“To uphold our exceptional standards, we must ensure our students and teachers have the highest quality materials available — materials that focus on historical facts and are free from inaccuracies or ideological rhetoric,” Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. said in a statement Tuesday.
The textbook adoption process for social studies was expected to face intense scrutiny in Florida following the state education agency denying dozens of proposed math textbooks last year for containing “impermissible” content, including lessons on critical race theory.
Conservatives in Florida, led by DeSantis, have ramped up criticism about what students are reading and learning in school, particularly surrounding race, gender, and sexual orientation through legislation and rulemaking alike. The Republican-dominated Legislature during its 2023 session passed a bill tightening rules for local book objections by requiring schools to yank challenged works within five days of someone flagging it, a shift opponents equate to “book banning.”
The state is also engaged in a high-profile dispute with the nonprofit College Board after state education department officials rejected its African American studies AP program for initially including coursework on queer theory and intersectionality. The objections angered many Black leaders across the country, with some accusing DeSantis of stoking a cultural fight to boost his presidential aspirations, as the course remains in limbo today.
Florida as of Tuesday accepted 66 of 101 social studies books submitted by publishers for use in the state, according to the Department of Education. Even with 35 books still pending approval, this marks a major jump from last month when the state initially rejected 81 books for various reasons.
The agency on Tuesday cited several examples of publishers modifying books after the state flagged them, such as an “inaccurate description of socialism” in one middle school book that claimed the political philosophy “keeps things nice and even and without necessary waste” and “may promote greater equality among people while still providing a fully functioning government-supervised economy.” The publisher stripped that language in a change to the textbook posted by the state.
The DeSantis administration also spurred one publisher to remove a section in a middle school textbook about “New Calls for Social Justice,” which mentioned the Black Lives Matter movement and Floyd police killing in 2020. This piece of text detailed that “while many American sympathized” with Black Lives Matters, “others charged that the movement was anti-police.”
Florida determined this content broached “unsolicited topics,” yet critics pan the state’s decision to reject it.
“Look at the revisions they are celebrating & ask yourself if you trust [Florida] to write our history,” the Florida Freedom to Read Project, an organization that monitors local book challenges, wrote in a tweet.
DeSantis officials, meanwhile, credited the Florida Department of Education for pushing publishers to rethink their proposals to the state.
“The political indoctrination of children through the K-12 public education system is a very real and prolific problem in this country,” DeSantis press secretary Bryan Griffin wrote in a tweet Tuesday.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
New York: Google will give around $100 million to The New York Times over three years as part of a broad deal to use its content on some of its platforms, the media reported.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Alphabet company will use the NYT content on Google News Showcase and some other platforms.
The NYT in February this year announced an expansion of its agreement with Google.
It “described as an expanded agreement that included content distribution and subscriptions, as well as using Google tools for marketing and ad-product experimentation.”
The NYT and Google did not immediately comment on the WSJ report.
The deal covers distribution, subscriptions, marketing and ad products.
In late 2020, an online news experience called Google News Showcase was launched. This platform helps participating publishers share their expertise and editorial voice through an enhanced storytelling experience.
The platform is also a global content licensing programme. Google pays participating publishers to curate quality journalism for an improved online news experience that benefits readers and publishers.
To help readers discover new content, Google News Showcase offers no-charge access to select paywalled articles on a participating publisher’s site that would otherwise only be available to subscribers.
New Delhi: Meta said that it took down over 38.4 million pieces of content across 13 policies for Facebook and over 4.61 million pieces of content across 12 policies for Instagram in March in India.
Between March 1-31, Facebook received 7,193 reports through the Indian grievance mechanism, and said that it provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 1,903 cases.
These include pre-established channels to report content for specific violations, self-remediation flows where they can download their data, avenues to address account hacked issues etc, said Meta in its monthly report in compliance with the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
“Of the other 5,290 reports where specialised review was needed, we reviewed content as per our policies, and we took action on 1,300 reports in total. The remaining 3,990 reports were reviewed but may not have been actioned,” Meta added.
On Instagram, the company received 9,226 reports through the Indian grievance mechanism.
“Of these, we provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 4,280 cases,” it informed.
Of the other 4,946 reports where specialised review was needed, Meta reviewed content and took action on 1,656 reports in total.
The remaining 3,290 reports on Instagram were reviewed but may not have been actioned.
Under the new IT Rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms, with more than 5 million users, have to publish monthly compliance reports.
