Social Networks

And so would nearly every company out there this year.Oct. 31, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETA few nights ago, Shana Gadarian, a political scientist at Syracuse University, was ordering a takeout dinner when the DoorDash app suggested she use the time waiting for her order to “make a voting plan.”“Thanks, DoorDash,” she said.As the extended 2020 voting season closes in on Election Day, such messages are inescapable. With banner ads and special photo filters, social media apps like Instagram and Snapchat implore you to vote. Retail clothing companies send emails encouraging civic participation, and they sell merchandise emblazoned with messages to vote.Large companies like Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines are incorporating get-out-the-vote messages in their advertising and product design. Even small businesses — the dry cleaners, delis and yarn stores of American cities — are using signs to urge customers to vote.The ubiquity of the message, along with the wide range of corporate actors embracing it, is new this year, said several researchers and advocates who closely monitor get-out-the-vote strategies. Voting has become cool this year, and nearly every company wants to share in the feel-good glow of a pro-voting message.The reasons seem to be part pandemic, part the high drama of a highly polarized election, and part pressure from employees and customers.Susan Tynan, chief executive and founder of Framebridge, which makes custom frames for art and mementos, said she was inspired to expand her company’s civic engagement after talking with other C.E.O.s about surviving the early months of the pandemic. Keep up with Election 2020 “There’s just been a shift when C.E.O.s have come together, to say there’s a need for clear communication and planning, and honestly moral leadership,” she said. “So I think we’re all doing our best to try and step in where we can.”Framebridge has emailed its…

Peter Hamby has found a way to be a political journalist for a new generation.After covering two presidential campaigns at CNN, he made an unusual career move in 2015: joining the social media app Snapchat. As the host of the platform’s first original series, “Good Luck America,” Mr. Hamby, 39, breaks down the political landscape and coming election for the millions of young people who scroll through the app every day.“Politics feels existential to them,” Mr. Hamby said. “Climate change feels existential. Going to high school every day with the threat of gun violence is life or death.”It’s an audience that is most likely not tuning in to cable news bulletins or reading the Sunday New York Times. So he’s meeting these Americans where they are.“I’m aware of where I stand at Snapchat, and a lot of people don’t think that’s necessarily an ivory tower of journalism, but we are creating journalism that I think is credible and serious,” Mr. Hamby said. “It is insanely important for media organizations to be way more thoughtful, way more creative about creating formats for people that plug into their lives.”Now based in Los Angeles, Mr. Hamby, who is also a contributing writer for Vanity Fair, is a world away from his former life as a roving campaign reporter.“I feel like I’ve become smarter about American politics since leaving Washington and leaving the establishment media side of things,” he said.Interviews are conducted by email, text and phone, then condensed and edited.Sunday9 a.m. Reading The Los Angeles Times and listening to Paul Simon’s “Graceland.” For me, Sundays are for reading, cooking and music — trying to turn off as much as possible. That’s obviously close to impossible with two weeks until a presidential election, but I know I won’t be good during the week if…

Chris Hansen is once again asking alleged sexual predators to sit down and have a chat, this time for his new YouTube series Have a Seat with Chris Hansen. An investigative journalist perhaps best known for his work with Dateline NBC, Hansen served as the host of the popular To Catch a Predator shows. Working with law enforcement and volunteer groups, Hansen would set up "sting houses" where men would show up to meet with someone they allegedly believed to be a minor. After To Catch a Predator came to an end, Hansen would later pursue alleged sexual predators by hosting the spinoff Hansen vs. Predator for Crime Watch Daily. Debuting in 2016, the show saw Hansen confronting the accused in sting houses once again, and videos of the segments have generated tens of millions of views on YouTube. When the series ended its run in 2018, Hansen would later continue his work by launching his own YouTube channel and podcast. Oddly enough, he has even teamed up with the Insane Clown Posse to expose an alleged predator in the music community. Now, Hansen is carrying out stings once again, this time on YouTube on his Have a Seat with Chris Hansen channel. The first episode was just uploaded this week, documenting a collaboration with the Genesse and Shiawassee county Sheriff's office in Michigan. As a result of a one day operation by the GHOST team, a man named Tom showed up to a hotel room to meet with a girl who identified herself as a 15-year-old. Instead, he found Hansen, who treated him with the familiar line of questioning we've seen on To Catch a Predator. His arrest in the hotel room is also shown in the video. At a press conference, Hansen had spoken about why it was…

PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (WCAX) - There’s an election controversy in Plattsburgh over a fake Facebook page that included an endorsement for a candidate for mayor.A letter sent out from the Plattsburgh City Democrats' official Facebook page Tuesday says they denounce the use of the “Plattsburgh City Democrats 2.0” page. Rachelle Armstrong, with the Plattsburgh City Democrats, said they were made aware of the group months ago, but this was the first concerning post they have seen. She said she called the board of elections but was told there was nothing to be done about it because it was a free speech issue.The Dems 2.0 page has since been deleted, but the page resembled the official page for the city Democratic party. It included a post endorsing the Republican candidate for mayor, Scott Beebie. “We felt that there was potential of misleading voters because of the similarity in the name and the fact that Mr. Beebie accepted the nomination without any qualifications,” Armstrong said.‘Beebie sent WCAX a statement on the endorsement: “I became aware via social media this group had chosen to endorse me for the office of Mayor for the City of Plattsburgh and I thanked them. That’s it, that’s all. At the behest of the heinous accusations from the City Democratic Party I took it upon myself to learn that City Dems 2.0 that are a group of disenfranchised democrats who had been expelled from commenting on the ‘official page.’ They found an audience with people who were feeling the same way for a variety of reasons.” Beebies’ post thanking the page is still on his official Facebook page.Ed Darrah created the 2.0 page. He said it started out as political satire after he was barred from commenting on the official Democratic page in June. “The mock endorsement of Beebie…

Human moderators at Facebook made the decision to temporarily limit distribution of the New York Post's Hunter Biden story on the platform, Facebook confirmed to Fox News.Internal documents obtained by the Guardian show that Facebook's fact-checking system uses both artificial intelligence (AI) and human fact-checkers to flag articles that may be subject to fact checks. In some cases, articles from popular websites like the Post may be manually referred to fact-checkers "with or without temporary demotion."Facebook fact-checkers manually added the New York Post article to its queue, and reduced distribution of the article for a short period while reviewing its contents, the Guardian reported, citing the documents. "We can do this on escalation and based on whether the content is eligible for fact-checking, related to an issue of importance, and has an external signal of falsity," the documents read, according to the outlet. A man is silhouetted against a video screen with a Facebook logo. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic  A Facebook spokesperson told Fox News that Facebook has "been on heightened alert because of FBI intelligence about the potential for hack-and-leak operations meant to spread misinformation." "Based on that risk, and in line with our existing policies and procedures, we made the decision to temporarily limit the content’s distribution while our fact-checkers had a chance to review it," the spokesperson said.When fact-checkers did not rate the story, Facebook "lifted the demotion."ADONIS HOFFMAN: BIG TECH SENATE HEARING WINNERS AND LOSERSThe Post on Oct. 14 published emails recovered from a laptop purportedly belonging to 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden's son, Hunter. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani shared the contents of the laptop with the outlet. Facebook Policy Communications Director Andy Stone tweeted on Oct. 14 that the Post article was "eligible to be fact-checked by Facebook's third-party fact-checking partners" and that Facebook was "reducing its distribution" in the meantime.Documents also show that Facebook keeps a list of…

With the NBA, MLB and NHL seasons complete and a void in the professional sports schedule until at least late December, streaming services have taken to dropping regional cable networks from their channel offerings over the last couple of weeks.Late Friday afternoon, NESN joined those dismissed ranks when YouTube TV announced in a message to subscribers that as of Saturday it will no longer carry the regional home for the Red Sox and Bruins.“We’re writing to let you know that our agreement with New England Sports Network has expired,” the statement said. “Unfortunately, we were unable to reach a new agreement to continue offering you this network. … NESN will no longer be available on YouTube TV, and you will no longer have access to any previous recordings from NESN.”When the Red Sox and Bruins are out of season, NESN still broadcasts a significant number of live college basketball and football games, as well as Hockey East college hockey matchups.A NESN spokesperson provided a statement Friday night that said the network was “extremely disappointed” with YouTube TV’s decision.“Despite offering our most favorable rates and terms for carriage, YouTube TV chose to deny fans our top-rated programming,” the statement read in part. “In light of their recent 30 percent price increase to subscribers, we are dismayed at YouTube TV’s decision to take programming such as NESN’s Red Sox, Bruins and college sports coverage away from their customers. Given we received no offer in return, we assume this is purely an economic decision to maximize profitability for their business at the expense of viewers.“We hope YouTube will reconsider this decision, though we have no indication that they are willing to do so at this time. We’re terribly sorry about this disruption to YouTube TV subscribers, and hope they will decide to…

Video hosting service is essential if you’re a business owner or a digital marketer. These hosting service providers allow you to host your videos and customize the video player according to your brand identity. Video hosting service is considered as an integral part of digital marketing. Whenever you think of “video cloud” or “video hosting service,” the first thing that comes to your mind is YouTube, Vimeo, Kaltura, Wistia, or Vidyard. The reason is that these service providers are popular and operating for many years. But have you heard of “Adilo Video Cloud”? We guess not? Well, Adilo is a little-known US-based video hosting platform that is new to the business, but it is taking on big hosting giants such as Vimeo, Kaltura, and Vidyard, etc. Adilo is offering exciting features at an affordable price. Adilo Video Cloud Adilo video cloud is a new video hosting service provider, which is based in the United States. Other video hosting companies only deliver video hosting service and video player customization, but Adilo goes beyond hosting and customization. It comes with powerful tools that allow you to organize your videos and get real-time data to increase your conversion rate. Moreover, Adilo delivers a smooth 4K streaming experience across all the devices. Adilo Video Cloud Features Here are some of the features offered by Adilo, which makes it stand out from giant video hosting companies. The price plan of Adilo is affordable and without any hidden charges. It allows you to host unlimited videos, even with its basic plan. While big hosting companies have hidden costs, and they don’t offer unlimited video hosting. As compared to other hosting companies, Adilo delivers ultrafast video encoding, which means that your videos are ready to be viewed in no time. It comes with the feature of real-time…

