DataDownload: Clubhouse spirals out of control

8 min readOct 24, 2020

DataDownload: Clubhouse spirals out of control A weekly summary of all things Media, Data, Emerging Tech View this email in your browser

First, some personal news. After a year working with the amazing team at the NYC Media Lab, I am excited to announce that the Board that oversees the Media Lab has asked me to take on the role of Executive Director. You can see the details and release here. They are big shoes to fill, as you know Justin Hendrix has over the past eight years created an important and impactful organization. I hope we can build on his years of relationships and programs.

In other news:

Last week I wrote about Clubhouse and suggested it was worth signing up. Since then, I’ve heard from a number of women and people of color that Clubhouse is part of a larger Valley problem. The Washington Post and The Verge both have troubling details.

But there’s plenty of good news too. An amazing example of photogrammetry from the NY Times. A subway map — fantastic — for whenever we get back on the subway (soon?). A 25-year tech exploration. Adobe’s Content Authenticity tool is long overdue and needed. And — check out the Hololive rabbit hole — see what you think.

That is all for this week.

Steve
Steve@NYCMediaLab.org
Steven Rosenbaum
Managing Director
The NYC Media Lab
Steve@NYCMediaLab.org Must-Read Silicon Valley Is Famously Liberal. Then, Investors and Employees Started Clashing Over Race.

Tech giants are trying to quell confrontations between employees and higher-ups over hate speech, bias, pay equity, and other heated issues. Facebook restricted spaces for political discussion after employee protests over the company’s moderation policies; Pinterest shut down a Slack channel used to question leadership; and more recently, Coinbase curtailed political speech. Companies are usually hesitant to outright explain their actions, instead opting for vague legalese, but Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong has been unusually vocal about his decision, writing an entire Medium post explaining his stance.

One company that recently got caught up in the controversy — Clubhouse. As The Verge details, a three-hour Clubhouse discussion with 369 participants degenerated into a storm of anti-Semitic comments. Activist and host Ashoka Finley intended to address anti-Semitism in Black communities, but soon found it impossible to manage “dozens clamoring to take the stage.” The event brings to light some serious moderation challenges. Clubhouse can’t exactly rely on text to locate insensitive content (it’s an audio-only social network), and “there isn’t a simple mechanism for singling out a specific comment as inappropriate.” The company has yet to address how it will help hosts moderate discussions, or how it will do so internally.

In follow-up conversations, Finley told users that “The risk to reward is too low for me to do anything like that again. I want to talk about white supremacy in the music industry, but I actually don’t have the belief that this is the platform for it, no matter how nuanced this community thinks this is. I don’t see myself engaging heady topics with random strangers on the internet in the near future.”

9 min read

If you want to experience what photogrammetry will mean for journalism — the NY Times article about FaZe Clan brings 3D storytelling front and center. Walking through the esports conglomerate’s HQ in 3D, you get a familial perspective of the personalities living here — something you can’t easily replicate with words and images alone. This is a must-click!

5 min read

This week, the MTA launched a digital MTA map in partnership with agency Work & Co. It’s definitely a smoother experience on mobile — click on a few stations to see real-time information, including moving trains. The simplicity of the experience, however, hides the two years spent trying to capture both informational clarity and geographic literality — two features that have been notoriously difficult to counterbalance in the static subway map’s history.

“The map actually combines characteristics of the two most famous NYC subway maps in history. The first map is that by Massimo Vignelli, who simplified the snaking subway system into a clean diagram which traded geographic literality for graphical clarity…. But the main Vignelli map was scorned by New Yorkers because it wasn’t an actual map, and it was quickly replaced…. Meanwhile, the primary map the MTA uses today was created by Unimark International and Michael Hertz Associates. It’s more geographically accurate, but it actually condenses information that was in the Vignelli map.”

