Apple acquires 'Netflix of magazines' to fight fake news

[David Matthews]

False or misleading news has always been a part of our culture, most notably with the rise of social media. The 2016 U.S. presidential election intensified awareness surrounding "fake news" with then presidential candidate Donald Trump accusing most mainstream media outlets of biased reporting. In a bid to add more credibility to trusted sources, Apple announced that they are buying Texture, a digital newsstand company.

“We’re excited Texture will join Apple, along with an impressive catalog of magazines from many of the world’s leading publishers,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of Internet Services, “We are committed to quality journalism from trusted sources and allowing magazines to keep producing beautifully designed and engaging stories for users.”

Formerly known as Next Issue Media, Texture allows readers access to about 200 magazines for $9.99 per month. This has earned it the nickname "Netflix of magazine publishing". The service launched in 2010 and attempted to capitalize on the launch of the iPad and emergence of digital newsstands as the future of print media. It was a joint venture between several online publishing companies including Condé Nast, News Corp., and Time Inc.

For now, the company will continue to operate as usual and will continue to offer its services across all major platforms including Android and Windows 10. Although the deal is expected to close soon, the financial terms have not been disclosed and Texture has not revealed a valuation.

Apple already has its Apple News app which aggregates third party news sources. Acquiring Texture would allow Apple to collect revenue through a subscription service which, like the App Store, could allow Apple to fully vet magazines to ensure trustworthiness. This also allows Apple to leverage the popularity of the iPad especially since great Android tablets are few and far between (and could be a moot point considering Google dropped support for current tablets in Android P).

Whether or not this provides a boost in news trustworthiness remains to be seen but this at least keeps Apple on even parity with Amazon and Google who both provide a platform for newsstand-like subscription services. If anything, this bolsters Apple's push for premium content consumption alongside its Apple Music service.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/73673-apple-acquires-netflix-magazines-fight-fake-news.html

 

[VitalyT]

The 2016 U.S. presidential election intensified awareness surrounding "fake news" with then presidential candidate Donald Trump accusing most mainstream media outlets of biased reporting

Sorry, which of those things was the fake news?

 

[cliffordcooley]

Apple just wants us to hear their fake news.

 

[BGrant]

Sure, let's trust a huge phone manufacturer corporation responsible for the suicide of their working force that they pay pennies in China. Because chinese aren't even people right?

I trust Apple with all my heart.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Sure, let's trust a huge phone manufacturer corporation responsible for the suicide of their working force that they pay pennies in China. Because chinese aren't even people right?

That's the fake news Apple is trying to remove.

 

[BGrant]

Sure, let's trust a huge phone manufacturer corporation responsible for the suicide of their working force that they pay pennies in China. Because chinese aren't even people right?

That's the fake news Apple is trying to remove.

jackpot

 

[seeprime]

If they want to label a news source as untrusted and explain why that's fine. Censoring it is not since only one point of view will be made available. People need to look at both sides of a story and determine for themselves which aspects of each is believable. Generally, when two sides of a story provide different (verifiable) facts, the truth lies in the middle.

 

[wiyosaya]

Fake news is in the eye of the beholder especially when perceived media bias, or rather comments that someone does not like, is/are considered fake news.

But trusting crApple to disseminate trustworthy news sources? ROTFLOL

 

[OldGuru]

Most of the "fake news" deals with political bias in the media. A lot of it is generated by the "opinions" of the "talking heads" with an occasional fact to back it up but with deliberate omission of other relevant facts that help clarify the real situation. Its especially true when it comes to use/misuse of numbers and statistics.
One recent example of "fake news" was the NY Times publishing a lengthy article on the new tax structure raising people's taxes rather than lowering them, only to reprint the "corrected article" later with a retraction (in small print at the very end). BTW, the example used to show a "hypothetical typical" family (in suburban NY - $183,911 income with a taxable income of $88,293 after all their deductions), was pure fantasy for most average American workers (see https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/23/business/how-to-fill-out-1040-form.html).
A couple of other examples (one of which happened to a store where we used to shop) was supermarkets selling "doctored meat". In the case close to home, it involved a disgruntled ex-employee (fired) getting one of the major networks to film him using bleach on meat. He had a key to the store and he and the network film crew snuck into the store in the middle of the night while he bleached the meats and claimed it was the standard practice. Another network ran a similar story at another point in time. When these stories were proven to be bogus, they later added brief retractions at the end of much later broadcasts.
As for "fact checkers", I saw an interview with Glenn Kessler (WaPo fact checker), who stated that even the fact checkers could not be completely trusted and were politically biased (and most all belonged to the same political party). When the host asked him if his facts were biased, he indicated "somewhat, but not to the degree of other fact checkers".

 

[Abraka]

All mass media news are fake news.

 

[senketsu]

I don't think we have ever been exposed to propaganda in the amounts and from every direction such as today. It's unprecedented in our history

 

[mbalensiefer]

Everybody speaks according to their own worldview. It may take ML (Machine learning) as a middleman to correct all the bogus and inflammatory articles out there. Who can we really blame, though; but the people who read them (you and I give them income from our clicks--and the KNOW what we click on)?? No one wants to read about a fireman rescuing a kitty cat. It's boring. We DO want to read about Trump p*ssing someone else off, or Hillary falling on her @** again.

 

[drjekelmrhyde]

Most of the "fake news" deals with political bias in the media. A lot of it is generated by the "opinions" of the "talking heads" with an occasional fact to back it up but with deliberate omission of other relevant facts that help clarify the real situation. Its especially true when it comes to use/misuse of numbers and statistics.
One recent example of "fake news" was the NY Times publishing a lengthy article on the new tax structure raising people's taxes rather than lowering them, only to reprint the "corrected article" later with a retraction (in small print at the very end). BTW, the example used to show a "hypothetical typical" family (in suburban NY - $183,911 income with a taxable income of $88,293 after all their deductions), was pure fantasy for most average American workers (see https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/23/business/how-to-fill-out-1040-form.html).
A couple of other examples (one of which happened to a store where we used to shop) was supermarkets selling "doctored meat". In the case close to home, it involved a disgruntled ex-employee (fired) getting one of the major networks to film him using bleach on meat. He had a key to the store and he and the network film crew snuck into the store in the middle of the night while he bleached the meats and claimed it was the standard practice. Another network ran a similar story at another point in time. When these stories were proven to be bogus, they later added brief retractions at the end of much later broadcasts.
As for "fact checkers", I saw an interview with Glenn Kessler (WaPo fact checker), who stated that even the fact checkers could not be completely trusted and were politically biased (and most all belonged to the same political party). When the host asked him if his facts were biased, he indicated "somewhat, but not to the degree of other fact checkers".

I've been trying to find a link of this. Are you in Canada?

 

[captaincranky]

I've been trying to find a link of this. Are you in Canada?

That's because you didn't say, "are you in Canada, ay"?