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Drag Superstar Nina West has come to SLAY this Halloween season, literally! Her new Spooktacular Variety Special HEELS OF HORROR began streaming on VIMEO on October 28th 2020. As part of the special Nina created an ode to one of her favorite TV shows of all time, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Written by Nina West and Mark Byer, with a video Directed by Brad Hammer and animations by Kevin Posnanski and Shawn Adell, NINA THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, features the voice of SNL's Taran Killam as well as an appearance by original Buffy The Vampire Slayer cast member Anthony Stewart Head! It tells the story of a group of friends gathered around a campfire to listen to spooky stories about vampires on Halloween. However, Buffy The Vampire slayer superfan Nina keeps interrupting the storyteller (the voice of SNL's Taran Killam) with "OMG, IT'S JUST LIKE THIS ONE TIME ON BUFFY!.." and her excitedly singing how each ode likens to her favorite episodes of Buffy through recaps using animated versions of the original Buffy The Vampire Slayer Cast.The video can be seen here. The single is streaming on all Major platforms. Get it now!Tickets for Nina West's HEELS OF HORROR Halloween Spooktacular are on sale now at www.vimeo.com/ondemand/heelsofhorror with support from charity partner and presenting Sponsor Equitas Health.For more information about Nina West, please visit here.PR ContactPaul Christensen PAL PUBLIC RELATIONS PAUL@PALPUBLICRELATIONS.COMABOUT NINA WESTNina West is an American drag queen, actor and singer based in Columbus, Ohio played by Andrew Levitt. She rose to national prominence with her appearance on RuPaul's Drag Race Season 11, where she placed sixth and won Miss Congeniality.She made history at the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards in Sept 2019 when she became the first ever person to walk the carpet…

VALDOSTA — Valdosta State University mass media program will present a live election results broadcast, 8:30-11:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 3, on VSU TV. “My colleagues, students, and I have been planning and training for this moment for weeks,” said Alicia Pryor, a Department of Communication Arts faculty member in charge of leading the VSU TV class. “This special event is sure to be an exciting experiential learning opportunity for the students as well as an excellent resource for our friends and neighbors in the community.” VSU TV’s live election results broadcast will feature the mass media program’s "talented student reporters, student anchors and student-led technical crew reporting Election Day 2020 results for the presidential race, key Senate races in Georgia and other states and more," university officials said in a statement. The special will feature journalists from the Department of English’s journalism program and expert political analysis by Dr. Mandi Bates Bailey, a professor in the Department of Political Science; Dr. James LaPlant, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and a professor in the Department of Political Science; and Dr. David Nelson, an associate professor in the Department of Communication Arts’ communication program.  Mediacom subscribers may view the live election results broadcast on Channel 16. The show will be streamed on the mass media program’s Vimeo page at https://vimeo.com/user103089813. During fall semester 2019, VSU’s Office of Student Diversity and Inclusion kicked off a BLAZE the Ballot initiative designed to inspire the VSU student community to take an active role in cultivating positive change through civic engagement, university officials said. This includes voting in the Nov. 3 election. “For the past year, we have had students facilitating learning opportunities in person and virtually about the democratic process,” said Sandra Y.G. Jones, director of the Office of Student Diversity and Inclusion. “Our team of…

PHOTO: visuals on Unsplash. It was promised a long time ago – well a couple of months ago anyway – and it has finally arrived. Zoom announced that its end-to-end encryption (EE2E) is now available globally for all users. Originally, San Jose, Calif.-based Zoom had said it would only offer encryption for paid users but after global outrage it backed down and said everyone could have it. The result is that Zoom will have encrypted meetings for up to 200 participants. Initially, it is available immediately as a technical preview. This means that the company is proactively soliciting feedback from users for the next 30 days. It also means that starting this week E2EE is available on Zoom desktop client version 5.4.0 for Mac and PC, the Zoom Android app and Zoom Rooms, with the Zoom iOS app pending Apple App Store approval. The introduction of E2EE is in response to the problems Zoom had earlier this summer when the company had major problems with privacy and securing data as huge numbers of people began using Zoom after remote working kicked in. Things got so bad that it became the subject of numerous investigations into privacy breaches, claims the company was sending user data to Facebook and, of course, Zoom bombing, a practice whereby uninvited guests interrupt conference calls with unwanted comments and even pornography. In response, CEO Eric Yuan announced that Zoom was buying Keybase, a company that had built a secure messaging and file sharing service using its deep encryption and security expertise. According to a statement from Yuan at the time, Zoom aimed to integrate Keybase’s entire team into Zoom and use that team to build end-to-end encryption that can be applied to Zoom services. That is effectively what has happened and now Zoom communications are encrypted.…