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Parasite With the Win

If you watched the Academy Awards, aka Oscars, last evening you know that the Korean film Parasite was the big winner. With four Oscars, including Best Picture, the social comedy thriller will be sure to attract movie-goers who may have missed it when first released. And because it is the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture, Parasite is attracting a lot of attention from the global filmmaking community. Also, it is important to note that the Best Foreign-Language Film label was changed this year and from now on it will be known as the Best International Feature Film.

In other Oscar news, Steve Martin and Chris Rock were pretty funny in their roles as “non-hosts” as they poked fun at Bezos and pointed out the lack of female nominees. The very touching Hair Love won Best Animated Short and Toy Story 4 won Best Animated Feature. Musical performances included: Janelle Monae, Eminem, Billie Eilish, and Elton John, and Elton got an Oscar. And in what some will consider a major upset, The Irishmen went 0 for 10 (although director Scorsese received quite a few shoutouts from winners). One of my personal favorites, Ford v Ferrari, picked up a couple of technical awards early on. The best actor winners were fairly predictable: Renée Zellweger, Joaquin Phoenix, Brad Pitt and Laura Dern. And as expected, 1917 and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood did pretty well despite not winning the big awards.

The Academy Awards are both a celebration of what Hollywood does best (storytelling and the manufacturing of culture) and a cringe-worthy spectacle of decadence, hubris and self-importance. It’s hard to imagine it being anything else.

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Esports, It’s a Thing

Just in case you hadn’t heard, Esports has arrived. If you’re not already familiar with the term, Esports refers to organized video gaming competitions. You can find plenty of background information on the Esports wikipedia page.

So, how big of a thing is Esports? Well, you know something has entered popular consciousness when SNL and Chance the Rapper poke fun at it.

Esports exists on various levels from amateur to college to pro. Professional Esports players earn on average $300,000/year, not too bad for playing video games, but far less than the average salaries for major league sports.

Among colleges and universities in the region, Colorado College in Colorado Springs has a well-established program. Last spring they won first place at the SCAC Esports Showdown where they competed in Overwatch, League of Legends, Smash Bros Ultimate, and Fortnite.

This year the Summer Olympic Games will be held in Tokyo, Japan, and while Esports will not be an official game of the 2020 Olympics, it will be featured in the days preceding the official games. According to engadget, “Players will compete in Street Fighter V and Rocket League for a price of $250,000 for each game.”

And for those who like to watch, VENN is launching this year and promises to be a new 24/7 post-cable network aimed at gaming, esports and entertainment audiences.

Maybe my next post should explore the idea of a “post-cable network.”

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The Cost of Personal Privacy and Security

If you’re the richest man in the world you would think that you could afford the highest level of security for your personal data and information. And if you’re Jeff Bezos, you would hope that your phone would be safe from hacking by enemies wanting to expose your secret affairs.

According to allegations by United Nations investigators, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may be behind the hack of Bezos’ iPhone gaining access through the WhatsApp messaging service. Possible motivation for the hack is the fact that Bezos owns the Washington Post newspaper, who employed writer and columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a staunch critic of the Crown Prince. Despite denials by the Saudi Prince, the alleged murder of Khashoggi in October of 2018 is believed to have been carried out by hit men employed by bin Salman.

There are multiple stories and plot lines of interest to Hollywood producers, but also for those of us interested in the intersection of media, politics, and technology. As our phones become more and more intertwined with our moment-by-moment activities and our most private and intimate actions, they leave us vulnerable to commercial manipulations and privacy violations. No one is safe. WhatsApp, one of the most popular encrypted messaging apps in the world, prides itself in a high level of security. According to their website, “Privacy and security is in our DNA.” 

According to Vox, “The alleged hack shows that security online is never guaranteed, even on this very popular Facebook-owned encrypted messaging app. And that’s something to keep in mind even if you aren’t a billionaire.”

