An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard, written by Katie Way: MILF Manor is a reality TV show made to be dissected on the internet. Everything, from its ripped-from-30-Rock title to the Oedipal set-up of mothers and their sons thrown into the same "dating pool," is so patently outrageous that it boomerangs back into normalcy -- of course these mothers need to participate in a blindfolded contest to identify their sons by their abs alone. But MILF Manor's most understated quirk is the one that sticks out to me: There's no tanned, vaguely handsome man with veneers and a dress shirt directing the festivities. Instead, contestants receive alerts and directions via text, on iPhones in magenta cases that seem to be provided by the producers. Like more and more reality TV competition shows, there's no actual host.

By my estimation, Netflix's The Circle kicked the trend off in 2020. Its contestants, who compete to create the most lovable social media presence in physical isolation, receive prompts and challenges from a big-screen TV in their living quarters. Pressure Cooker, a more recent offering from the streaming giant, is a cooking competition show where the host is replaced by a kitchen ticket printer: Competitions receive challenge instructions and the results of game-ending votes in the same way chefs take orders from their diners. The Button, a YouTube speed dating series by the production company Cut, goes a step further with the introduction of a large talking button that cracks jokes and prompts daters to ask each other cringe-worthy questions until one of them presses it, ending the date and sending in another option.

Why axe the role of host when it's been a staple of the formula for so long? It could be a sign of the recession. Reality TV competition shows are famously among the cheapest television to produce, but if I've learned anything about business, it's that executives have never met a corner they're not dying to cut. It could also be that the role of reality TV host is not attracting the same iconic cultural figures it once was, when the subgenre exploded in popularity in the early 2000s. [...] At the core, though, I believe there's something more insidious at play: Robots are once again stealing jobs from red-blooded human workers. Only this time, instead of factory linemen or fast food cashiers, these laborers are C-List comedians and guys who are incredibly symmetrical but not quite hot. (Again, Jeff Probst, I am not talking about you!) Sure, I know machine intelligence doesn't experience emotion -- yet! -- and I know that all of these robo-hosts are likely operated by producers -- for now! But isn't toying with people in a high-stress, high-stakes situation, the exact job description of a reality competition host, the absolute dream gig for a robot? Seems a little too perfect. "Experts already predict that AI and machine learning could replace people working as couriers, investment analysts, and customer service representatives," concludes Way. "Adding reality competition show hosts to that list means the creep into our cultural landscape has already started, which is a distinctly scary thought, in my book. Our flesh is weak, our MILFs are fragile, and we are so, so vulnerable to the clinical calculations of our machine overlords -- uh, I mean, hosts."

Meta, Microsoft and Apple, and Google all want carbon-free power. But Google "says its goals for carbon-free power are impeded by state-regulated utilities," reports the New York Times, especially those in America's Southeastern states which aren't facing a competitive market. Google's battle in the region, where it has a major concentration of data centers, raises a question that applies to the energy transition everywhere: Is what's good for a few companies good for all?

At the heart of their campaign, Google and its tech giant allies want to dismantle a decades-old regulatory system in the Southeast that allows a handful of utilities to generate and sell the region's electricity — and replace it with a market in which many companies can compete to do so. Such markets exist in some form in much of the country, but the Southeastern utilities are staunchly defending the status quo. Senior utility executives contend that their system better insulates consumers from spikes in prices of commodities like natural gas, promotes reliability and supports the long-term investments needed to develop clean-power technologies....

Most electricity in the United States was long generated and distributed by heavily regulated monopoly utilities in each state. But just before the start of this century, lawmakers and regulators, arguing that competition would bring efficiencies, made it possible to set up power markets and end the dominance of the utilities — a revolution that bypassed the Southeast. Google and others contend that the markets have brought cost savings, innovation and the capital needed to increase clean power generation from wind and solar. The most recent move toward a form of power market, in a group of Western states, has saved nearly $3 billion since 2014, according to the market operator.

Self-interest also plays a role: In power markets, large companies can strike deals with independent producers that give them more leeway to bargain on price and secure more clean energy. Google entered a landmark deal last year to provide clean power to its data centers in Virginia, which is in a sprawling market called PJM....

