@renee.diresta@threads.net: I would bet that most people who were/are heavy users of Twitter and text sites have never even heard of 3/4 of the ppl in the article.

Renee DiResta /
@renee.diresta@threads.net: Influencers have emerged *from* most other platforms because the platform has a product vision and people good at creating that type of content thrive and grow a following. Maybe instead of trying to get the image and video set here (ppl a lot of users of text platforms don't care about anyway), recruit text poasters from Twitter with rev share. …

Taylor Lorenz /
@taylorlorenz: I think it's disingenuous to act like Meta needs traditional videk creators to use threads (they do not!) But they do need to think critically about what a Threads creator looks like and how to cultivate those people. They have failed to do that and that's a MUCH bigger problem

Taylor Lorenz /
@taylorlorenz: The issue is not that traditional video content creators aren't embracing threads (that is fine!) it's that content creators on text based platforms are a fundamentally different sort of creator & Meta doesn't seem to want to cater to them.

Taylor Lorenz /
@taylorlorenz: This story was originally framed on how Threads hasn't had its breakout moment and I think that's true and a more correct assessment than struggling to win content creators. Let me explain...

Taylor Lorenz /
@taylorlorenz: Threads has not yet had its breakout moment and that is still a fundamental problem, and it won't have a breakout moment when it's stifling the type of creators/content that performs best on Twitter-like platforms: people posting timely information. @Smootasaurus@mstdn.social: In 10yrs “Meta” will be nothing but a collection of corporate customer service apps LoL. I've said this over and over but they offer no value other than access to brands. @taylorlorenz showing creators' disinterest with #threads here further supports my opinion https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... …

Lance Ulanoff /
TechRadar: Threads is one, and it may be the best social media platform you're still not using

Notes From Poland:

Polish state broadcaster deletes an article that said PM Donald Tusk made “misleading” accusations, supporting claims that Tusk hasn't depoliticized the outlet— Poland's state broadcaster, TVP, has deleted an article from its website that found Prime Minister Donald Tusk to have made …

TechCrunch:

YouTube updates its Erase Song tool for creators with an AI algorithm to detect and remove any copyrighted music from their videos without impacting other audio— On July 4, YouTube released an updated eraser tool for creators so they can easily remove any copyrighted music …

Discussion:
Neowin, Christian Falk on LinkedIn, @nealmohan, Boing Boing, Engadget, Android Authority and The Verge, more at Techmeme »

Discussion:

Aditya Tiwari /
Neowin: YouTube's updated removal tool can now erase copyrighted songs

Christian Falk /
Christian Falk on LinkedIn: The project I've been working on recently just launched and got some nice attention - YouTube Studio Erase Song. …

Neal Mohan /
@nealmohan: Good news creators: our updated Erase Song tool helps you easily remove copyright-claimed music from your video (while leaving the rest of your audio intact). Learn more... https://www.youtube.com/...

Vinayak Guha /
Android Authority: YouTube's AI eraser removes copyrighted music, preserves other audio

Gaby Del Valle /