 |
|
|
|||||
Google will stop serving political advertisements in the European Union. The decision, announced in The Keyword blog, is in response to an upcoming new rule for the bloc that "introduces significant new operational challenges and legal uncertainties for political advertisers and platforms." The company says the Regulation on Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising has an overly broad definition for political advertising and raised concerns that technical guidance around the policy may not be given until close to October 2025, when the rules will take effect. In addition to no longer serving that ad content ahead of next October, Google said that paid political advertisements will also not be allowed on YouTube in the EU. The company said that similar regulations have already led it to stop serving political ads in Canada, France and Brazil. Google's advertising and ad tech have been subjected to scrutiny by the European government in recent years. The company faced (but ultimately avoided) fines for "abusive" advertising practices in 2019, and last year was hit with antitrust accusations. And Google has also engaged in other eyebrow-raising behavior in the bloc. Just yesterday, the company began what it called a "small, time-limited test" to omit results from EU-based news publishers in search, Google News and the Discover feed.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/google-will-stop-serving-political-ads-in-the-eu-including-on-youtube-210604043.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Valves Steam store is more than just a place to buy computer games online. Its an active community of gamers. Unfortunately, a sizable portion of those gamers are posting an unprecedented amount of hateful, racist and anti-Semetic content on the gaming sites cyber social gathering place Steam Community, according to a report from the Anti-Defamation League. The organization found 1.83 million unique pieces of extremist or hateful content from 1.5 million unique users in 73,824 groups. The content included explicitly anti-Semitic symbols and tens of thousands of instances of users showing support for foreign terrorist groups. The online gaming community even included an alarming number of copypastas, more than half of which were variations of Nazi swastikas. ADL The report also found a significant number of Steam avatars with hateful symbols. Investigators uncovered 827,758 users with extremist or racist-signaling avatar images including the cartoon character Pepe the Frog in Nazi regalia or adorned with stereotypical tropes and looks, swastikas, the white supremacist skull or siege mask and the Nazi Eagle. Another 15,129 avatars contained images of flags, emblems or logos of terrorist groups, the majority of which referred to the jihadist group ISIS. The ADL even uncovered images that glorify violent extremists and violent hate crimes. The report found references to and stills from tragedies like the 2019 Christchurch, New Zealand shooting and the stabbing of five people in Eskisehir, Turkey committed by an 18 year old wearing neo-Nazi imagery. Even the Collections and Mods community on the gamer gathering site contained hundreds of mods that contained hateful imagery. An unidentified user named after the Christchurch shooter Brian Tarrant took the Valve physics sandbox game Garrys Mod and made the Australian S**poster collection. The user recreated Tarrants body armor look and posted screenshots implying the character is killing Muslims just as Tarrant did in 2019. ADL Other users utilized the Garrys Mod game to create maps that also celebrated tragedies like the Columbine High School shooting and the Tops supermarket white supremacist shooting in Buffalo. The maps inspired even more racist comments and reactions such as make synagogue next and remember labs, subscribe to PewDiePie, a chilling reference to a comment Tarrant made on a livestream just before he committed his shooting. The ADL accused Valve, Steam's owner, of not taking enough action to remove or curb the use of these images in its communities. The report claims Valve has a highly permissive approach to content policy and only took action in rare notable cases. Steam has selectively removed extremist content, largely based around extremist groups publicized in reporting or in response to government pressure, the ADL report says. However, this has been largely ad hoc, with Valve failing to systematically address the issue of extremism and hate on the platform. Weve reached out to Valve for a comment on the ADLs report.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/adl-report-finds-steam-is-rife-with-racist-posts-and-images-203934592.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Nintendo just dropped details on its various Black Friday promotions, all of which go live on November 24 and end on November 30. These include fairly steep discounts on first-party Switch titles, which rarely happens. The deals will be available at retailers like Best Buy, GameSpot, Target and Walmart, though it doesnt look like the Nintendo eShop will host these sales. Perhaps the jewel in Black Fridays crown is a $20 discount on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The game is normally $70, so this drops the price down to $50. The game is an absolute blast and builds on all of the good stuff originally introduced in Breath of the Wild. This time, however, new abilities allow for even more unique solutions to puzzles. The sale also applies to the long-gestating Pikmin 4 and the sublimely creative Super Mario Maker 2. Both will be available for $40. Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the belle of the COVID-era ball, will also cost $40. The same goes for Nintendo Switch Sports and Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Super Mario Odyssey, which is still the franchises latest 3D platformer, will shoot down to just $30. The same price will apply to the remake collection Pikmin 1 + 2. Joy-Con controllers, carrying cases and other accessories will also be on sale. There will even be a deal on an actual Switch console bundle. The Nintendo Switch Lite: Hyrule Edition is going to cost $210, but it comes with some serious perks. This bundle ships with the gold-colored console and a full year of Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack. This provides access to all kinds of retro games, from the NES all the way to the N64. Theres a caveat here. The Nintendo Switch isnt long for this world, as a sequel is imminent. Adults may want to wait for the new console, but a Switch Lite is still a great gift for a kid. However, nobody has any idea what Trumps promised tariffs will do to console prices, so maybe even the Switch Lite will cost $600 next year. Who the heck knows anymore. Check out all of the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals here.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/nintendo-just-announced-its-black-friday-deals-and-they-include-tears-of-the-kingdom-for-50-194609765.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||