The big utilities in the Southeast are now building more solar projects, but those pushing for a market in the region say it's not enough. In the region, the proposed solar projects' generating capacity is equivalent to just over a fourth of total capacity, which is far below the 80 percent for PJM, according to an analysis by Tyler Norris, a senior executive at Cypress Creek Renewables, a solar company, and a special adviser in the Energy Department during the Obama administration. "Project developers are attracted to open wholesale electricity markets with price transparency, independent oversight and the ability to trade with multiple potential customers," Mr. Norris said.

The creators of "South Park" have secured a $20 million investment for their AI entertainment startup Deep Voodoo. Variety reports: The funding was led by Connect Ventures, an investment partnership between CAA and venture-capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA). It's the first outside capital raised by Deep Voodoo, which previously was funded entirely by Parker and Stone's independent entertainment company, Park County. Stone and Parker plan to use the new funding to "accelerate Deep Voodoo's development of its leading deepfake technology, cost-effective visual effects services and original synthetic media projects," according to the announcement.

Stone and Parker's Deep Voodoo began building their proprietary deepfake technology in early 2020, and the duo assembled a team of artists for a feature film about Donald Trump they had developed. In October of that year, they released "Sassy Justice," a 14-minute comedy short featuring a deepfaked Trump (voiced by Peter Serafinowicz), which went viral. But they suspended the movie project due to the COVID pandemic, and pivoted Deep Voodoo to be a provider of deepfake tools to the industry. With Connect Ventures' investment, Deep Voodoo has begun offering its "unrivaled face-swapping visual effects" to artists, producers and creators across the industry, per the announcement.

"Peak TV has peaked," reports the new York Times: The never-ending supply of new programming that helped define the streaming era — spawning shows at a breakneck pace but also overwhelming viewers with too many choices — appears to finally be slowing. The number of adult scripted series ordered by TV networks and streaming companies aimed for U.S. audiences fell by 24 percent in the second half of this year, compared with the same period last year, according to Ampere Analysis, a research firm. Compared with 2019, it is a 40 percent drop. "The second half of the year has really gone off a bit of a cliff," said Fred Black, a research manager at Ampere.

It may take some time for that to become apparent to viewers — if it becomes apparent at all, given the glut. It is usually months and sometimes more than a year for a TV show to premiere after a network orders it.

The drop is a result of broader reckoning inside the entertainment industry. For years, television executives tossed off billions of dollars on TV series to help build out their streaming services and chase subscribers. The spending has been a boon to high-profile writers and producers, who captured eight- and nine-figure deals, as well as for the actors, directors and behind-the-scenes workers who kept the engine going. But Wall Street soured on the buy-at-any-cost strategy starting in the spring, when Netflix, the streaming powerhouse, announced that it had lost subscribers for the first time in a decade. Netflix's stock nose-dived, and other entertainment companies soon watched their share prices fall, too. Hollywood companies quickly shifted, putting a new emphasis on higher profits instead of raw subscriber counts.

Then, in recent months, entertainment companies became increasingly anxious about a slowing economy, the cord-cutting movement and a troublesome advertising market. Since the summer, scores of executives have abruptly been dismissed, strict cost-cutting measures have been adopted and layoffs have taken hold throughout the industry.... Netflix also cut hundreds of jobs and introduced a cheaper advertising tier, overturning the company's longtime pledge to never allow commercials on the service. Warner Bros. Discovery, a company that was formed in April, faces a debt of roughly $50 billion, and has been in severe cost-cutting mode. There have been rounds of layoffs companywide, including at HBO and HBO Max, as well as sudden cancellations. The once-popular series "Westworld" was canceled last month — a move that surprised Hollywood — and the lesser-known, raunchy dating series "FBoy Island" was cut a few weeks ago....

There are a few outliers to this year's trend: Apple TV+ and Amazon have increased the number of adult scripted series they have purchased this year. So has Disney, according to Ampere's research. (For the second half of the year, however, Disney's buying has declined compared with the same period last year.)

