Mediagazer: The New York Times to start adding augmented reality to articles, starting with a piece on Winter Olympics in its iOS app next week; Android support coming soon (Graham Roberts/New York Times)

3:00 AM ET, February 5, 2018

Top News:

Molly K. McKew / Politico:

How automated Twitter accounts gamed social media to push #releasethememo, along with help from congressmen, far-right media sites, and other influencers — Russian bots and their American allies gamed social media to put a flawed intelligence document atop the political agenda. That should alarm us.

Discussion: @apriledwardss, @profkeithdevlin, @jonspaihts, @mattboegner, @lawrencehurley, @farhip, Dawn DuPriest, @holden, @sjvenuto, @daniellescave, @joshmeyerdc, @maggienyt and @newyorkcommuter

Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal:

Sources: in the US, Apple Music subs are growing ~5% a month, may overtake Spotify, which is growing at ~2% a month, this summer; Apple says Music has 36M subs — Apple's U.S. subscriber-account base has been growing about 5% a month, versus No. 1 Spotify's 2% clip

Discussion: 9to5Mac, Engadget, Mashable, MacRumors, The Verge and hypebot, more at Techmeme »

Jaclyn Peiser / New York Times:

After the Shitty Media Men list emerged, 7 men out of about 70 lost jobs or faced significant job setbacks; others said it affected work and personal lives — On the morning of Oct. 11, a week after The New York Times exposed Harvey Weinstein's systematic harassment and assault of women in Hollywood …

Discussion: Harper's, The Wrap, @ohnopaige, @jackiepeiser and Jezebel

Graham Roberts / New York Times:

The New York Times to start adding augmented reality to articles, starting with a piece on Winter Olympics in its iOS app next week; Android support coming soon — Something profound has happened to your camera. — Its very purpose — capturing images — has expanded to include a new role …

Paul Lewis / The Guardian:

How YouTube's recommendation algorithm can promote divisive clips and conspiracy videos and may have spread disinformation during the 2016 election — An ex-YouTube insider reveals how its recommendation algorithm promotes divisive clips and conspiracy videos. Did they harm Hillary Clinton's bid for the presidency?

Discussion: @lizpelly, @grady_booch, @zeynep, @profcarroll, @chatox, @randfish, @aparatbar, The Guardian and The Guardian

Christine Schmidt / Nieman Lab:

Inside South Africa's investigative non-profit amaBhungane, its role in the Gupta Leaks and in developing trustworthy investigative journalism in the region — “When you diamond-mine, you basically mess up the resource if you go for the best stuff first.” — When Stefaans Brümmer …

Ricardo Bilton / Nieman Lab:

TheAtlantic.com to replace comments with a curated letters section that seeks to elevate the best reader ideas — “Design-wise, comments are treated as an afterthought. We wanted to find a way to elevate the best ideas from our readers." — TheAtlantic.com pulled the plug on comments on Friday …

Marin Cogan / Topic:

Behind the success of The Old Farmer's Almanac and its rival The Farmers' Almanac, which are among the oldest continuously published periodicals in the US — Meteorologists warned of a coming “bomb cyclone.” Satellite images showed a giant, hurricane-like weather system barreling towards land.

Discussion: @marincogan

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Mammoth Media, the company behind chat fiction app Yarn and polling app Wishbone, raises $13M Series A led by Greylock — Mammoth Media has raised a $13 million Series A funding to create what it calls “entertainment experiences for the mobile-first generation.”

more at Techmeme »

Shannon Liao / The Verge:

WeChat to start issuing electronic government IDs, further cementing its dominance in China, made possible by foreign app censorship and government subsidies — The multipurpose messaging app is becoming the nation's ID system — China's most popular messaging app, WeChat …

Jina Moore / New York Times:

Kenyan government suspends 4 TV stations following their coverage of opposition figure's “inauguration” and fails to comply with court's order to reinstate them — The Kenyan government is defying a court order to put four private television stations back on the air …

Harish Jonnalagadda / Android Central:

Amazon Prime Video and Hotstar, an Indian streaming service, are outcompeting Netflix in India through aggressive pricing and strong content libraries — Netflix hasn't altered its pricing structure for the Indian market, and it's losing ground as a result.

Discussion: FactorDaily, @gaurav_keswani and @virtuallyakshay, more at Techmeme »

Reuters:

BBC journalist covering malnutrition crisis in Indonesia's Papua ordered to leave after the country's military said her tweets “hurt soldiers' feelings” — Ed Davies, Agustinus Beo Da Costa — JAKARTA (Reuters) - A BBC journalist on a reporting trip to cover a health …

Jeremy Kahn / Bloomberg:

Factmata, a news-focused fact-checking startup that uses natural language processing, says Biz Stone and Craigslist cofounder Craig Newmark have invested — Twitter Inc. co-founder Biz Stone and Craigslist Inc. co-founder Craig Newmark are investing in London-based fact-checking startup Factmata, the company said Thursday.