Jet skiing + seeing Kimmel live, all for charity of course...
Donate-to-Win: Oscars' Jet Ski + Seeing Kimmel Live
Summary/opinion: Remember the jet ski from the Oscars? I thought Kimmel was kidding when he said he would award it to the person with the shortest acceptance speech. Well, he wasn't kidding, and it was generously donated by costume designer Mark Bridges to MPTF (Motion Picture & Television Fund), an organization for which I am on the board. It's just $10 to enter and it all benefits current and retired members of the entertainment committee.
YouTube Ads on Extremist Channels
Summary: CNN uncovered ads from prominent brands like Under Armour, Nordstrom, Amazon, Adidas, and even tax-funded ads from the government, ran on hundreds of extremist sites without advertiser knowledge.
Opinion: I agree with eMarketer's Nicole Perrin's comment that the most effective way for this to stop is for brands to pull out advertising on YouTube. Once their bottom line is hit, the changes will come swiftly to prevent unwanted associations of this kind.
What Zuckerberg Didn't Say About What Facebook Knows About You
Summary: Facebook does track data on website you visit that use your Facebook login info and is converted into a set of "ad interests". Even when you opt out of interest based ads, Facebook still continues to track you only just without using your own data. Regulators are coming to the conclusion that our personal data is too sensitive, and too lucrative, to be left unchecked.
Opinion: It's like an episode of Black Mirrors, our personal data being used and exploited for profit and political manipulation. Sadly, it's real life and a level of regulation should be set forth. The challenge will be creating that regulation since this is a new space and this amount of information harvesting hasn't been seen in the past. Regulators also don't have experience with this area of business, so that in and of itself is another challenge. Maybe this is a job for, ahem, consultants to work with them on creating sound pieces of regulation.
Twitter Doesn't Care People are Building Bot Armies in SE Asia
Summary: A number of Twitter users have reported an influx of bot follower requests. Bot followers tend to have no profile pic and few to zero tweets. They have been coming out of Southeast Asia and have been following influential voices in regions. Particularly with Southeast Asia, Facebook has been beset with controversies from inciting ethnic hatred in Myanmar to allegedly assisting censors in Vietnam.
Twitter has issued no comments on the behavior.
Opinion: I almost forgot about you, Twitter. If you have learned nothing else from the problems of YouTube and Facebook, learn that you need to get on this issue before it becomes a bigger problem.