“We measure the number of pieces of content (such as posts, photos, videos or comments) we take action on for going against our standards. Taking action could include removing a piece of content from Facebook or Instagram or covering photos or videos that may be disturbing to some audiences with a warning,” said Meta.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court asked the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the Directorate of Intelligence on Monday to consider whether a book written by a retired air force officer can be published after certain “classified” content is removed from it.
Hearing the retired airman’s plea for permission to publish the book, Justice Prathiba M Singh directed that a meeting between the petitioner and the officials concerned be held within a month and sought a report on it.
The respondent authorities said the clearance for the book’s publication cannot be given as its content is not conducive to the interests of the IAF.
It was said that in accordance with the IAF’s regulations, classified material cannot be discussed and the book contains certain information that has not been “declassified”.
The court was told that the objectionable content included information about certain “counter-intelligence operations”.
The petitioner said he was willing to amend or delete the objectionable portion.
“Let the petitioner be heard by officials of the Indian Air Force and the Directorate of Intelligence in order to explore the possibility of whether the book can be published after the content is amended or deleted,” the court ordered.
The petitioner, a former group captain, told the court that he decided to write the book on his experiences and according to a reply to a query filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, there are no guidelines in place in respect of a retired air force official writing fictional books.
The court also asked the authorities to file their response.
The matter would again be heard by the court on October 20.
Seoul: Google’s policy to respect local laws and culture when removing harmful, illegal content from its platforms, like YouTube, applies universally to creators and uploaders across the world, including in South Korea, a senior executive of the US tech giant said on Thursday.
“We comply with the law in each country in which we operate, and we remove illegal content after review and in accordance with the laws that apply in that country,” Jean-Jacques Sahel, head of content policy in Asia Pacific at Google, said in an online press conference for Korean media.
“There are obviously social, cultural differences from one country to another, which results in different laws, and we have to respect that.”
He said when Google receives a notification from a proper authority to remove illegal content, it blocks it locally after reviewing the legality of the content, reports Yonhap news agency.
For example, more than 80 per cent of removal requests from the South Korean authorities in the first half of 2022 were related to privacy and security issues, the Google official said.
“Various content that would be totally acceptable to people in Korea or Northern Europe, that might be far less acceptable to people in parts of Africa or Asia, for instance,” he said. “So we have to respect the particular countries and related laws, and we do that.”
On top of that, Google’s own platform policies apply globally, banning hate speech, sexually explicit content, threats and others.
To enforce its policies at scale and in an effective way, the Google official said the U.S. tech giant has adopted a machine learning programme.
More than 94 of violative videos removed in the fourth quarter of 2022 were first flagged by machines, and more than 71 percent of the violative videos first detected by machines received fewer than 10 views before they were removed from YouTube, he added.
“We now have over 20,000 people across Google working on content moderation and on removal on our platforms,” he said. “And that includes reviewers that are fluent in multiple languages, including Korean, and they carefully evaluate illegal removal requests and user flags or machine flags 24 hours a day, across time zones around the world.”
The world’s largest social media platforms Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and others will have to crack down on illegal and harmful content or else face hefty fines under the European Union’s Digital Services Act from as early as August 25.
The European Commission today will designate 19 very large online platforms (VLOPs) and search engines that will fall under the scrutiny of the wide-ranging online content law. These firms will face strict requirements including swiftly removing illegal content, ensuring minors are not targeted with personalized ads and limiting the spread of disinformation and harmful content like cyberbullying.
“With great scale comes great responsibility,” said the EU’s Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton in a briefing with journalists. “As of August 25, in other words, exactly four months [from] now, online platforms and search engines with more than 45 million active users … will have stronger obligation.”
The designated companies with over 45 million users in the EU include:
— Eight social media platforms, namely Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Snapchat;
— Five online marketplaces, namely Amazon, Booking, AliExpres, Google Shopping and Zalando;
— Other platforms, including Apple and Google’s app stores, Google Maps and Wikipedia, and search engines Google and Bing.
These large platforms will have to stop displaying ads to users based on sensitive data like religion and political opinions. AI-generated content like manipulated videos and photos, known as deepfakes, will have to be labeled.
Companies will also have to conduct yearly assessments of the risks their platforms pose on a range of issues like public health, kids’ safety and freedom of expression. They will be required to lay out their measures for how they are tackling such risks. The first assessment will have to be finalized on August 25.
“These 19 very large online platforms and search engines will have to redesign completely their systems to ensure a high level of privacy, security and safety of minors with age verification and parental control tools,” said Breton.