Fandom is rolling up a suite of entertainment and gaming content properties -- including TV Guide and Metacritic -- in a deal with digital-marketing company Red Ventures worth about $50 million. Variety reports: San Francisco-based Fandom acquired GameSpot, Metacritic, TV Guide, GameFAQs, Giant Bomb, Cord Cutters News and Comic Vine under the deal. The sites collectively attract 46 million monthly active users, according to Fandom. Financial terms of the pact were not disclosed; a source familiar with the deal pegged it "in the mid-eight figures," with Fandom paying the roughly $50 million for the properties in cash. Red Ventures had acquired TV Guide, Metacritic and GameSpot in 2020 as part of its $500 million deal to buy the CNET Media Group from Paramount Global.

Founded in 2004, Fandom today hosts more than 250,000 user-curated wiki pages spanning pop culture, gaming, TV and film -- reaching some 300 million monthly active users. Fandom was founded by Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia co-founder, and entrepreneur Angela Beesley Starling. In 2018, Fandom was sold to a company backed by venture-capital firm TPG headed by Jon Miller.

The latest deal continues Fandom's expansion beyond its wiki-based roots. In 2018, Fandom acquired ScreenJunkies, producers of the popular "Honest Trailer" series, from now-defunct digital media company Defy Media. The company acquired Curse Media in 2019 which brought together gaming wikis with integrated digital gaming tools. In 2021, Fandom acquired Fanatical, a an online video-game retailer. Fandom Productions, the content arm of Fandom, will house GameSpot, TV Guide and Metacritic, along with the Honest Trailers team and the weekly video news program "The Loop."

"Creators aren't getting paid," says Cory Doctorow. "That's because powerful corporations have figured out how to create chokepoints — that let them snatch up more of the value generated by creative work before it reaches creative workers."

But he's doing something about it.

Doctorow's teamed up with Melbourne-based law professor Rebecca Giblin, the director of Australia's Intellectual Property Research Institute, for a new book that first "pulls aside the veil on the tricks Big Tech and Big Content use..." But more importantly, it also presents specific ideas for "how we can recapture creative labor markets to make them fairer and more sustainable." Their announcement describes the book as "A Big Tech/Big Content disassembly manual," saying it's "built around shovel-ready ideas for shattering the chokepoints that squeeze creators and audiences — technical, commercial and legal blueprints for artists, fans, arts organizations, technologists, and governments to fundamentally restructure the broken markets for creative labor."

Or, as they explain later, "Our main focus is action." Lawrence Lessig says the authors "offer a range of powerful strategies for fighting back." Anil Dash described it as "a credible, actionable vision for a better, more collaborative future where artists get their fair due." And Douglas Rushkoff called the book "an infuriating yet inspiring call to collective action."

The book is titled "Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back." And at one point their Kickstarter page lays down a thought-provoking central question about ownership. "For 40 years, every question about creators rights had the same answer: moar copyright. How's that worked out for artists?" And then it features a quote from Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales. "Copyright can't unrig a rigged market — for that you need worker power, antitrust, and solidarity."

A Kickstarter campaign to raise $10,000 has already raised $72,171 — in its first five days — from over 1,800 backers. That's partly because, underscoring one of the book's points, their Kickstarter campaign is offering "an audiobook Amazon won't sell." While Amazon will sell you a hardcover or Kindle edition of the book.... Audible has a hard and fast rule: if you're a publisher or writer who wants to sell your audiobook on Audible, you have to let it be wrapped in "Digital Rights Management," aka DRM: digital locks that permanently bind your work to the Audible platform. If a reader decides to leave Audible, DRM stops them taking the books they've already bought with them.... Every time Audible sells a book, DRM gives it a little bit more power to shake down authors and publishers. Amazon uses that stolen margin to eliminate competition and lock-in more users, ultimately giving it even more power over the people who actually make and produce books.
The announcement says their book "is about traps like the one Audible lays for writers and readers. We show how Big Tech and Big Content erect chokepoints between creators and audiences, allowing them to lock in artists and producers, eliminate competition, and extract far more than their fair share of revenues from creative labour. No way are we going to let Audible put its locks on our audiobook.

"So we're kickstarting it instead."

The announcement notes that Cory Doctorow himself has written dozens of books, "and he won't allow digital locks on any of them." And then in 2020, "Cory had an idea: what if he used Kickstarter to pre-sell his next audiobook? It was the most successful audiobook crowdfunding campaign in history."

