Free speech in the age of deplatforming

As a staunch supporter of free speech, I’m concerned about the trend of major social media companies “deplatforming” certain users. I also understand that it is within their legal rights to deny service to those who violate their rules.
First Amendment protections are from government censorship and don’t apply to private companies. But in the internet age, services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are the new public spaces for discourse.
I realize that social media firms are in a tough position. They want an advertiser-friendly environment and are now having to police content for fake news, harassment and hate speech, especially speech that could incite violence.
Most people would agree it is a good idea for social media services to ban unrepentant trolls like Alex Jones who repeatedly push fake news and conspiracy theories. They pollute those platforms with lies and deception.
But social media companies run the risk of shutting down legitimate debate if they go too far with their enforcement of what they consider acceptable speech. Already Facebook and Twitter have cast their nets too wide and shut down users that they shouldn’t have.
Here are some recent examples:

• Chuck Ross, a reporter at The Daily Caller, was suspended from Twitter after making a "learn to code" joke because it was considered harassment. (Reason; March 11, 2019)
• Actor and outspoken conservative James Woods was locked out of his Twitter account, after being suspended for “abusive behavior” by paraphrasing American poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. (NTD; May 3, 2019)
• Twitter banned a parody account that made fun of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.), as well as the account’s creator and operator, Michael Morrison. (Reason; May 7, 2019)
• Twitter suspended a user for tweeting links to 3D printed gun designs. (Reason; May 17, 2019)
• Facebook deleted without warning or explanation the Banting7DayMealPlan user group. The group had 1.65 million users who post testimonials and other information regarding the efficacy of a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet. (Reason; May 24, 2019)

Meanwhile, critics note, Twitter and Facebook still allow violent groups like Hamas to use their platforms. That makes their policies appear arbitrary and capricious.

Related articles:

2018 was the year we (sort of) cleaned up the internet (Mashable; Dec. 26, 2018)

How Should Facebook (and Twitter, and YouTube, and …) Decide What Speech To Allow? (Reason; Dec. 31, 2018)

Should Twitter, Facebook, and Others Delete Provably Wrong Material? (Bloomberg Businessweek; March 5, 2019)

Facebook Has Every Right To Ban Louis Farrakhan and Alex Jones. But It's Still a Bad Idea. (Reason; May 3, 2019)

Here’s How Facebook Should Really Handle Alex Jones (Politico; May 3, 2019)

Content Moderation At Scale Is Impossible: Facebook Still Can't Figure Out How To Deal With Naked Breasts (Techdirt; May 6, 2019)

Photo: Twitter-inspired art from “Antisocial” photo series by Mike Campau.

E-sports league getting collectable trading cards

For generations, sports fans have collected trading cards featuring their favorite players in baseball, basketball and other sports. Now Upper Deck is coming out with trading cards featuring players and teams from a professional video game league, the Overwatch League.
It will mark the first time an esports league has had trading cards, according to a May 13 news release touting the deal.
“Overwatch League fans will now be able to buy, open, collect, and trade cards with other collectors across the globe through Upper Deck e-Pack, the patent-pending platform that allows fans to easily access trading card packs from anywhere in the world using a smart phone, tablet, or computer,” the news release said. “What makes the e-Pack system truly unique is the ability for users to get actual physical versions of cards sent directly to them at any time.”
The first Overwatch League-licensed trading card set will release on June 19.
Upper Deck cards have featured the world’s greatest athletes, including Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, Wayne Gretzky, Tiger Woods and more. Are esports players in the same class? Many people don’t even consider esports to be a legitimate sport.
I think it’s premature to put esports players on collectable cards. The Overwatch League only finished its inaugural season last year.
Meanwhile, one sport that could benefit from trading cards is the Legends Football League. The women’s football league, which got its start as the Lingerie Football League in 2009, has been promising trading cards since at least March 2011.
However, to my knowledge, the LFL has never come out with any physical trading cards. It has produced digital images of what the face of the cards would look like. But nothing yet for fans and collectors.

Photo: The first Overwatch League-licensed trading card set will release online on June 19 and will showcase fan-favorite players and teams from the league’s inaugural season. (PR Newswire)

