Category: media

Without a change in this design, nothing else can change. Moderation is impractical when you have 3 billion users speaking hundreds of languages in dozens of political cultures. AI is hopeless at nuance. And asking society to change itself – by telling people to be more cautious about what they read and repost or adding fact-checks to posts – is like replacing plastic straws to ameliorate environmental catastrophe. It makes for good PR, but the effects are so small as to be inconsequential. – The Guardian

The world of Law & Order was so attractive, the righteousness of its heroes so, well, right. Then college happened, and a lot of getting pulled over. “Too often, cop-centered stories portray its stars as heroes and ignore the broader failures that leave black people on the receiving end of police bias. And while it would seem easy to take predominantly white police stories and diversify them with black actors—a plug-and-play approach to representation—that method becomes a double-edged sword when fictional black police bolster a status quo narrative.” – The Atlantic

TV execs hold a roundtable to discuss (tiny) ways some things might change, including centering stories written by and about African Americans. “You have to be very front and center about this and tie it to yearly goals and objectives. …So I find that when you’re talking about the goals of the team in terms of ratings and what success looks like in the organization, a conversation also needs to be tied around what the stories are that we’re telling.” – Variety

Well, maybe something is salvageable (though very possibly not, as numbers of infections continue to mount): “If audiences show faith in theaters’ revamped safety, social-distancing, and cleaning protocols, this July and August’s remaining ticket returns could help reverse a death spiral that has so far yielded a barely consequential $3 million in ticket sales between April and June, and narrowed the usual field of 25 to 30 potential blockbusters to just 7 or 8 wide-release films.” – Vulture

Of course, there will be plastic between customers and food workers; there will be spaces between people in the theatres; and … there will be Singing in the Rain, at least until new movies start coming out again at some point in the future. – BBC

“Perhaps one reason why America’s national reckoning on police brutality took so long to arrive is because TV is conditioning its citizens to view cops as reliable heroes. Of the 69 scripted television dramas that aired on the big four US broadcast networks (CBS, NBC, Fox, and ABC) in the last year-and-a-half, 35 were about law enforcement.” (And that’s not counting comedies like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, reality shows like Cops, or syndicated reruns.) “Numerous academic studies over many years have showed that viewing cop shows can leaded to warped views of the criminal justice system and policing.” – Quartz

Given the festival’s date shift from early May to late June, Cannes now looks far better than it did a few months ago at the beginning of a lockdown that stretched across the planet, shuttering theaters from Beijing to New York. But now, cineplexes have begun to reopen in Europe and Asia, with box office figures in some territories like Scandinavia, Japan and South Korea exceeding expectations. Adding to the cautious optimism is the fact that U.S. theaters are poised to open up in July. – The Hollywood Reporter

Johnny Mnemonic. The Net. Hackers. Strange Days. “It’s hard to know what’s most dated about these mid-’90s curios: the primitive-looking effects, the funky fashions or the clunky technology depicted on screen. But now, 25 years later, they’ve proved prescient in their concerns about surveillance, corporate power and the corruption of what seemed to be an excitingly democratic new age.” – CNET