5 min read Read More 25 Moments in Tech That Defined the Past 25 Years Fast Company’s 25 defining moments in technology of the last quarter-century contain events we’ve come to expect in any tech pantheon — the unveiling of the iPhone (which doubles as a lesson in product presentation), Cambridge Analytica, the introduction of Alexa, Napster… but we also get some more under-the-radar events:

Section 230 plants social media seeds: “Brought into law alongside the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Section 230 of the Communications Act says that online services can’t be sued for their users’ content. While it predated YouTube and Facebook by nearly a decade, it ultimately allowed those sites to flourish by protecting them against civil complaints such as defamation.”

Online addiction gets affordable: “In the early days of online services and ISPs, you paid several dollars an hour for access… That didn’t change in a big way until 1996. As explained in an excellent article by Tedium’s Ernie Smith, AT&T gave its new WorldNet internet service a flat rate of $20 a month.”

GoTo.com establishes pay-per-click advertising: “As Will Oremus wrote in 2013, GoTo.com founder Bill Gross hatched the idea of having advertisers bid on top placement in search results, then charging them when users clicked through.”

18 min read Read More Adobe Is Adding Its ‘Content Authenticity’ Tool to the Latest Photoshop Beta

Adobe is moving forward with its Content Authenticity Initiative system that it proposed last year. As part of a beta release, Photoshop will now feature a panel to add authenticity metadata. That metadata includes “a picture thumbnail, the name of the person creating the image, some broad information about the types of edits that were made, and the original assets used to create the image.” Users will be able to see the metadata if it’s uploaded to Adobe-owned Behance.

“CAI’s effectiveness ultimately depends on how much buy-in it can get across the wider internet, and Adobe has named a few high-profile partners like Microsoft, Twitter, and The New York Times Company. For now, though, Adobe is going to see how the option works within its own ecosystem.”

2 min read

Vox spoke to Lead Compositor at ILM Charmaine Chan on her work with virtual production technology, the next logical step after green screens for Hollywood.

“Green screens actually have a lot of drawbacks. Removing the green screen is never as quick as visual effects artists would hope. It also casts green light upon the set and actors…. ILM’s solution fixes a lot of those problems, and it also led to creative breakthroughs in which the old Hollywood order of a TV show or movie, in which VFX came last, was suddenly reversed. Now, artists like Charmaine are alongside actors, set designers, and other crew members during filming.”

8 min watch

Watch Now What We’re Listening To Podcast: ‎Phoebe Reads a Mystery

Phoebe Judge, previously a host at WUNC North Carolina Public Radio, reads a chapter a day from a mystery novel. Soothing, engrossing, and worth a listen.

Listen Now Virtual Events Virtual Event: MoneyFest 2020
Date: October 26–29
100+ industry insiders (including Steve Wozniak, CTO at BoA Cathy Bessant, and CMO at Mastercard Raja Rajamannar) deliver business-critical intel to your living room. Register Here.

Virtual Event: How to Build an Annual Plan for 2021
Date: October 28, 12:30PM
Amy Wu, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Michael Manne, Chief Revenue Officer of Ocrolus, share tactical advice on building an operating plan for 2021. Register Here. A Deeper Look I Fell Down the Hololive Rabbit Hole, and I’m Glad I Did

If you aren’t in tune with Japan’s virtual influencer culture, this will be an interesting bit of digital anthropology. For some background, Hololive is an agency that manages a group of livestreaming virtual YouTubers (aka VTubers)… and well, if that statement sounds normal in 2020, it gets more bizarre. But first, why is Hololive an “agency”? Well, the company recruits potential (real-life) YouTubers and offers them a free iPhone and help getting a high-end PC for Live2D production. 3D models will be provided if the 2D model gets a following of 50k subs. It’s nicely summed up in the explainer below.

Popular VTubers release high-production virtual music videos (under Hololive’s dedicated music label), are featured in skits, and even appear in live concerts. It’s a universe on its own, and unlike the absolute polish that is Miquela, these personas are closer to free-speaking Twitch streamers than brand-studded digital actors. You’ve been warned…