External firms will audit their plans. The enforcement team in the Commission will access their data and algorithms to check whether they are promoting a range of harmful content — for example, content endangering public health or during elections.
Fines can go up to 6 percent of their global annual turnover and very serious cases of infringement could result in platforms facing temporary bans.
Breton said one of the first tests for large platforms in Europe will be elections in Slovakia in September because of concerns around “hybrid warfare happening on social media, especially in the context of the war in Ukraine.”
“I am particularly concerned by the content moderation system or Facebook, which is a platform, playing an important role in the opinion building for example for the Slovak society,” said Breton. “Meta needs to carefully investigate its system and fix it, where needed, ASAP.”
The Commission will also go to Twitter in the U.S. at the end of June to check whether the company is ready to comply with the DSA. “At the invitation of Elon Musk, my team and I will carry out a stress test live at Twitter’s headquarters,” added Breton.
TikTok has also asked for the Commission to check whether it will be compliant but no date has been set yet.
The Commission is also in the process of designating “four to five” additional platforms “in the next few weeks.” Porn platforms like PornHub and YouPorn have said 33 million and 7 million Europeans visit their respective websites every month — meaning they wouldn’t have to face extra requirements to tackle risks they could pose to society.
This article has been updated.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
San Francisco: Google-owned YouTube has announced that it will update its approach to eating disorder-related content to create space for community, recovery and resources while protecting viewers in the coming weeks.
“We’ve long had policies to remove content that glorifies or promotes eating disorders. Moving forward, we’ll be updating our Community Guidelines to also prohibit content about eating disorders that feature imitable behaviour, or behaviour that we worked with experts to determine can lead at-risk viewers to imitate,” Youtube said in a blogpost.
According to the company, the policies could include — disordered eating behaviours, such as purging after eating or severely restricting calories, and weight-based bullying in the context of eating disorders.
The company has collaborated closely with NEDA (National Eating Disorder Association) and other organisations to deepen its understanding of imitable behaviour, its potential manifestations in content, and its impact on vulnerable viewers as part of the development of its new policies.
Moreover, to ensure appropriate content viewing, the company has implemented ‘age restrictions’ on certain materials discussing disordered eating behaviours in the context of recovery, as well as those that feature EDSA, as they may not be suitable for all ages.
“Some videos will not be available to viewers under 18 if you’re signed out, or if the video is embedded on another website,” the company said.
Further, Youtube has introduced eating disorder crisis resource panels under videos, which are currently available at the top of search results related to eating disorders in the US, UK, India, Canada, Japan, Korea, Mexico, France and Germany, the company said.
New Delhi: The US-based customer retention platform CleverTap on Monday launched an OpenAI integrated content creator assistant ‘Scribe’.
The feature will be rolled out to customers in April.
The AI content feature can generate campaign creatives, analyse emotions, and rewrite them with a specific emotion that resonates with the brands’ users, according to the company.
“Studies show that marketers only have two seconds to capture users’ attention in the digital realm. This gives marketers a very brief window to engage their users by tapping into the right emotions and AI enables brands to build these customised campaigns. These advancements in AI will open up the next frontier for marketers and bring back the ‘tech’ in MarTech,” Jacob Joseph, Vice President Data Science, CleverTap, said in a statement.
Moreover, the company said that Scribe can interpret messages’ emotion and suggest the best alternative that users are more likely to engage with.
The technology enables brands to automatically determine the tone of their messages.
With Scribe, marketers can leverage user engagement data based on emotion analysis to develop hyper-personalised content that is consistent with the brand, and also resonates with the user, the company said.
Scribe is currently available to CleverTap Enterprise Customers on an invite basis.
With the internet offering people the superhighway of information and knowledge, youth living in the pre-digital periphery are getting virtually cosmopolitan by watching their choice of global content, reports Babra Wani
Boys Over Flowers, the Korean sensation that is basically a romantic comedy involving a poor girl and four brats
In 2014, Saba’s cousin showed her a Korean drama Boys Over Flowers. She enjoyed it to the last second of the episode. Owing to no access to the internet back home, she could watch the series. She lacked a laptop and a smartphone. Time passed normally, but Saba could not forget that episode.
“Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was hooked on that drama,” Saba said, almost a decade later. “I wanted to watch every episode of it.”
When Covid19 confined people to the four walls of their homes, Saba suddenly became a time-surplus person, who now was fortunate enough to have high-speed internet and a personal laptop too.
Having nothing better to do, she logged in to her laptop and started streaming the Korean drama online.
