I'd been following Srnicek's work for a while, so knew of his Silicon Empires. Thanks for the tip for @hettieobrien.bsky.social new book. It's new to me, as is she. No longer!

Thanks for the reminder. Just put in my order (for it and Muskism, too). Gonna be a good summer!

The GMICP reexamines media concentration in the face of the vast expansion of online media, integration of all media & AI tools into telecoms & mega platforms like Alphabet, Alibaba, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, etc., deepening crisis of news media, and ongoing crisis of democracy.

The dashboard is one way to visualize the deeper historical & comparative analyses, reports & policy interventions that accompany GMICP contributors' work. The result is a valuable and unmatched resource for scholars, teachers, journalists, regulators, etc at this time of enormous upheaval.

Covering ~85% of the ~$4T world media economy & 3/5s of the world population, the Global Media & Internet Concentration Project tracks the structural transformation of communications, internet & media industries in 36 countries. Check out our public facing dashboard here: gmicp.org/dashboard/

Few people take this top-to-bottom approach, but focus on the textual & ideological layer instead. @quinnslobodian.com & @bentarnoff.com offer a welcome & insightful challenge with their full-stack critical analysis of Muskism. I can't wait to get my hands on their new book.

This is an excellent account of how Musk is building a vertically integrated stack from the telecoms layer all the way up to X and Grok. His goal appears to be to create not just a walled garden but a enclosed ideological space.

"EU telecom sector shows strong competitive dynamics, affordable prices, improving coverage and solid financial conditions[...]top EU performers typically score high in global rankings." BEREC Public consultation until 8th May on Europe's Telecom Reality Check www.berec.europa.eu/en/public-co...

Glad I asked because that didn't seem quite right. Thanks for the clarification. It sounds like net neutrality might be (or rendered a mere guideline to be considered amidst the mix), tho, based on the little bit I'm gleaning from what you just said and the ppt deck.

Thanks. I just read through your slide deck presentation, the Digital Networks Act changes the DNA of the Internet. Very interesting and it helps bring me up to speed on state of play in EU. I'm interested in hearing more on this & your observation (I think) that fair share looks to be fairly dead.

Hi Rudolf. Do you have an English language version of this report?

The thinking here needs to be paired with council of wisemen who wrote for the Trilateral Commission in 1975 that "the effective operation of a democratic political system...requires some measure of apathy....on the part of some individuals and groups." ia801308.us.archive.org/23/items/The...

Could a national, public ‘CanGPT’ be Canada’s answer to ChatGPT? Canada’s long history with public service media offers a useful model for thinking about how AI could serve the public.

It could also complement proposals such as Fenwick Mckelvey's to build alternative versions of popular AI applications like ChatGPT, Gemini & Claude as a public utility rather than as a commercial service. theconversation.com/could-a-nati...

It would also be a national platform for the aggregation, hosting, and delivery of media, information, and culture and custodian of a national digital archive & library, continuing the tradition of institutions such as the CBC/Radio-Canada and NFB. 4/

It could utilize the vast stock of under- and unused fibre to extend broadband access to under- and un-served rural, remote, Indigenous, and poor urban communities. 3/

Screenshot of a paragraph from the report, Canada’s Network Media Economy: Growth, Concentration and Upheaval 1984-2024.

The GC3 would combine Canada Post, the CBC, NFB & Library & Archives Canada with the aim of making universal, affordable and reliable communications and public media services available to all Canadians.

Canada’s Network Media Economy: Growth, Concentration and Upheaval 1984-2024 A report produced by the Canadian research team of the Global Media and Internet Research Project Now drawing upon 40 years of data, this report places some of the most significant recent developmen...

Given the appetite for ambitious views of what Canada Post could be rather than gutting it, can I point you to my proposal for the Great Canadian Communications Corporation (GC3)? gmicp.org/canadas-netw... @nolore.bsky.social @parismarx.com cc @cupwsttp.bsky.social @canadiandimension.bsky.social 1/

Yep! It's pretty much an iron law of media consolidation that once massive debts have been incurred, the same $ spent servicing that debt are not available to invest in, you know, new films and tv series, music, journalism, etc.

Thank you. 😊

Gift links for the unwashed unable to pierce the paywall?

From the "freedom-of-speech=whatever-wesay-it-is" gang at Musk's X.

Turturro Was Right About Everything

A Career in Technology Policy: How to Get Started and What to Expect Technology policy sits at the intersection of law, technology, and politics. This post describes ways of entering the field, developing relevant skills, and building a sustainable career.

If you're early-career /a student /new grad wanting to pursue tech policy, @christopher-parsons.com has given you an incalculably valuable gift: a comprehensive guide, w/ his trademark thoroughness, on how. Also contains good advice for aspiring tech lawyers, & I'll add a few notes on that front 🧵:

False information, misleading images rife in Manitoba-based AI-driven 'news' service In a rapidly evolving media landscape, the rise of Boring News, an AI-generated news outlet, highlights the growing tension between technology and journalism. While it aims to fill local news gaps acr...

Boring News is marketed as a solution to declining local news in Canada. In reality, the website is AI news slop filled with errors, made up quotes and fake photos.

My story for the @winnipegfreepress.com:

www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-lif...

Federal judge blocks Nexstar-Tegna TV station merger until antitrust lawsuit is settled A federal judge has blocked the $6.2 billion merger between local television giants Nexstar Media Group and Tegna until an antitrust lawsuit is resolved.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Troy L. Nunley in Sacramento, California, made the ruling late Friday afternoon, finding that eight attorneys general and DirecTV were likely to prevail in their legal bid to stop the merger.

apnews.com/article/next...

The party of deep concern about antisemitism continues to do a daily antisemitism

I was gonna say, why didn't you go outside. It's very sunny 🌞

A Newly Discovered Recording Lets You Hear Delta Blues Legend Robert Johnson in Stunning Clarity Great swathes of rock music since the nineteen-sixties would never have existed, we're sometimes told, were it not for the recordings of Robert Johnson. Certainly the likes of Keith Richards, Eric Cla...

A Newly Discovered Recording Lets You Hear Delta Blues Legend Robert Johnson in Stunning Clarity

More excellent work from @rondeibert.bsky.social and the good people at @citizenlab.ca.

Paramount under the Trump allied Ellison family looks more like state media by the day. The damage to US media is enormous and will be worse if Paramount's bid to takeover Warner Bros. Discovery gets through the gauntlet of regulatory reviews at the US state level & the EC & UK it faces.