K-pop music invasion brought to you by YouTube, social media

The Korean pop music invasion of the United States has picked up steam in recent months with tours by K-pop boy band BTS and girl group Blackpink.
You’d never know about the phenomenon if you listen to American radio, which is dominated by iHeartRadio. K-pop music doesn’t get airplay on the major U.S. radio stations.
Instead, K-pop reached its audience outside of Korea through YouTube and other online media.
On April 27, I attended the sold-out Blackpink concert in Hamilton, Ontario, with my 13-year-old daughter. The atmosphere was electric and the crowd filled with super fans of the quartet.
Blackpink members Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa and Rosé performed their hit songs and danced up a storm. It was a slickly produced performance, complete with a killer house band, big video screens, multiple stage elevators, and the requisite lasers, fog machines and pyrotechnics. The crowd sang along and danced to their big hits, including “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du,” “Kill This Love” and “Whistle.”
The next day, by chance, we met the South Korean group at a restaurant at Toronto Pearson International Airport. We told them how much we enjoyed their show and they thanked us before we were quickly shooed away by their management.
Blackpink made their U.S. concert debut at Coachella on April 12. They then kicked off the North American leg of their “Blackpink In Your Area” world tour on April 17 in Los Angeles.
The group is performing in six North American cities. In addition to L.A. and Hamilton, they are making stops in Chicago, Newark, Atlanta and Fort Worth.
Blackpink is filling a void in girl vocal groups in the U.S. The music scene in the states at the moment is dominated by solo female artists, led by Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift. Blackpink is “squad goals” for young girls who’d like to belong to a tight-knit group of friends.

My Twitter coverage of Blackpink’s visit to Canada:

It’s happening #Blackpink (April 27)

Incredible show by Blackpink tonight. (April 27)

Blackpink performed hits like “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du,” “Whistle” and “Kill This Love.” (April 27)

Met the ladies of Blackpink at Toronto Pearson International Airport this afternoon. My 13-year-old daughter was thrilled. Nice surprise. No photos. Didn’t want to intrude too much. (April 28)

News articles about Blackpink and K-pop:

What the Rise of Black Pink and BTS Says About the Future of K-pop (Vulture; Aug. 28, 2018)

How Blackpink Booked a North American Arena Tour Before Playing a Single U.S. Show (Billboard; Feb. 20, 2019)

Why K-Pop Is Finally Breaking Into the U.S. Mainstream (Billboard; Feb. 28, 2019)

Inside Blackpink’s U.S. Takeover: How the K-Pop Queens Are Changing the Game (Billboard; Feb. 28, 2019)

With ‘Kill This Love,’ K-pop queens Blackpink have made YouTube and iTunes history (Vox; April 8, 2019)

Blackpink proves BTS isn’t the only K-pop group that can find success in US (USA Today; April 16, 2019)

Blackpink Proved Why They’re the Biggest Modern Girl Group (Jezebel; May 3, 2019)

Photos: Blackpink, tour announcement and cover of Billboard magazine.

The TV content discovery problem

With the plethora of TV viewing options available today, keeping track of possible shows and movies to watch is a difficult task.
It’s only going to get worse as Apple, Disney and AT&T’s WarnerMedia launch subscription video-on-demand services later this year. They will join Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO, CBS and many others.
A recent survey of U.S. consumers by Deloitte found high frustration with the process of discovering video content across multiple platforms.
Nearly half (49%) of respondents said the sheer amount of content available makes it hard to choose what to watch.
A similar percentage (48%) said content is hard to find across multiple services.
And 43% of consumers give up on the search for content if they can’t find it in a few minutes.
Also, just because you find a show or movie to add to your watch queue, doesn’t mean it will stay there.
Some 57% of consumers said they are frustrated when content disappears from their streaming libraries, the Deloitte survey showed.
I keep close tabs on new TV shows and movies through online media. I read Entertainment Weekly, follow reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, and get news from other pop-culture sources online.
“In a world of seemingly infinite choice, content discovery becomes an increasing challenge,” investment bank Morgan Stanley said in a report April 22.
A consumer survey by Morgan Stanley found that the most common way people discover new content is by “word of mouth.” Some 55% of consumers learn about new shows to watch via word of mouth.
Video trailers came in second for content discovery at 50%, followed by social media, recommendation engines and paid advertising, each with 20%.
“This highlights the opportunity for aggregators/curators to extract value from the ecosystem,” Morgan Stanley said.
The lack of organization in online video is a big pain point for a video fan such as myself.
Some services have emerged to try to solve the problem, allowing users to search for titles across streaming video services. My favorite is JustWatch. It has the most accurate listings and best user interface. (Other services include Can I Stream It?, InstantWatcher and Reelgood.) Even Google is trying to set up its game in this area.
In the past, I’d add movies to my Netflix DVD queue and set up my DVR to record series on cable and broadcast.
But lately an increasing number of movies aren’t being released on disc. And interesting new series are popping up on streaming video services to which I may or may not subscribe.
For movies and TV series not available Netflix DVDs or on my streaming services, I keep a file for those programs in my web browser bookmarks. It’s not ideal, but it works.