So now Cory's working instead with independent audiobook studio Skyboat Media "to make great editions, which are sold everywhere except Audible (and Apple, which only carries Audible books): Libro.fm, Downpour, Google Play and his own storefront. Cory's first kickstarter didn't just smash all audiobook crowdfunding records — it showed publishers and other writers that there were tons of people who cared enough about writers getting paid fairly that they were willing to walk away from Amazon's golden cage. Now we want to send that message again — this time with a book that takes you behind the curtain to unveil the Machiavellian tactics Amazon and the other big tech and content powerhouses use to lock in users, creators and suppliers, eliminate competition, and extract more than their fair share....

Chokepoint Capitalism is not just a rollicking read, and a delightful listen: it also does good.

Your willingness to break out of the one-click default of buying from the Audible monopoly in support of projects like this sends a clear message to writers, publishers, and policymakers that you have had enough of the unfair treatment of creative workers, and you are demanding change.
Rewards include ebooks, audiobooks, hardcover copies, and even the donation of a copy to your local library. You can also pledge money without claiming a reward, or pledge $1 as a show of support for "a cryptographically signed email thanking you for backing the project. Think of it as a grift-free NFT."

Craig Newmark says the book documents "the extent to which competition's been lost throughout the creative industries, and how this pattern threatens every other worker. There is still time to do something about it, but the time to act is now."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The parent company of Facebook and Instagram has banned seven firms it says used its platforms to spy on some 50,000 unsuspecting targets, including human rights activists, government critics, celebrities, journalists and ordinary people in more than 100 countries. These "surveillance-for-hire" companies were linked to around 1,500 accounts on Facebook and Instagram that were used to collect information on people and try to trick them into handing over sensitive personal information so that the firms could install spyware on their devices, according to a report released on Thursday by Meta, formerly known as Facebook.

"Each of these actors rely on networks of fake accounts on our platforms that are used to deceive users and mislead them," Nathaniel Gleicher, Meta's head of security policy, told NPR. Some firms also used Meta's WhatsApp to infect targets' phones with malware. The surveillance was also carried out over other internet services, from email and text messages to Twitter and YouTube. The goal, Gleicher said, is to "spy on people or snoop on them without them knowing about it." Gleicher's team spent months investigating surveillance activity before taking action against the seven companies for violating Meta's community standards and terms of service. Four of the firms are based in Israel, and the other three in China, India, and North Macedonia.

They include Black Cube, an Israel-based intelligence group reportedly used by Harvey Weinstein to dig up dirt on his accusers and journalists. Meta said Black Cube created fake accounts posing as graduate students, human rights workers and film and TV producers and tried to set up phone calls and get email addresses for a wide range of targets, from Palestinian activists to people working in medicine, mining and nonprofit organizations to figures involved in Russia's tech, finance, real estate and media sectors. [...] Another Israeli firm called Bluehawk CI tried to trick government opponents in the United Arab Emirates by pretending to be reporters for Fox News and Italy's La Stampa, Meta said. Meta also took down accounts connected to "an unidentified entity in China" that, Meta says, made tools used by Chinese law enforcement to spy on minority groups in Xinjiang, Myanmar and Hong Kong. "Meta has banned the companies from its platforms, removed the accounts it linked to them, and sent them cease-and-desist warnings," adds NPR. "It is notifying around 50,000 people whom it believes were targeted, and shared its findings with security researchers, other tech companies and policymakers."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios: The concept of a new media ecosystem that's non-profit, publicly funded and tech-infused is drawing interest in policy circles as a way to shift the power dynamics in today's information wars. Revamping the structure and role of public media could be part of the solution to shoring up local media, decentralizing the distribution of quality news, and constraining Big Tech platforms' amplification of harmful or false information.

Congress in 1967 authorized federal operating money to broadcast stations through a new agency, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and what is now PBS launched down-the-middle national news programming and successful kids shows like "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" and "Sesame Street." NPR was born in 1971. Despite dust-ups over political interference of national programming and funding, hundreds of local community broadcast stations primarily received grants directly to choose which national programs to support.

A new policy paper from the German Marshall Fund proposes a full revamp of the CPB to fund not just broadcast stations, but a wide range of digital platforms and potential content producers including independent journalists, local governments, nonprofits and educational institutions. The idea is to increase the diversity of local civic information, leaning on anchor institutions like libraries and colleges that communities trust. Beyond content, the plan calls for open protocol standards and APIs to let consumers mix and match the content they want from a wide variety of sources, rather than being at the mercy of Facebook, Twitter or YouTube algorithms. Data would be another crucial component. In order to operate, entities in the ecosystem would have to commit to basic data ethics and rules about how personal information is used.

