Just last summer, Warner Bros. grabbed In the Heights star Leslie Grace to play Barbara Gordon for the Batgirl movie they’ve been trying to make for about five years. So far, the big news has been all about the cast, such as internet fave Brendan Fraser potentially as arsonist baddie Firefly and the second (well, third
“God saved me from that crash / Just so I can beat Pete Davidson’s ass,” he raps of the man dating Kim Kardashian West amid their pending divorce.
Alicia Haddick, Polygon
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was a game-changer for animated films. It blended 2D and CG masterfully, creating a new vision for what movies could be. As we venture into 2022, there’s a massive slate of films that will continue to push boundaries — including Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One).
Ian Bogost, The Atlantic
An email app sends and receives email more like you would snail mail: once per day. Could subversive projects like this provide relief from the instant interaction Big Tech has transformed our lives into? And if they do, will we be content with the results?
Louise Matsakis, NBC News
Amazon was providing on-site COVID-19 testing at its facilities during the pandemic, but with cases surging to all-time highs, the company’s workforce is struggling to get what they need to clock in safely.
The eruption near Tonga sent large tsunami waves crashing across the shore and people rushing to higher ground.
Fox News host and right-wing commentator Dan Bongino won’t be able to upload anything to his YouTube channel for a week, according to Forbes and The Hill. The website has temporarily suspended his account over COVID-19 misinformation, specifically for saying masks are useless in preventing the coronavirus’ spread. YouTube updated its rules in 2020 to prohibit “content about COVID-19 that poses a serious risk of egregious harm.” It doesn’t permit videos with medical misinformation that contradicts local health authorities, such as the World Health Organization.
The organization considers wearing masks “a key measure to reduce transmission and save lives.” That’s why YouTube explicitly states that videos containing claims that wearing masks have negative side effects and that they don’t play a role in preventing the contraction or transmission of COVID-19 go against its policy. The website has suspended several creators for COVID-19 disinformation in the past, including Sky News Australia, One American News Network and Senator Rand Paul.
Bongino is only getting a week-long suspension, because it’s his first strike under the policy. If he gets another strike within 90 days, he’ll get another two-week suspension. His channel will only be removed if he gets a third strike within three months. In addition to suspending his uploads, YouTube has also demonetized his channel for “repeatedly violating [its] Advertiser-Friendly Guidelines on harmful and dangerous acts.” He will, however, be able to re-apply for the Partner Program after 30 days.
That said, it looks like Bongino has plans to keep on breaking YouTube’s COVID-19 rules. The Bongino Report website’s Twitter account posted a copy of his email to YouTube, which tells the customer service rep that he will “immediately post content on why masks have been totally ineffective in stopping this pandemic” after his suspension is over. He dared YouTube to do something about it. Bongino also called the website (and, by extension, Google) a “tyrannical, free speech-hating, bullshit, big tech shithole.”
Strict containment measures will aim to create a virus-proof “bubble” for thousands of international visitors at a time when omicron is fueling infections globally.
Yet another service has kicked sex workers off its platform. According to Motherboard, Linktree, a tool that allows you to share multiple links with one URL online, has given sex workers the boot overnight and without warning. Banned users have taken to social networks like Twitter to announce that their accounts were banned “for inappropriate use” and didn’t even get an email or any kind of notice about it. Some were reportedly billed for the service, which costs $9 per months for the Pro tier, but weren’t refunded when their account was canceled.
Marlene Bonnelly, Head of Trust & Safety at Linktree, told the publication that the accounts that were banned shared a URL that violated its Community Standards. Bonnelly’s statement reads:
“Per our company’s policies, the Linktree accounts banned stemmed from sharing a URL which violated Community Standards by sharing advertisements for the sale of real-life sexual services.”
Sex workers make use of tools like Linktree, because some platforms don’t allow linking out to adult websites such as OnlyFans directly. Perhaps more importantly, they have to diversify make use of several websites, because they’ll never know when a service will suddenly decide to ban adult content.
Financial services like PayPal, Visa and MasterCard, have long been known to close the accounts of people in the business of sex. Patreon banned content of a sexual nature back in 2017, and the number of services that decided not to host sex workers and their content have only grown since the US government passed FOSTA-SESTA a few years ago. Even OnlyFans, which has become synonymous with adult content, tried to ban “sexually explicit conduct” in 2021 until it suspended its planned policy change.
Linktree’s Terms of Service states that a user must not “include any sexually explicit material (including pictures and language) on your Page itself or your account itself.” However, it’s vague and not entirely clear if linking to websites like OnlyFans has always been against its rules. It’s also unclear why Linktree suddenly started banning sex workers when they’d been using the service without issue for quite some time, but people in the business of sex may want to find another link-sharing tool they can use.
Some of the cremated remains discovered inside the Greater Faith Missionary Baptist Church in Akron dated back to 2010.
Seth Andrew, a founder of Democracy Prep, admitted to moving money from the charter schools network to other bank accounts without authorization.
CNN’s “K-File” resurfaced the top House Republican’s comments to a California radio station just days after the Jan. 6 insurrection.
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