Category: issues

“In designing this new organization, Facebook’s leaders … formed a separate legal trust with an initial $130 million investment from Facebook. But they also empowered that trust to both accept funding from sources outside Facebook and to form companies of its own. That structure would ensure Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t just shut down the board if he didn’t like its decisions. But it also opens up the possibility that the trust might some day spin off additional oversight boards for, say, YouTube, Twitter or any other platform that makes content moderation decisions.” – Protocol

“It will hear only individual appeals about specific content that the company has removed from the service — and only a fraction of those appeals. The board can’t say anything about the toxic content that Facebook allows and promotes on the site. It will have no authority over advertising or the massive surveillance that makes Facebook ads so valuable. … It won’t dictate policy for Facebook Groups, where much of the most dangerous content thrives. And most importantly, the board will have no say over how the algorithms work and thus what gets amplified or muffled by the real power of Facebook.” – Wired

In non-pandemic times, even the most modest change at a college or university can take months, if not years. Think of the committees, reports, reviews, and approvals needed to introduce even a timid curriculum revision. That millions of faculty moved hundreds of thousands of courses online in a matter of weeks reveals the surprising resilience of academia in crisis. But with colleges and universities still shuttered and no clear indication of when they might reopen, don’t expect smooth sailing from now on. – Spectrum IEEE

“We will need to be prepared for an entirely new and multi-phased approach to audience and community engagement—both at the organizational and industry-wide levels. When there is no precedent, there is also no case study, so in my own formulation of possible ways forward, I’ve turned to approaches from outside our field and outside of our own literal context. In fact, this ultimately led me back to my training in social work.” – Tom OC

Colorado’s funders have been stepping up to prop up the arts with emergency money. But it’s clear that the need far outstrips the resources. What happens next? – Westword

“Many of the community’s original tenants remain, and with rents for a live-work studio in the building maxing at about $1,200 per month — $1,900 less than the median rent for a studio in the neighborhood, according to StreetEasy — who could blame them? But residents of Westbeth have found more than cut-rate rents among the 383 lofts designed by a young Richard Meier. Their Hudson River-facing community is a stronghold of creative output and unyielding spirit in a neighborhood that’s now at odds, at least financially, with the reality of being a working artist in New York.” – New York Post

The Association of Independent Festivals (AIF), which represents 65 festivals in the UK, including Gloucestershire’s 2000trees, London’s Meltdown and Sheffield’s Tramlines, reports 92% of its members saying they face costs that could ruin their businesses as a result of cancelled events, with the vast majority (98.5%) not covered by insurance for cancellation related to Covid-19. – The Guardian

“I think that’s the problem with the model. The institutions do have to exist, but when s**t gets hard they have to care about their staff, not their gig workers, or their artists. I mean they might say that they do, but there’s no net for the artists I don’t think because the artists aren’t employed by anyone. The artists are self-employed.” – Dance Magazine

Companies are considering not just how to safely bring back employees, but whether all of them need to come back at all. They were forced by the crisis to figure out how to function productively with workers operating from home — and realized unexpectedly that it was not all bad. If that’s the case, they are now wondering whether it’s worth continuing to spend as much money on Manhattan’s exorbitant commercial rents. – The New York Times