Stuff Worth Knowing for the Week of July 31, 2023
The DOJ's antitrust case against Google moves forward, WBD says the strikes are saving money, and Amazon leans
Welcome back to Stuff Worth Knowing! Each week, I'll round up news related to tech, video games, film, television, anime, and more. No essay this week, because there’s nothing I want to pontificate on!
Tech ⌨️
X Continues Its Rebrand, But The Money Is Late
The service formerly known as Twitter is continuing to slowly rebrand all of its aspects. This week, Twitter Blue became X Premium and TweetDeck became XPro. (The lack of consistency in spacing bothers me.) The social media service also gave X Premium users the ability to hide their blue checkmark branding, as a way to prevent the memes and ridicule they face. The new feature is detailed on an X Help Center page that still refers to the subscription service as “X Blue”.
Not all rollouts went as intended. Similar to last week’s unveiling of the physical “X” sign over the company’s headquarters, Premium subscribers were supposed to receive a payment for the ad revenue sharing this week. Instead, Musk said on the platform that payments were going to take a few more days to process. Of course, the problem is that X Corp still owes money for rent and services elsewhere: the company was evicted from its Boulder, Colorado office, is being sued for late rent at its San Francisco and London offices, and music publishers are suing the service for copyright infringement. That’s before you get to the lawsuits from former employees.
Instead of worrying about that, X Corp is busy trying to sue the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). X Corp alleges that the organization, which measures hate speech on social media, has hurt the social media service in a “scare campaign to drive away advertisers.” I’d argue that Musk’s conduct has done that all on his own, but we’ll see how the case goes.
Judge Narrows DOJ Case Against Google, But Allows It To Proceed
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and nearly 40 states are suing Google, alleging anti-competitive practices surrounding Search. This week, the DOJ’s overall case moved forward, but not without some issues. The government organization says that Google has violated several antitrust laws, with the company using its position as the dominant search company to shut out rivals and hurt consumers.
On Friday, D.C. District Court Judge Amit Mehta threw out the DOJ’s argument that Google designed its search engine to disadvantage specific market competitors like Yelp, Expedia, and Tripadvisor. Mehta also denied in part the DOJ’s allegations that Google had maintained a monopoly through exclusive contracts with web browser developers and hardware manufacturers. The judge said that many of the other antitrust allegations could head to court however, with a trial scheduled to begin on September 12.
Streamer Giveaway In New York Leads To Arrests
On Friday, streamer Kai Cenat intended to give away a number of items to fans and followers, including gift cards and PlayStation 5 systems. Unfortunately for him, Cenat seemingly underestimated his popularity. The streamer boasts 6.5 million followers on Twitch and 4 million subscribers on YouTube, and it seems a ton of those fans decided to meet him in person at Union Square in New York City.
Things quickly got out of hand, leading to the police being called. 65 people were arrested and others were injured. Cenat himself was taken into police custody for inciting a riot and promoting an unlawful gathering. He was released, but will have to appear in court regarding the charges.
“We’ve hosted fan meet ups and video shoots in the past, but we’ve never experienced anything at the scale of what took place yesterday,” said AMP, Cenat’s media representation, in a statement. “We recognize that our audience and influence is growing, and with that comes greater responsibility. We are deeply disheartened by the outbreak of disorderly conduct that affected innocent people and businesses, and do not condone behavior.”
YouTube Adds More TikTok Features To Shorts
If what you’ve wanted from YouTube Shorts is more TikTok features, the platform has you covered. The first is Collab, a feature that allows you to record a Short side-by-side with other YouTube videos. The second one is arguably larger, with YouTube testing a mobile vertical live streaming experience, giving users a scrollable series of live vertical videos. Shorts will also receive new Stickers, video effects, and new tools for cutting horizontal videos into a vertical format. It looks like the future of Shorts is the present of TikTok!
Video Games 🎮
GameStop Shuts Down Crypto Wallet Program
GameStop has decided to kill its crypto wallet app. The offering, GameStop Wallet, was launched in May 2022, as the company tried to chase every trend in a bid for relevance. It seems this particular experiment has come to an end, as a message on the GameStop Wallet site notes the app will go away on November 1, 2023.
“Due to the regulatory uncertainty of the crypto space, GameStop has decided to remove its iOS and Chrome Extension wallets from the market on November 1, 2023,” says the message. GameStop’s own NFT program is still alive technically, but as of the time of this writing the official site doesn’t load. Perhaps GameStop is looking to shutter the entire thing, given earlier layoffs and the firing of the CEO who implemented the entire division.
Electronic Arts Bringing Star Wars Jedi: Survivor To PS4 and Xbox One
During its investors call for the first quarter 2024 financial earnings, Electronic Arts revealed that it is planning to release the successful Star Wars Jedi: Survivor on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The last-generation consoles weren’t a part of the original release, but EA teams are working on the ports.
“Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is pure blockbuster entertainment rooted in a timeless culture-defining IP. Thanks to the strength of this legendary franchise and community demand, our development team has committed to bringing this Jedi experience to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One,” said EA CEO Andrew Wilson during the call.
Why does this matter? Because even as the current generation of consoles become the norm, there are still millions of players on those older platforms. Developers might have issues being held back by the weaker Xbox Series S, but there’s still a ton of money to be made releasing games for previous platforms. Hogwarts Legacy released a PS4 and Xbox One version months after the initial release. Resident Evil 4 and Street Fighter 6 launched on PlayStation 4, and FromSoftware’s upcoming Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon will launch on PS4 and Xbox One. There’s still life left in the past.