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YouTube Takes Action to Protect Children

If you have children of your own, a younger sibling, or nephews and nieces, there’s a good chance that they spend a good amount of time online, and often that time is spent on YouTube. For preteens, YouTube is the top destination for streaming media content. And why not? It’s free, constantly updated with fresh content, and a lot of it is pretty entertaining.

But in recent years YouTube has attracted criticism for not sufficiently protecting children from potentially harmful content. They’ve also been criticized for profiting off of children’s personal data. In 2019 that led to a $170M fine from the FTC for a violation of COPPA (the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act).

In response, YouTube has just rolled out new policies to limit the downside for children and (let’s be honest) to minimize YouTube’s exposure to future fines and litigation.

Starting today YouTube will require content creators to identify content designed for a younger audience. That content will no longer allow commenting, live chats, push notifications, and the ability to save videos to a playlist. All of these changes are designed to reduce the amount of data that YouTube collects on its younger audience members. YouTube is also eliminating targeted ads around this content.

While this is a great first step, critics say that more needs to be done to ensure that YouTube is a safe environment for children. One options for parents is to use the separate app, YouTube Kids. This app provides more parental control features and its content is more carefully curated by YouTube.

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Makeup Tips, With a Side of Political Activism

New Jersey teenager and Afghan immigrant Feroza Aziz offers beauty tips online…or does she? In the following clip you can watch a portion of the video that led to her account being suspended by TikTok.

After its initial action censoring Feroza, TikTok backtracked and claimed that her account was suspended for a different video. But few are believing that explanation. TikTok has already drawn scrutiny because of concerns over its political ties to China and this incident is being offered as an example of what happens when free speech and religious freedoms are compromised for political ends.

In this short interview the 17-year-old says that “anyone can do it” (raise awareness) and that she’s not scared of TikTok.

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Meth, We’re On It!

People are wondering if South Dakota’s sharpest minds knew what they were doing when they approved an advertising campaign designed to draw attention to the methamphetamine problem. Like many states, SD is struggling with a serious meth problem and public health officials are trying to find solutions. Public information campaigns like this are part of the solution by raising awareness about the problem and where to seek help.

But social media took the opportunity to mock the effort and the agency behind it.

But the governor is standing behind the campaign and arguing that the very fact that social media is talking about the meth problem is, in fact, evidence that the information campaign is working.

According to an NPR interview with the Social Services Secretary for the State, “that slogan was specifically designed to be provocative and to get awareness of the issue of meth. Really, meth is all of our problem in South Dakota, and it specifically is meaning – you know, we’ve got a lot of things that are coming together, a lot of people that have issues revolving around meth. Together this is our problem, and we’re on it. We’re on the solution. We need to work on this together.”

What do YOU think? Is it working?

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Zuckerberg v Dorsey, round 1

Jack Dorsey, head of Twitter, just announced that political advertising will not be allowed on his platform. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg, head of Facebook, will allow political ads and has taken a hands-off approach to policing political ads for false or deceptive content. The stakes are high and the debate is contentious.

Regardless of your political views, you can easily see how these different policies are complicated by very real and important foundational issues. First up is freedom of speech. In the US Constitution, freedom of speech as enshrined in the First Amendment is at the center of this debate. First and foremost the First Amendment protects political speech…which includes political advertisements. Those who are First Amendment absolutists argue that the solution to wrong speech is not banning speech. Rather, the solution is to allow MORE speech. In the end, they argue, truth will win out as long as everyone is free to speak and present their views. Score one for Zuckerberg

If you have a lower view of human nature you might argue, yeah, but advertising is paid speech, and those with the most money can afford the most advertising and most sophisticated advertising strategies and campaigns. Free speech is great, but allowing people with money to distribute political messages to the masses without any responsibility to speak truthfully will result in many people being deceived and manipulated for political ends. Score one for Dorsey

I could go on but am more interested in your thoughts. Which of the arguments articulated by Zuckerberg and Dorsey resonate with you?

