The Cornell Alliance for Science seeks to build “a significant international alliance of partners” to “correct misinformation and counter conspiracy theories” slowing progress on climate change, synthetic biology, agricultural innovations, and other issues. Slashdot reader wooloohoo shares their article about research on Ghana’s first gene-edited crop — a high-yielding sweet potato with increased beta carotone content. “For sweet potatoes, we want…
Tag: Content
Disney+ Added Content Disclaimers to 18 Episodes of ‘The Muppet Show’
118 episodes of Jim Henson’s classic TV series The Muppet Show are now streaming on Disney+, writes the AV Club — but 18 episodes now begin with a content disclaimer… The text of the disclaimers, which cannot be skipped past and include little 12-second timers so you know that you have to sit through them, explain that the episodes feature “negative…
Martin Scorsese Argues Streaming Algorithms Devalue Cinema into ‘Content’
In a new essay for Harper’s magazine, Martin Scorsese argues the art of cinema is being systematically devalued and demeaned by streaming services and their algorithms, “and reduced to its lowest common denominator, ‘content.'” “Content” became a business term for all moving images: a David Lean movie, a cat video, a Super Bowl commercial, a superhero sequel, a series episode. It…
Did Facebook Change Its Rules to Placate the Right?
Former lobbyist/political advisor Joel Kaplan joined Facebook in 2011 to lead its Washington D.C. outreach, reports BuzzFeed news. But some employees said they were very unhappy with decisions made by both Kaplan and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: In April 2019, Facebook was preparing to ban one of the internet’s most notorious spreaders of misinformation and hate, Infowars founder Alex Jones. Then…
Twitter’s Misinformation-Fighting Tool ‘Birdwatch’ Makes Mistakes
The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a non-profit journalism school and research organization, analyzed Twitter’s 1,000-user pilot test of its Birdwatch fact-checking platform. Their conclusion? It makes mistakes. On February 5, Twitter flagged a post from controversial YouTuber Tim Pool that said the 2020 U.S. presidential election was rigged. The platform noted that the claim was disputed and turned off engagement…
Australian Law Could Make Internet ‘Unworkable’, Says World Wide Web Inventor Tim Berners-Lee
Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee has said Australia’s plan to make tech giants pay for journalism could render the internet as we know it “unworkable.” From a report: The inventor of the World Wide Web claimed that proposed laws could disrupt the established order of the internet. “Specifically, I am concerned that that code risks breaching a fundamental principle of the web…
Apple is Trying To Drag Valve Into its Ongoing Legal Battle with Epic Games, and Valve Wants Nothing To Do With It
A new court filing has revealed that, as part of the ongoing legal battle between Apple and Epic Games, Apple subpoenaed Valve Software in November 2020, demanding it provide huge amounts of commercial data about Steam sales and operations going over multiple years. From a report: Apple subpoenaed Valve under the basic argument that certain Steam information would be crucial to…
Microsoft Starts Removing Flash From Windows Devices
Microsoft has begun deploying this week KB4577586, a Windows update that permanently removes the Adobe Flash Player software from Windows devices. From a report: The update was formally announced last year at the end of October when Microsoft and other browser makers were preparing for the impending Flash end-of-life, scheduled for the end of 2020. According to a support document published…
Facebook’s Australian news ban is a fight the whole world should watch
Plans by the Australian government to force digital firms to compensate news providers have pushed Facebook to ban news content in the country, as part of a fight that could have a global impact on media regulation Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2268431-facebooks-australian-news-ban-is-a-fight-the-whole-world-should-watch/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Following Facebook’s News Ban in Australia, Posts Disappear From Pages of Some Government Agencies, Also Some Restaurant and Humor Sites
Facebook has restricted access to news in Australia, and so far the tech giant seems to have taken a pretty broad definition of news. From a report: Some pages that don’t fit the traditional news genre have been stripped out as part of the stoush between Facebook and the federal government over whether the social media company should pay for Australian…