Archives for August 2019

In June, The New York Times published an investigation into how YouTube’s recommendation system automatically promoted videos of scantily clad children to people who had watched other videos of young children in compromised positions or sexually themed content.

The accusations against YouTube emerged last year after a coalition of more than 20 consumer advocacy groups filed a complaint to the F.T.C. saying that the video platform was violating a federal privacy law by collecting and exploiting the personal information of children.

That law, called the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, prohibits online services aimed at children under 13 from collecting personal details — like a child’s birth date, contact information, photos or precise location — without a parent’s permission. The law also prohibits children’s apps from using persistent identifiers to target youngsters with ads based on their behavior.

YouTube has long maintained that its platform is not intended for children under 13, even as some of its most popular channels — with names like Cocomelon Nursery Rhymes and ChuChu TV — are clearly aimed at youngsters, offering colorful animated videos that have been viewed more than a billion times.

People who set up accounts on YouTube must affirm that they are at least 13 and must agree to Google’s terms of service, enabling the company to track users’ video-viewing activities, internet browsing habits and other details. YouTube has said that it deletes accounts when it determines that a user is under 13.

YouTube maintains a separate app for younger users, called YouTube Kids, which says that it does not allow behavior-based ads.

But the children’s groups said in their complaint that YouTube was aware that millions of children were watching its main channel and collected the children’s personal details anyway, without parental consent.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/technology/youtube-childrens-privacy-fine.html?emc=rss&partner=rss

Brit Hume, a senior political analyst for Fox News, echoed Mr. Cavuto’s comments and tweeted, “Fox News isn’t supposed to work for you.”

“We have tried to be fair to him in our news coverage,” Mr. Hume said in another tweet responding to someone who had asked why Mr. Trump thought Fox worked for him. “Best example: we didn’t fall for the Russia conspiracy theory that ended in such a fiasco for other outlets. Plus, some of our opinion hosts support Trump. (Others don’t.)”

Fox News declined to comment for this article. The White House declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s complaints about Fox News or Mr. Cavuto’s retort, preferring to leave the sparring to the president himself.

While in office, Mr. Trump has reserved his most cantankerous barbs for other news outlets. This week alone, he has attacked The New York Times, The Washington Post, Axios and NBC.

But the president has increased his criticism of Fox News in recent months. On Sunday, he said the network was “not what it used to be” when he expressed unhappiness with a poll. He has also attacked the Fox News contributor Donna Brazile, the anchors Shepard Smith and Chris Wallace, and the Fox analyst Juan Williams.

Early this month, Mr. Trump said that “watching Fake News CNN” was better than watching Mr. Smith’s show and that “whenever possible” he turned to the One America News Network. When Mr. Wallace interviewed the Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg in May, Mr. Trump said Fox News was “moving more and more to the losing side.”

By Friday afternoon, it appeared that Mr. Trump had other targets on his mind.

Over the course of two hours, he had tweeted four videos on the Justice Department’s critical inspector general report regarding the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey. All four clips featured guests criticizing Mr. Comey, and all four clips were from Fox News.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/business/media/trump-fox-news.html?emc=rss&partner=rss

Nominally communist, China has seen the gap between rich and poor widen tremendously since Beijing opened up its economy to the world and embraced business, setting off its tremendous growth spurt. The families of China’s top leaders have often benefited from that rise. Officials in Beijing regularly summon foreign journalists to complain about articles and have repeatedly warned them that reporting on the wealth of the country’s top leaders and their families is a “red line” that the authorities would not tolerate.

After The Times reported in 2012 on the hidden wealth of the family of China’s premier at the time, Wen Jiabao, the newspaper was unable to secure accreditation for its other reporters, one of whom had to wait for close to three years. Bloomberg News also struggled to obtain approval of new visas for journalists after its reporters wrote about the wealth accumulated by the family of Mr. Xi, who became China’s leader a year later. Both services were blocked in China.

The Journal’s article, which quoted unnamed Australian officials, delved deeply into that sensitive area.

It said the authorities were scrutinizing Mr. Chai, an Australian national, as part of a broad money-laundering and organized-crime investigation. It described their interest in Mr. Chai’s high-stakes gambling sessions in Australian casinos, and said that “he often flaunted his familial link to Mr. Xi while chasing business opportunities.” It also described his business dealings and big real estate purchases made by him and his wife.

But the reporters noted that there was “no indication that Mr. Xi did anything to advance Mr. Chai’s interests, nor that the Chinese leader has any knowledge of his cousin’s business and gambling activities.”

China’s Foreign Ministry at the time called the accusations groundless. The Journal article followed similar coverage by Australian news outlets. Others, including The Times, also covered the investigation. The Times’s article said Mr. Chai was not the main target of the investigation.

Chinese officials have offered little indication that they will soften their tone.

In its 2018 annual survey of working conditions for foreign journalists in China, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said the authorities had issued severely shortened visas and reporting credentials, including one for just two and a half months, to at least five correspondents. More than half of the respondents, the largest proportion since 2011, said they believed conditions had deteriorated in 2018, when foreign media coverage of pro-democracy protests prompted a government backlash.

“Survey results painted the darkest picture of reporting conditions inside China in recent memory,” the club said.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/business/china-wall-street-journal-reporter.html?emc=rss&partner=rss

There are a lot of people, including Kelly Clarkson and Drew Barrymore, clamoring after Ellen’s crown. Why should we watch you?

Right now in daytime television, which predominantly female viewers watch, there is no show about relationships, no show about fertility. Nothing like that. The only show that talks about relationships is “Dr. Phil.” And I jokingly say: “If you’re there, you’re in trouble. It’s already over.” Here, you have this daytime audience, and no one’s talking about the very first thing we ask anyone, which is: “Are you gay, straight, dating, want to date somebody? What’s going on?” We saw this opening to have these serious conversations that are just life.

What’s the first thing you did after leaving NBC?

I prayed, I talked to my friends and my family, and I went to sleep. I woke up the next morning, and my phone’s like, people calling, calling, calling. I gave away clothes to Housing Works because I wanted to shed a layer — I’m sure therapy might reveal why — and I gave them a shout-out. That was very calculating of me. I admit it, because guess what? We don’t own that often as women. By midday I was told that my departure was trending. [Housing Works began to trend, too.] And when the reaction came, that began a process of me owning my own life. Social media gave me a platform to show what I was doing. I had a voice still, which is very important as a black woman in this business.

Were you getting offers?

That was February. In June, I was in L.A., and it was the first major pity party that I had, realizing that the job offers I was getting — for a woman with 25 years experience in this business — were very much in line with somebody maybe their first year out of college. And it took me aback. I had this little moment of sadness because I realized that, even in 2017, how many spots are occupied by women? How many spots are occupied by women of color? And so it becomes a numbers game.

What situation had been laid out by NBC when you decided to quit?

I was told I could stay, but there was no defined role. I would be an anchor on the “Today” show, but we didn’t know when I would be on, and I could stay at MSNBC, but we didn’t know what time. So I was demoted. Period. I never imagined being demoted would end up being a blessing.

Was it a fast decision on your part?

No, because there were things that had happened over the course of a year, where I knew or believed that they wanted something else in that slot.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/arts/television/tamron-hall-today.html?emc=rss&partner=rss