Social Networks

A conservative political commentator is being slammed for racist remarks targeting veteran Bay Area TV news reporter Betty Yu.Steven Crowder, the host of the political podcast and YouTube channel "Louder with Crowder," made the comments during a segment on his show Wednesday focusing on the closure of San Francisco's only In-N-Out location for failure to check customers' vaccination status. "San Francisco In-N-Out, they've been in a battle with the city over – let me just let them tell you the story, vaccine requirements," Crowder said. He then proceeds to play a video clip of a KPIX news segment, to which Crowder reacts to seeing Yu by saying, "Oh, that is an aggressively Asian face." One of Crowder's co-hosts, comedian Dave Landau, then says, "Easy." The rest of the "Louder with Crowder" segment went as follows: Crowder: "It is a — I mean that just means if you were a skier it would be like a black diamond you'd have to drop in on a chopper."  Landau: "Where's Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz?" Crowder: "The city confirmed that it closed a private business for not acting like the health – for not acting like the FDA." Crowder: "By the way, the…

Snapchat app is seen on a smartphone in this illustration taken, July 13, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYCSnap Inc said on Tuesday it is launching a studio to help brands create augmented reality advertising and experiences, part of a move to popularize the use of technology that can overlay computer-generated images onto a person’s view of the real world. The owner of photo messaging app Snapchat first became popular with young users for its early forms of augmented reality (AR), such as photo filters that could superimpose dog ears onto a person’s photo, or add a dancing hot dog to a video. Snap has since staked its future on advancing the technology, launching AR-enabled eyewear and acquiring startups that develop technology to allow users to virtually try on clothing. The new studio, Arcadia, will help brands build AR experiences not just for Snapchat, but any other social media apps or websites where it wants to place content, said Jeff Miller, global head of creative strategy at Snap. “The goal is to push the boundaries of what’s possible in…

Photo: Leon Neal (Getty Images)It’s a good day to be a mainstream politically conservative party or a right-leaning news outlet on Twitter. The company has released the results of a study analyzing algorithmic amplification of political content on the platform, which affirms what had already been suspected by some: The political right does really well on Twitter. Twitter’s study, led by the company’s Machine Learning Ethics, Transparency and Accountability team, or META, reviewed millions of tweets of elected officials in seven countries— Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, the UK, and the U.S.—as well as hundreds of millions of tweets containing links to articles from news outlets. In all countries except Germany, the company found that tweets posted by the political right were amplified more than those posted by the political left. When it comes to news outlets, the same thing occurred. (The company analyzed the links to content from news outlets, not tweets by the news outlets themselves). Right-leaning news outlets received more algorithmic amplification than left-leaning news outlets. Twitter didn’t classify news outlets as left-leaning or right-leaning according to its own criteria, but rather used a classification from third-party researchers.The study determined that certain political content is amplified on…