Islamic State leaves tech companies torn between free speech and security 

Here is the reason why it’s not so simple to just wipe out terrorist communications on social media: Another challenge for the companies: It is often difficult to distinguish between communiques from terrorist groups and posts by news organizations and legitimate users. Internet freedom advocates also note that much of what groups such as the…

The Evolving Role of News on Twitter and Facebook

Pew Research Center reports that a majority of social media users now use Twitter and Facebook as a source of news: clear majorities of Twitter (63%) and Facebook users (63%) now say each platform serves as a source for news about events and issues outside the realm of friends and family. That share has increased…

Everything Science Knows About Reading On Screens

Here’s a summary of the latest in eye-tracking studies. No real surprise: many researchers say that reading onscreen encourages a particular style of reading called “nonlinear” reading—basically, skimming Multi-tasking is the culprit in waning comprehension: The researchers found that when people read short nonfiction onscreen, their understanding of the text suffered because people managed their time…

A word reporters should add to Twitter searches

Good advice here from a New York Times staffer on crowd-sourcing searches. It’s everyone’s favorite word, and one you should add to any Twitter search that’s seeking personal experiences: The one word reporters should add to Twitter searches that you probably haven’t considered — Medium.

Key principles behind the new Guardian website

The foundations for the Guardian new site were laid using insights from the Guardian’s in-house analytics platform Ophan into how people were reading its previous site. Indicators such as eye-tracking and heat maps revealed that the long vertical columns of text, which in a way reflected the layout of the newspaper, were not conducive to…

Google now a more trusted source of news than websites it aggregates

Yahoo, its smaller rival, has been getting into direct content creation, including news. Google is now a more trusted source of news than the websites it aggregates – Quartz.

Americans don’t live in information cocoons

Partisans from both sides were most likely to consume news from outlets that were estimated to be relatively centrist, a study finds. Americans Don’t Live in Information Cocoons – NYTimes.com.