Black Widow has a new enemy: the Walt Disney. From a report: Scarlett Johansson, star of the latest Marvel movie "Black Widow," filed a lawsuit Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court against Disney, alleging her contract was breached when the media giant released the film on its Disney+ streaming service at the same time as its theatrical debut. Ms. Johansson said in the suit that her agreement with Disney's Marvel Entertainment guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release, and her salary was based in large part on the box-office performance of the film.

"Disney intentionally induced Marvel's breach of the agreement, without justification, in order to prevent Ms. Johansson from realizing the full benefit of her bargain with Marvel," the suit said. The suit could be a bellwether for the entertainment industry. Major media companies are prioritizing their streaming services in pursuit of growth, and are increasingly putting their high-value content on those platforms. Those changes have significant financial implications for actors and producers, who want to ensure that growth in streaming doesn't come at their expense.

The Washington Post reports that this week the U.S. government "banned the import of solar panels and other goods made with materials produced by a Chinese company that it accused of using forced laborers from China's Xinjiang region, a move likely to complicate the U.S. push toward clean energy." U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a withhold release order Thursday barring silicon-based products from the company, Hoshine Silicon, which operates from plants in Xinjiang that have been connected to coercive state labor programs targeting Uyghurs and other minorities, as The Post reported on Thursday.

The order could have widespread impact on the solar industry, which is dominated by Chinese suppliers that source materials from Hoshine, the world's largest producer of metallurgical-grade silicon, a key raw material in solar panels. "Almost the complete solar industry is affected by Hoshine," said Johannes Bernreuter, a research analyst in Germany who studies the solar supply chain... By banning only Hoshine imports, CBP stopped short of targeting Xinjiang producers of another key solar ingredient, polysilicon. Those producers have also been connected to coercive labor programs targeting Uyghurs. In a note to investors, Height Securities described the ban "as a substantive but measured first shot across the bow" by the Biden administration, "which needs solar industry support" as it tries to balance rooting out forced labor in U.S. supply chains and an environmental agenda...

[I]ndustry experts said enforcement could be a challenge given the complexity of the solar supply chain and Hoshine's dominance in the industry. Hoshine has produced metallurgical-grade silicon for at least eight of the world's largest polysilicon makers, according to the company's public statements and annual reports. Analysts say that together these firms account for nearly all of the world's supply of solar-grade polysilicon. The move could also undermine U.S. hopes of cooperating with China on climate change, one of few areas of potential collaboration between the two countries increasingly at loggerheads over human rights and investigating the origin of the covid-19 pandemic... Industry experts say it would be safer for U.S. agents to assume all silicon products entering the United States from China contain at least some material sourced from Hoshine, whose metallurgical-grade silicon is used in a wide range of consumer products, including electronics, cars, chemicals and sealants...

The import ban was the most prominent of several measures the Biden administration took Thursday against China's solar-product suppliers. The Commerce Department also added several Chinese polysilicon producers to an export black list, which bars U.S. entities from exporting technology or other goods to the firms without first obtaining a government license.

Nieman Lab: In a paper summarizing 30 years of sports coverage on televised news and highlights shows, researchers began by quoting a short segment dedicated to a WNBA game between the L.A. Sparks and the Atlanta Dream. The broadcast was unusual, authors Cheryl Cooky, LaToya D. Council, Maria A. Mears, and Michael A. Messner pointed out, in that women's sports were mentioned at all. They found that 80% of the televised sports news and highlights shows included zero stories on women's sports. The overall portion of sports coverage featuring women had been low for decades and, in 2019, an overwhelming 95% of the sports coverage included in their study focused on men's sports. But, they wrote, the WNBA segment was typical in other ways. The 23-second-long clip was the only mention of women's sports in the six-minute long sports segment -- and it was also the shortest. Other coverage included Major League Baseball games and the men's Wimbledon final, but also segments on a celebrity golf tournament and a competitive hot-dog eating contest. "In short, the WNBA story -- the shortest in duration of the six in the broadcast -- was eclipsed by five longer reports on men's sports, stories ranging from in-season sports (MLB, pro tennis), an out-of-season sport (NBA), to human interest and comedic entertainment only tangentially connected to what most people think of as sports news," the report found.