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Internet at 50

50 may be the new 35, but it still looks like middle-age to the younger set. On this date in 1969 an attempt to send the message “login” from a computer at UCLA to another computer at the Stanford Research Institute was thwarted by a computer crash. But that was just a speed bump on the Information Superhighway. Here we are, 50 years later, with not only a fully functioning global computer network, but an interactive means of communication that has literally taken the world by storm. Amazon, Alphabet (parent company of Google) and Apple, among others, owe their fortunes to this network of connected computers and devices. ARPANET gave way to the Internet, which gave way to the World Wide Web, and then Web 2.0, a more interactive service that relied as much on user-generated content as it did on corporate media content providers. Social media and online gaming have become huge consumers of our time and attention, and streaming video, (much of it delivered via YouTube), consumes most of the bandwidth. And the Internet of Things (IoT) coupled with AI may be the most disruptive update yet.

Leonard Kleinrock standing in front of the computer where it all started. See more at https://www.netflix.com/title/80097363

Anniversaries are typically a time to remember beginnings and celebrate accomplishments…of which there are many. But on this 50th year anniversary we’re also left to wonder what will come of the next 50. As Samuel Morse said on the birthday of the telegraph, “What hath God wrought?” Indeed.

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With $B at Stake, NBA Not Sure Freedom is Worth It

How much is freedom and free speech worth to you? You may never know until it costs you something. That’s what the National Basketball Association and star players are discovering in the wake of a tweet-storm that began with a statement by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey in support of the Hong Kong protestors. Because of the nearly 300 million NBA fans, political statements about China come with a price-tag.

First a little background. Hong Kong was a British colony for 99 years and was returned to Mainland China in 1997. China, known for its record of authoritarian rule and suppression of human rights, has been criticized by much of the Western World for imprisonment of dissidents and persecution of religious and cultural minorities. The current protests in Hong Kong have been widely embraced by those around the world who want China to end its battle against human rights.

In response to the tweet from Morey, the NBA issued its own statement calling it “regrettable.” A few days later LeBron James said that Morey spoke too soon, that he “wasn’t educated on the situation.” What situation exactly James was referring to is unclear.

LaBron has a history of speaking out about social issues here in the USA. If he believes that human rights deserve world-wide respect, he owes it to his fans, and to the people of China, to stand for the protestors in Hong Kong. Yes, standing up for human rights and free speech does come at a cost…in this case the cost is more than lucrative contracts and endorsement deals.

According to an editorial in Slate,

The league has certainly not covered itself in glory in its handling of the blowback over the Morey tweet and, in the process, reminded fans across the U.S. that the NBA is, at its core, still a profit-seeking international organization serving multiple constituencies of which the most important one is money.

Elliot Hannon

LeBron was right about one thing…before you wade into politics on social media you need to consider the cost.

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Facebook Takes Down Political Ads…

..but not for reasons that you might suspect. According to an article in BuzzFeed, Facebook has taken down a slew of political ads from most of the leading Democratic candidates, and President Trump, for reasons that have some political observers shaking their collective heads.

The leading reason for taking down ads? Fake buttons. That’s right, building the appearance of an interactive button into your ad is grounds to have your ad “banned” by Facebook. And I have to say, as someone who has a personal vendetta against fake media player buttons (see below), this is a well deserved take-down.

Go ahead and click the “play” button…

Clicking on the Play button above doesn’t do anything (sorry to disappoint you) and if I were really sneaky I would have created a link to another website where I would have tried to sell you something.

But back to political ads…fake buttons is just the leading reason for being disqualified by Facebook. Other reasons include profanity, broken links (aka bad landing pages), and violating local disclosure rules.

The one thing that will not get your political ad banned from Facebook? Lying. That’s right, if your campaign makes a statement that doesn’t check out with reality…well, that’s left up to FB users to decide. So it’s on you to figure out who’s telling the truth. As they used to say in Ancient Rome, caveat emptor.

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