“The content is very addictive”, said Saba as she recalled herself binge-watching the entire series, episode after episode. Currently pursuing her master’s at the University of Kashmir, Saba recalled how she used to recharge add-ons internet packs for extra data to watch dramas. Watching the series that is credited for creating the Korean Wavein Asia triggered an insatiable desire in Saba to keep exploring and watching other Korean dramas and web series. “In a period of a few months, I have completed more than a hundred Korean dramas, movies, and web series.”
Globalised Content
For decades, the only source of entertainment in Kashmir used to be the state-run Doordrashan. Generations grew up consuming the hilarious content of Nazir Joshs and Shaadi Lal Kouls. They have a fervent following in the senior generation to this date.
As the decades progressed, the Joshs and Kouls were slowly replaced by the Western star casts. Millennials began dictating the production and consumption of content. Even if the language barrier was there, subtitles provided an easy route to understanding different linguistic realms. Characters like The Professor from the popular Spanish series, The Money Heist and Player 456 from The Squid Game found global acceptance. They became symbols of globalization.
Shadi Lal Koul (L) on the sets of a TV serial. Koul, a popular Kashmiri actor, died July 2020 after fighting a serious disease for a long time.
Rakshanda Altaf, an agriculture student, is also an avid fan of Korean content. Off late, she is enchanted with Japanese and Chinese dramas.
“I actually began watching Korean dramas during Covid19 lockdown and then I shifted to Japanese and Chinese content,” she said, “I love how their dramas and the content is concise and you know maximum a series will last is for some 50 episodes, unlike Indian dramas which are spread across generations.”
For Mahek, a student at the University of Kashmir, the introduction to the world of K-dramas was through her peers. In 2017, when she was in school, she started watching Cinderella and the Four Knights – a drama with four handsome leads. She said her friends found themselves attracted to the series.
Downloading the series in her pen drive from her friend’s laptop, marked the new normality. An avid consumer of Indian soap operas, Mahek changed. The Korean content lacked a match with what she was consuming earlier. “I gave up on watching Indian serials.” For Mahek, it was the storyline, the content and the cast of the series which attracted her interest. Slowly, she started watching Chinese and Thai content as well.
The Hallyu Craze
Not only that, Mahek also began downloading Korean language learning apps to learn the language and tried making Korean friends as well. “I have downloaded tons of apps to learn more about Korean culture. I know a few words as well, like oppa, which means older brother, or Saranghae. which means I love you. Every K-drama watcher will be familiar with these words,” Mahek said. For her and many other Hallyu fans the Korean culture, language and everything related to Korea looks intriguing and exciting.
For the unversed, Hallyu is a popular China-origin term used for the Korean wave, when in the 1990s people outside Korea first learned about Korean content. Then slowly it was in 2012 when Psy’s (a Korean singer) Gangnam Style became a worldwide hit and then with the emergence of BTS, which holds the title of the world’s biggest boy band and Blackpink, an all-girls group, the Korean entertainment industry became a worldwide phenomenon.
Not Just Korean
The profile of consumers of such content ranges from teenagers to adults in their late twenties and early thirties. Hafsoah Ahmed, who is currently pursuing her doctorate degree, started off by watching the famous American series, Friends. From there, she digressed towards anime.
“It was the quality and the quantity of the content that first attracted me towards the series. The acting, the direction, the presentation, everything is A1 in the international series,” Ahmed said. “I like how the information and the content of the message of the series are put across. How it is presented and addressed.”
Hafsoah thinks she is an introvert and not so “outdoorsy” so she just spent all her time watching these international series.
Dramas like Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Gray’s Anatomy became quite popular among Kashmir youth at the beginning of the year 2020. However, it was not just in 2020 back in 2019 as well when the internet was shut down in Kashmir, people especially youth relied on foreign series and movies to keep themselves entertained.
The Ertugrul Era
In 2020, the Turkish series Ertugrul became a massive hit among Kashmiris across all age groups. It is a period drama detailing the struggle of Turkish herdsmen to have their own state against the interests of the crusaders, Mongols and Seljuks. At one point in time, this series was the sole big factor behind the mass sale of hard drives and storage devices.
A scene from Diriliz Urtugrul, the popular Turkish period drama showing the main charceters – Urtugrul, Haleema and Hayme Hatun
Soon, the Ertugrul’sKayiTribe-inspired skull caps were flooding the market. The fame of Ertugrul also resulted in an increase in the viewership of some other Turkish dramas and series. Kurulus Osman, a spin-off of the Ertugual series also saw an overwhelming response from the Kashmiri audiences. People still continue to watch the Ertugrul series. A Kayi tribe theme-based restaurant was also opened in one of the areas in Srinagar’s Shehr-e-Khas.