The study analyzed sports coverage on local network television (the Los Angeles affiliates KCBS, KNBC, and KABC) as well as highlight shows like ESPN's SportsCenter over the 30 years. In 2019 -- after sport media producers and others suggested televised news and highlights shows were not as relevant as they once were -- the researchers started to include online and social media sources, like Twitter accounts for the networks. The proportion of coverage dedicated to women's sports in email newsletters and Twitter was higher than TV news and SportsCenter, but only if the researchers included espnW and its online newsletter. ESPN stopped producing espnW's weekly newsletter, however, and, when researchers removed the data from their sample, the proportions dedicated to women's sports mirrored that found on TV news and highlights shows.

The founder and manager of Iran's main video-sharing platform, referred to by some as Iran's YouTube, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of "encouraging corruption" over a video posted by a user. Radio Free Europe reports: In the video posted on Aparat.com last year, children were asked whether they know how they were born, Iranian media reported. The verdict against Aparat Chief Executive Officer Mohammad Javad Shakuri Moghadam was reported by domestic media on October 25. The sentence was reportedly issued in mid-October by Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court presided over by judge Mohammad Moghiseh, who is known for handing down harsh sentences. Moghiseh was last year blacklisted by the U.S. State Department for miscarriage of justice.

Shakuri Moghadam, who was awarded a government medal of honor as one of the country's top entrepreneurs about two years ago, can appeal the sentence. The controversial video was said to have been removed an hour after being posted on Aparat, which has millions of Iranian users. The producers of the video were also arrested with authorities then claiming that they had received complaints from concerned citizens and families. The BBC reported that seven others accused in the case have been each sentenced to 11 years in prison after being convicted of "encouraging corruption" and "publishing vulgar content."

In a study the Pew Research Center released today, 26% of U.S. adults said they now get their news from YouTube. That includes 23% via videos posted by news organizations and 23% from independent YouTube channels. Researchers surveyed 12,638 U.S. adults for the report. VentureBeat reports: "The study finds a news landscape on YouTube in which established news organizations and independent news creators thrive side by side -- and consequently, one where established news organizations no longer have full control over the news Americans watch," the authors wrote. The report defines "external news organizations" as both traditional media like the New York Times and digital-native outlets like BuzzFeed. Independent channels can include celebrities like John Oliver alongside "YouTubers," the 30% who have built their following almost entirely on the platform.

While the report paints a picture of a thriving news ecosystem, it also notes some disturbing differences between traditional and independent sources. Independent channels, for instance, tend to be built around personalities, rather than a broader news organization. And those independent channels are far more likely to focus on conspiracy theories around subjects like anti-vaccine topics or Jeffrey Epstein's death. The report analyzed 3,000 videos posted from the 100 top YouTube news channels in November and December 2019 and found that 4% involved conspiracy theories of some kind. But among independent channels, 14% of videos were primarily dedicated to conspiracy theories, and up to 21% made some mention of them. Only 2% of videos by traditional news organizations mentioned conspiracy theories. In addition, 37% of videos from independent channels tended to view their subjects through a negative lens, versus just 17% from news organizations. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that negativity seemed to drive more views, which has made this subset of independent channels particularly problematic for YouTube.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: San Diego Comic-Con -- like just about every large conference, convention, and gathering in 2020 -- has had to switch to an online-only virtual format this year due to the continuing pandemic. Media companies that usually have a large presence at events like SDCC worked hard to create streaming alternative content -- but it seems they forgot to tell their copyright bots.

ViacomCBS kicked things off today with an hour-long panel showing off its slew of current and upcoming Star Trek projects: Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, and Strange New Worlds. The panel included the cast and producers of Discovery doing a read-through of the first act of the season 2 finale, "Such Sweet Sorrow, Part 2." The "enhanced" read-through included sound effects, effects shots, and storyboard images meant to bolster the actors as they delivered lines from their living rooms and home offices. Even if the presentation didn't look like a real episode of Discovery to the home viewer, it apparently sounded close enough: after the Star Trek Universe virtual panel began viewers began to lose access to the stream. In place of the video, YouTube displayed a content ID warning reading: "Video unavailable: This video contains content from CBS CID, who has blocked it on copyright grounds." After being blacked out for about 20 minutes, the panel was restored, and the recording of the virtual panel has no gaps in playback.