Photo: Reelgood

TV viewers to test ‘subscription fatigue’ theory this fall

The recent announcements by Apple and Walt Disney that they will be launching subscription video-on-demand services this fall have media pundits wondering if consumers soon will experience “subscription fatigue.”
Consulting firm Deloitte says 55% of U.S. households now subscribe to paid streaming video services, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu. And 43% of U.S. households subscribe to both streaming and traditional pay TV services.
The average U.S. streaming video household subscribes to three such services.
“With more than 300 over-the-top video options in the U.S., coupled with multiple subscriptions and payments to track and justify, consumers may be entering a time of ‘subscription fatigue,’” Kevin Westcott, leader of Deloitte’s U.S. telecom, media and entertainment segment, said in a news release March 19.
Consumers are growing frustrated by the explosion of video entertainment options.
Nearly half (47%) of U.S. consumers surveyed by Deloitte said they are frustrated by the growing number of subscriptions and services required to watch what they want.
I don’t think the number of subscription services is necessarily a problem. The new streaming video services make it easy to start and stop subscriptions. That will create a lot of subscriber churn among the lesser players in the market.
Many subscribers will sign up for a service to watch a new season of a hit show, binge watch it and then cancel the service. They can then move on to another service.
Ultimately there will be a shakeout in the market and consumers will pick a handful of winning services that they will subscribe to month in and month out.
The bigger problem for consumers is just the explosion of content among all of the new and existing channels.
The number of scripted original TV series in production hit a record 495 last year, the Los Angeles Times and Business Insider reported.
The average consumer can’t keep up with the avalanche of video programming choices. I know I can’t.
For instance, I didn’t finish the last seasons of “Marvel’s Iron Fist” and “Marvel’s Daredevil” until months after they were canceled already by Netflix. I've got over two dozen shows on my watch list that I haven't started yet. Some of those I likely will never watch.
Plus, there are shows of interest on other services. For example, I’d like to watch the second season of “Star Trek: Discovery” on CBS All Access and “Future Man” on Hulu, but I’m already way behind on watching shows on Netflix, HBO and Amazon.
What's a modern TV viewer to do?

Related articles:

Netflix show cancellations point to limits of ‘peak TV’ (Dec. 2, 2018)

Drowning in video in the age of ‘peak TV’ (Sept. 4, 2018)

Post-apocalyptic movies find a home on Netflix

The number of post-apocalyptic themed movies in theaters has slowed and Netflix is picking up the slack.
So far this year, no English-language post-apocalyptic movies have opened in theaters. But two have premiered on Netflix: “Io” and “The Silence.”
Netflix also acquired the streaming rights to China’s hit post-apocalyptic movie “The Wandering Earth.” Plus, Netflix picked up the streaming rights to the upcoming Australian thriller “I Am Mother” starring Hilary Swank.
Last year, Netflix premiered four original post-apocalyptic movies on its service: “Bird Box,” “Cargo,” “Extinction” and “How It Ends.” Presumably the genre is a reliable viewership draw.
Meanwhile, the end-of-the-world genre isn’t getting any major theatrical releases until “Zombieland: Double Tap” on Oct. 11.

Photos: Promotional posters “The Silence” and “Bird Box.”

Related articles:

‘Black Summer’ adds new blood to post-apocalyptic TV genre (April 13, 2019)

Comprehensive list of post-apocalyptic movies

‘Black Summer’ adds new blood to post-apocalyptic TV genre

The number of television shows set in post-apocalyptic times will dip to seven after AMC’s “Into the Badlands” airs its series finale on May 6.
And one of those remaining seven, Fox’s “The Passage,” has yet to be renewed or cancelled. A decision on whether that vampire apocalypse show gets a second season will occur by mid-May, TVLine reported.
The latest post-apocalyptic themed series to air is “Black Summer,” which premiered on April 11 on Netflix. The zombie apocalypse series is reportedly set in the “Z Nation” universe of fast-moving zombies.
“Black Summer” is Netflix’s second post-apocalyptic TV show after the Danish drama “The Rain,” which returns for a sophomore season on May 17.
Other series in the genre currently airing include “The Walking Dead” (AMC), “Fear the Walking Dead” (AMC), “The 100” (CW) and “Van Helsing” (Syfy).
But more end-of-the-world entertainment is on the way.
Netflix has four additional PA shows in the works: “Daybreak,” “V-Wars,” “The Last Kids on Earth” and a series based on the “Resident Evil” video games.
Other such shows in development include “Y” on FX, “Snowpiercer” on TNT, and “See” on Apple TV Plus. AMC also is developing a second spinoff series from “The Walking Dead,” set to air next year.

Related articles:

Comprehensive list of post-apocalyptic TV shows

Post-apocalyptic TV show trend on the decline (Sept. 2, 2018)

Photos: Scenes from “Black Summer” on Netflix (Netflix)