The Las Vegas-based network made news in September when it announced “severe cash flow issues,” laid off its staff in Reno, and saw its CEO resign. Now the new interim chief says “We were very close to having to shut the doors” and that the board didn’t know there was financial trouble until August. Forensic accountants are investigating. – Current
Category: media
YouTube’s Content Moderation System Is Wiping Out Evidence Of War Crimes In Syria, Say Advocates
Yes, it’s a tricky issue: the video platform, along with Facebook, is facing pressure from many sides to remove violent and extremist content; review and removal by humans is slow (and traumatizing for those doing the work), but algorithms are a blunt instrument. In a Video Op-Ed, Syrian activist and archivist Hadi Al Khatib argues that those algorithms are erasing documentation of violence that will be important to history and, potentially, to pursuing justice. – The New York Times
Why The Recent Backlash Against Superhero Movies?
Maybe that’s been happening on a global level. Maybe still we need more of it. There are always arguments for and against processing reality through genre escapism and there are always “healthy” and “unhealthy” examples of it. It’s not black and white. – The Guardian
Is There Really Such A Thing As Video Game Addiction? Yes.
As of this year, the World Health Organization thinks so, and the American Psychiatric Association has included “internet gaming disorder” in the DSM. More than a few people are skeptical, including some researchers (one says “this whole thing is an epistemic dumpster fire”). “[Yet] a substantial body of evidence now demonstrates that although video-game addiction is by no means an epidemic, it is a real phenomenon afflicting a small percentage of gamers.” – The New York Times Magazine
Why Australian Movies Are Less Popular Now Than 30 Years Ago
The Australian film box office numbers show a simple fact: Aussie films are less popular in Australia today than they were 30 to 40 years ago. – Spectator
Facebook And Misconceptions About Free Speech
“The problem is that Facebook doesn’t offer free speech; it offers free amplification. No one would much care about anything you posted to Facebook, no matter how false or hateful, if people had to navigate to your particular page to read your rantings, as in the very early days of the site.” – TechCrunch
Cannes Plans To Spend Half A Billion Euros To Make Itself Into An ‘Audiovisual Silicon Valley’
The project, called “Cannes on Air,” includes adding another floor to the Palais des Festivals, building a new museum of cinema history and a state-of-the-art 12-screen multiplex, and establishing a new university for film, TV, video games and online media. – The Hollywood Reporter
How The Language Of Emojis Evolves
Emoji sink or swim on less democratic tides. They aren’t quite words, of course, though they’re certainly word-adjacent. (Three out of four Americans regularly deploy emoji in text messages, and at least six billion emoji are sent across the major social media platforms each day.) – The New Republic
Netflix Reveals What Its Audience Is Watching. Here’s What We Learned
Although we’re still starved of the bottom end of the list and, disappointingly yet tellingly, any box-office data for its theatrical releases, we can start to see what is and isn’t working for the platform. – Irish Times
Why 120-Frames-Per-Second Ruins The Cinema Experience
“Our suspension of disbelief — the very thing that we need for the art form to work — dissipates. The smoothness and clarity of the image doesn’t make us feel like we’re sitting in a room with the characters from Gemini Man, it makes us feel like we’re suddenly sitting on the set with the actors from Gemini Man, watching them struggle through their lines.” What’s more, explains Bilge Ebiri, Ang Lee, who loves 120 fps tech so much, “is possibly the major director least suited to trying to make high frame rates work.” – Vulture