Quibi, the streaming app veteran executive Jeffrey Katzenberg started with Meg Whitman a little more than a month ago -- and for which it raised $1.8 billion -- is off to a rough start. From a report: Downloads have been anemic, despite a lineup that includes producers and stars like Jennifer Lopez, LeBron James, Idris Elba, Steven Spielberg and Chrissy Teigen. The service, which offers entertainment and news programs in five- to 10-minute chunks, was designed to be watched on the go by people who are too busy to sit down and stream TV shows or movies. It came out when millions of people were not going anywhere because of stay-at-home orders across the country. "I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus," Mr. Katzenberg said in a video interview. "Everything. But we own it."

Quibi fell out of the list of the 50 most downloaded free iPhone apps in the United States a week after it went live on April 6. It is now ranked No. 125, behind the game app Knock'em All and the language-learning app Duolingo, according to the analytics firm Sensor Tower. Even with a free 90-day trial, the app has been installed by only 2.9 million customers, according to Sensor Tower. Quibi says the figure is more like 3.5 million. Of those who have installed the app, the company says 1.3 million are active users. Mr. Katzenberg expressed disappointment with those numbers. "Is it the avalanche of people that we wanted and were going for out of launch?" he said. "The answer is no. It's not up to what we wanted. It's not close to what we wanted." So nobody wants to use a short-form video app right now, except an increasingly growing number of people who are hooked to TikTok. Nobody wants to spend money on a service, but Quibi is free for first three months. Yeah, it's the coronavirus.

"With the pandemic having shut down production, companies are asking ad agencies to create commercials made up of digitally altered footage," reports the New York Times, citing a State Farm commercial that aired during an ESPN documentary starring the anchor of "SportsCenter," Kenny Mayne: The producers made the commercial by layering video of Mr. Mayne's 60-year-old mouth onto footage of his 38-year-old face. To many viewers, the stunt provided a welcome moment of levity in depressing times. Others were made uneasy by the smoothness of the patch, describing it as a type of deepfake. "We tried to make the joke clear enough so that we weren't tricking anyone," said Carrie Brzezinski-Hsu, the head of ESPN CreativeWorks, which created the commercial with the ad agencies Optimum Sports and Translation.

Ms. Brzezinski-Hsu said manipulated footage was likely to appear in future ESPN ads. And executives at several major advertising agencies said they had discussed making similar commercials with their clients in recent weeks. "We're so restricted in how we can generate content," said Kerry Hill, the production director for the ad agency FCB in North America. "Anything that can be computer generated is something we're going to explore."

Husani Oakley, the chief technology officer of the ad firm Deutsch, said digitally altered ads should somehow clue viewers into the fact that what they are seeing is not completely real. "The technology is here, and it's only going to get better and better, and we have to get used to it," he added. "We're exploring ways to have fun with it."

Streaming service touts its large collection of titles, but a majority are uploads -- and questionable films are in the mix [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; an alternative source wasn't immediately available.]. From a report: When Walter Wilson, a construction worker from North Carolina, sat down to watch the blockbuster "Avengers: Endgame" on Amazon Prime Video, he ended up seeing something very different: a 2007 documentary, also titled "Endgame," directed by far-right talk show host Alex Jones. Mr. Jones's videos have been banned from many mainstream sites like Apple's iTunes and Facebook for promoting outlandish conspiracy theories. "Endgame" purported to document a clandestine organization of bankers and politicians bent on establishing a "blueprint for global enslavement." Its availability on Amazon.com's streaming service highlighted a fact not widely known among subscribers: The e-commerce giant accepts nonprofessional and questionable content to offer a video library that in Amazon's style can dominate the competition through sheer volume.

While the video service is known for original movies and shows that have won Oscars and Emmys -- such as "Manchester By the Sea" and "Transparent" -- the site also carries thousands of conspiracy-theory videos, amateur productions and short instructional clips. Similar to Alphabet's YouTube, some videos are uploaded by individuals who made them or by others owning the rights to the content. Others Amazon bought in bulk as part of vast libraries of amateur content. An Amazon spokeswoman says the company has sought a broad selection of content, including videos from award winners and independent producers.

