Hasta La Gadget!

Amazon is still working on a Fallout TV series — and we’ll finally find out next year whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. The company has revealed that the Fallout TV show will premiere on Prime Video sometime in 2024, over three years after it first announced that it was developing an adaptation of the franchise with the creators of Westworld. According to GameSpot, Bethesda’s Todd Howard and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer presented a short teaser of the upcoming series at Gamescom’s Xbox booth. 

The brief clip reportedly showed a nuclear explosion near a city resembling Los Angeles, characters crossing a wasteland and a woman emerging from one of Fallout’s Vaults. And, as you can see above, Prime Video shared an image confirming LA to be the site for Vault 33. In October last year, Amazon’s Prime Video X account posted a photo of characters wearing Vault 33 suits, and before that, a few behind-the-scenes images for Vault 32 leaked online. 

When the series was first announced, Bethesda said it had been looking for ways to adapt the Fallout games into a movie or a TV show over the past decade. The adaptation that it eventually approved, written and developed by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, will take on a “serious and harsh” tone but will also feature “ironic humor” and “B-movie nuclear fantasies.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazons-fallout-series-will-arrive-on-prime-video-in-2024-053029884.html?src=rss

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but someone in the new Star Wars needs to find a map to somewhere before someone else does. Yes, same as it ever was, even Ahsoka cannot escape the mapification of Star Wars storytelling—from the map to Luke Skywalker to Wayfinders and unknown regions of the galaxy, the franchise…

Read more…

“Abortions on demand,” “born alive abortions” and other fact-free claims were on display at the first GOP debate.

Meta is again facing allegations it’s not doing enough to prevent the spread of hate speech and violent content in Facebook ads. A new report details eight such ads, targeting audiences in Europe, that were approved despite containing blatant violations of the company’s policies around hate speech and violence.

The report comes from watchdog organization Ekō, which is sharing its work to draw attention to the social network’s “sub-standard moderation practices” ahead of the Digital Services Act (DSA) going into effect in Europe later this week. It details how, over a period of a few days in early August, the organization attempted to buy 13 Facebook ads, all of which used AI-generated images and included text that was clearly against the company’s rules

Ekō pulled the ads before they could be seen by any users. The group requested exact wording of the ads be withheld, but offered descriptions of some of the most egregious examples. Approved ads included one, placed in France, that “called for the execution of a prominent MEP because of their stance on immigration,” as well as an ad targeting German users that “called for synagogues to be burnt to the ground to ‘protect White Germans.’” Meta also approved ads in Spain that claimed the most recent election was stolen and that people should engage in violent protests to reverse it.

“This report was based on a very small sample of ads and is not representative of the number of ads we review daily across the world,” a spokesperson for Meta said in a statement. “Our ads review process has several layers of analysis and detection, both before and after an ad goes live. We’re taking extensive steps in response to the DSA and continue to invest significant resources to protect elections and guard against hate speech as well as against violence and incitement.”

While there were a handful of ads that were stopped by Meta’s checks, Ekō says that the ads were prevented from running because they were flagged as political, not because of the violent and hate-filled rhetoric in them. (The company requires political advertisers to go through an additional vetting process before they are eligible to place ads.)

Ekō is using the report to advocate for additional safeguards under the DSA, a sweeping law that requires tech platforms to limit some kinds of targeted advertising and allow users to opt out of recommendation algorithms. (Several services, including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have recently made changes to comply with the latter provision.) It also requires platforms to identify and mitigate “systemic risks,” including those related to illegal and violent content.

“With a few clicks, we were able to prove just how easy it is for bad actors to spread hate speech and disinformation,” Vicky Wyatt, Ekō’s campaign director, said in a statement. “With EU elections around the corner, European leaders must enforce the DSA to its fullest extent and finally rein in these toxic companies.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-approved-hate-filled-facebook-ads-that-called-for-violence-in-europe-030015537.html?src=rss

World Princess Week is upon us and Disney is celebrating through collections inspired by its royal slate.

Read more…