Perhaps the Turk entertainment sector barely knew the potential for their content in Urdu and Hindi speaking belt in South Asia. With Ertugrulcreating new milestones, now every Turkish drama has a must Urdu edition.
Pakistani Drama Fans
In Kashmir, Pakistani dramas always had a bigger audience. While the millennials comprise the majority of the audience for Korean, Chinese and other dramas, Pakistani dramas owing to the use of the Urdu language have a bigger demographic as their consumers. Pakistani dramas enjoy a lot of fondness and popularity amongst the population of Kashmir. For many people, watching family soap operas is one way of helping kids pick up Urdu speaking.
Shabnam, a woman in her mid-forties began watching Pakistani dramas and series in 2016 when her daughter got access to the internet and a mobile phone for the first time. “My daughter showed me a Pakistani movie and then we began watching a drama and then we saw another drama and then another and that is how we began consuming Pakistani series,” she said.
Earlier it used to be the state-owned TV in Islamabad to telecast the dramas. Now there are scores of channels and a lot of internet space that is consuming Pakistan content, especially the drama.
The popularity of Pakistani suits and clothing among Kashmiri women can be attributed to Pakistani shows. Several Kashmiris also pick Pakistani names of their favourite characters for their children.
The Psychology Behind
Why do Kashmiri people prefer watching foreign web or TV series over domestic serials? Wasim Kakroo, Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Centre for Mental Health Services at Rambagh Srinagar said it has its own psychology.
“Foreign content can offer a sense of novelty and excitement that may be lacking in domestic serials. When young people are exposed to new and different cultures, they may feel a sense of intrigue and curiosity that motivates them to explore further. This desire for novelty and exploration is a fundamental human trait, and it can be particularly pronounced during adolescence when young people are seeking to establish their identity and place in the world,” Kakroo said
“Foreign content may provide a sense of escapism from their stresses. Since Kashmiri youth feel frustrated by the political turmoil and unemployment, they feel overwhelmed or stressed. Watching characters who live in different countries, speak different languages, and have different customs can transport viewers to a different world, allowing them to temporarily forget about their own problems.”
The OTT Factor
The rise of over-the-top (OTT) and streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar, Asiaflix, Viki Rakuten, and MX Player also made it completely easy for the distribution of worldwide content in Kashmir. Its popularity is an outcome of the high-speed internet. India has access to the cheapest internet prices in the world. This is a huge enabler.
An Allied Market Research report suggests the OTT industry was valued at US $ 97.43 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach US $ 332.52 billion by 2025.
The OTT platforms have a huge basket from SciFi to romantic comedies (romcom) to action to horror to period dramas. They are democratic as they cater to different needs of people and consumers regardless of gender, age, ethnicity and nationality.
The emergence of OTT has resulted in cultural exchange as audiences become more and more interested in foreign cultures. “Consuming content from across the world is not only passing time but also exposing one to different cultures and places around the world,” Hafsoah said. “The cultural exchanges and the globalization of media has also resulted in cultural homogenization and heterogenization.”
Mumbai: Amid a row over the removal of certain references in NCERT’s new class 12 textbooks, BJP’s Maharashtra chief Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Wednesday said some people had deliberately written “negative content” in history textbooks and there was a need to drop it.
He also said that although he was against some “negative descriptions” in textbooks, facts need not be removed from them.
“Gandhiji’s death had magical effect on communal situation in the country”, “Gandhi’s pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists” and “Organisations like RSS were banned for some time” are among the portions missing from the class 12 political science textbook for the new academic session.
A political row has erupted over it with the Congress accusing the government of distorting history and “whitewashing with a vengeance”. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), however, claimed that no curriculum trimming has taken place this year and the syllabus was rationalised in June last year.
Answering a query on the issue during a press conference, Bawankule said, “Some people have deliberately written negative content in our history books. It needs to be removed.”
“Our country is marching ahead, progressing and going to be the greatest country in the world. There is no need for negative content,” he said.
After the press conference, when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader was asked about his remarks on the issue, he said he was making a general statement over it and not referring to any specific issue.
Replying to a question about why historical facts were being removed from textbooks, he said, “I am talking in general and not particularly about the omission of some chapters or issues. Facts need not be removed from history. My objection is about some negative descriptions.”