Over the past decade, Netflix and its rivals have come to rely heavily on the power of algorithms, those top-secret computer programs designed to connect audiences with the programming they're most likely to enjoy based on what they've previously watched. But as Peak TV gives way to the era of Too Much TV and an even more ridiculous amount of content spreads across a rapidly multiplying number of services, platforms are supplementing that sophisticated software with a more low-tech method of helping subscribers find their next favorite show: human beings. From a report: While computer-generated suggestions aren't going away, companies are increasingly looking for other means to help viewers discover shows and movies they might otherwise have missed in a world where something significant premieres almost every day. The industry calls this "human curation," which is basically a fancy phrase for describing nonautomated ways of hyping specific content. AT&T-owned WarnerMedia's upcoming HBO Max service, for example, plans to expand its sister cable network's "Recommended by Humans" promotional campaign by having the stars and producers of its shows, as well as other celebrities, make short videos to highlight particular projects. Those videos will be embedded directly on the service in the hopes that, say, a testimonial from Zac Efron might prompt a young millennial to watch The Exorcist for the first time.

Meanwhile, Netflix, the platform known for its "Because You Watched ..." algorithmic suggestions, is currently beta testing something called "Collections," which are thematic playlists made by company staffers instead of its computers. Netflix isn't saying yet whether it plans to expand the test beyond a select pool of Apple iOS users or make it a permanent feature. Platforms are turning to human curation because of what they see as the limits of reactive recommendation algorithms: They can predict what you might like based on what you've watched in the past, but they can't forecast how your tastes might change or how you're feeling physically and mentally.

In a case that could have potential implications for social media, the Supreme Court has ruled that a nonprofit running public access channels isn't bound by governmental constraints on speech. "The case, which the conservative wing of the court decided in a split 5-4 ruling, centered around a Manhattan-based nonprofit tasked by New York City with operating public access channels in the area," reports The Verge. "The organization disciplined two producers after a film led to complaints, which the producers argued was a violation of their First Amendment speech rights. The case turned on whether the nonprofit was a 'state actor' running a platform governed by First Amendment constraints." From the report: In a decision written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the conservative justices ruled that the First Amendment constraints didn't apply to the nonprofit, which they considered a private entity. Providing a forum for speech wasn't enough to become a government actor, the justices ruled. Nowhere is the internet or social media discussed in the ruling, but the idea that the decision could be used to penalize social media companies was raised by groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The groups argued that too broad of a decision could prevent other private entities like YouTube and Twitter from managing their platforms by imposing new constraints them. The Internet Association, a trade group, said last year that such a decision could mean the internet "will become less attractive, less safe and less welcoming to the average user." But today's decision seems to assuage those concerns. The liberal justices on the court, in a dissenting ruling, argued instead that the terms under which the nonprofit ran the channels for the city should have bound it to First Amendment constraints. The nonprofit, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, "stepped into the City's shoes and thus qualifies as a state actor, subject to the First Amendment like any other."

dryriver asks a philosophical question: The producer of a tech product -- thanks to internet data mining -- may know all sorts of things about me, the buyer of a product. Gender, age, income level, education level, profession, geolocation, what I read online, who my social media friends are, what interests me intellectually, which way I swing politically, and more. For a few dollars spent, I am no "mystery" to the producer of this tech product.

But if I were to ask the producer of the product simple questions like "How much did the GPU component in this laptop you are selling me cost you?" or "What portion of the final asking price of this product is profit that goes to you?" I likely wouldn't get an answer. Information asymmetry is at play now -- the producing party in the buying transaction knows far, far more about me than I can possibly know about the producing party. And unlike the producing party, I cannot simply open my wallet and purchase "data mined information" about the producing party. Company secrets are company secrets. The "info buying" works in one direction only.

Is it a good thing for consumers that this "information asymmetry" exists in the first place? That pretty much any tech producer can learn about me with a few bucks spent, but I cannot get simple information like "How much did the Nvidia 1060 Mobile GPU in this 1,200 Dollar notebook cost the producer"?
Anyone have an answer? Leave your own thoughts in the comments. Is this information asymmetry between producers and consumers good?