Verizon customers who were charged an “administrative charge” in recent years might be entitled to a piece of a $100 million class action settlement. A lawsuit alleged that the company added a bogus fee to customers’ bills to squeeze money out of them.
The charge must have occurred between 2016 and last year. The deadline to submit a claim is April 15. Here’s the claim form.
Child safety on Twitch continues to be a problem. Bloomberg reports that Twitch’s “clips” feature is being used to share child sexual abuse material that’s being viewed by users.
While Twitch has handed down stricter rules around sexual content in recent weeks, it seems that the company is more hands-off with clips moderation:
At the moment, Twitch focuses most of its monitoring efforts on its livestreams, which the company says are reviewed using human moderators, artificial intelligence and other tools. By contrast, when it comes to moderating clips, Twitch relies solely on its users to report instances of suspicious or upsetting material.
Playlists like Spotify’s RapCaviar were once a path to a hit song, and the curators in charge of them were key influencers in the music industry. That era appears to be on its way out.
Streams originating from top playlists are down anywhere from 30 to 60 percent as Spotify pushes listeners towards algorithm-powered personalized recommendations. Some playlists previously created by humans have been replaced with algorithmic versions, like Indie Pop and Housewerk.
According to the FT, influencers are worried about AI-generated characters taking their jobs, as a new cadre of synthetic content creators are unleashed on to consumers.
A recent post by one of these AI influencers shows the cracks in the argument that brands can just swap out a human for a digital avatar. Much of the audience is just thirsty men. And then there are heart emojis from dozens of other AI characters — robots talking to each other.
[Intelligencer]
Sex workers are experimenting with bots that mimic their look and sound, available to chat with fans 24/7. But the robot copycats are still... working out some kinks, let’s say:
[The chatbot] said, falsely, that Dee had moved several years ago to Costa Rica and lives with two “incredibly sweet and supportive” roommates. When a reporter reminded it that Dee just had a wedding, SophieAI responded: “My husband and I aren’t married per se, but we live together happ,” ending the sentence mid-word.
[The Washington Post]
Green walks through the intricacies between TikTok, Reels, and Shorts — along with his earnings from each. The gist is Shorts > TikTok > Reels in terms of CPM, but watch the full clip for more context.
Creators are in a weird spot right now: TikTok wants videos longer than a minute, and Shorts only allows clips up to 60 seconds. And even when you’re making money, it’s hard to understand the exact breakdown.