Film, Television, and Streaming 🎞️
WGA and SAG-AFTRA Strikes: No WGA Agreement After Brief Meeting
On Friday, The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) met briefly to see if they could hash out a way to resume contract negotiations. Instead, both groups remained at an impasse, as the AMPTP still needs to talk to the studios that comprise its membership.
“As of now, there is no agreement on these items, because the AMPTP said they needed to consult with their member studios before moving forward,” the WGA said in a statement. “[AMPTP negotiator Carol Lombardini] stated they were willing to increase their offer on a few writer-specific TV minimums – and willing to talk about AI – but that they were not willing to engage on the preservation of the writers’ room, or success-based residuals.”
So, the strike continues!
WBD Exec Says Strikes Are Saving Money
This week saw Warner Bros. Discovery’s earnings call for the second quarter 2023 financials. Executives at the company, including CEO David Zaslav, had to comment on the dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. While Zaslav himself is “hopeful” that the strikes will end, CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels was decidedly more dispassionate. He noted that the company saw “modest cash savings from the impact of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes” in the “low $100 million range during the quarter.” Wiedenfels also said that WBD’s models assume that the strikes will end in “early September.”
For its part, Warner Bros. Discovery also saw a loss of 1.8 million subscribers during the quarter. While some joked that the issue was the Max rebrand, executives pointed to the overlap in subscribers between HBO Max and Discovery+ instead.
Suits Continues To Make Waves On Streaming
Two weeks ago, it became apparent that something weird was happening on Netflix. The legal drama Suits, which ended its broadcast run in 2019, was floating around on Netflix’s Top 10 television shows. This week, Nielsen’s streaming numbers backed that up, with the show reaching 3.7 billion minutes viewed across Netflix and Peacock. It was the most popular thing on streaming last week.
According to Nielsen (via Deadline), that viewership puts Suits at #13 in the all-time highest weekly totals for a streaming show. The viewership was also mostly for the first season of the show, meaning it could hold on for a while. Just goes to show an ongoing hunger for classic television in an era of streaming. Suits was one of the series in USA Network’s wonderful “Blue Sky” era, running for a total of nine seasons. RIP, my beloved Blue Sky.
Pee-wee Herman Actor Paul Reubens Dies
Paul Reubens, the actor known to many as his character Pee-wee Herman, died last Sunday. He had been battling cancer for the past six years. The news came via announcement by his estate on Facebook and Instagram. “Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years. I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you,” the actor wrote in his own words.
AI 🤖
Amazon CEO Says “Every Single” Division Working With Generative AI
Amazon might be late to the party, but they’re hoping that excessive energy and movement will make up for it. During an earnings call for the second quarter 2023 financial earnings, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy doubled down on the work the company is doing surrounding generative AI.
“On the AI question, what I would tell you, every single one of our businesses inside of Amazon, every single one has multiple generative AI initiatives going on right now. And they range from things that help us be more cost-effective and streamlined in how we run operations in various businesses to the absolute heart of every customer experience in which we offer,” said Jassy.
“And so, it's true in our stores business. It's true in our AWS business. It's true in our advertising business. It's true in all our devices, and you can just imagine what we're working on with respect to Alexa there. It's true in our entertainment businesses, every single one. It is going to be at the heart of what we do. It's a significant investment and focus for us.”
Will that help with a company that lost $10 billion on Alexa in 2022? Probably not, but they have to tell shareholders something.
Researchers Find Adversarial Attack Vector For Popular LLMs
You may not know it, but most popular large language models like ChatGPT or Bard are heavily moderated. There’s queries they won’t respond to and topics they won’t comment on. A group of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found a way around this issue, however: a string of text which bypasses these blocks. By appending the string to queries, you can ask these chatbots about things like building a bomb or obtaining illegal materials. The answers might not be entirely truthful, but it’s not great for commercially-facing chatbots to allow such answers at all.
Books 📚
Federal Judge Block Arkansas Law Aimed At Librarians
U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks issued a preliminary injunction against Arkansas Act 372, which would make it a criminal offense to provide a minor with any material deemed “harmful” by the state. Local librarians and booksellers argued that the law would force them to remove certain books for fear of falling afoul of the law, or ban minors from certain locations entirely. The judge agreed that the law was very vague in what constituted “harmful”.
Image Comics Signs Deal With Simon & Schuster
In a continuing move away from distribution company Diamond, Image Comics has signed an exclusive deal with Simon & Schuster to publish its works in booksellers. Earlier this year, Image moved from Diamond Comic Distributors to Lunar Distribution for its comic periodicals. Now Simon & Schuster will take over for Diamond Book Distributors, publishing Image’s books in the United States. Diamond Book retains the Image publishing rights internationally, but that’s likely to change as well if these moves are any indication.
Layoffs and Labor 👷
The Callisto Protocol Dev Lays Off 32 Employees
Striking Distance Studios, the studio behind The Callisto Protocol, has laid off 32 employees. The layoffs come following the game’s underperformance and the June release of the downloadable content. “Striking Distance Studios and KRAFTON have implemented strategic changes that realign the studio’s priorities to better position its current and future projects for success,” a studio spokesperson told IGN.
EBay Hit With Unfair Labor Complaints From TCG Union
Employees at TCGplayer, an online marketplace for selling trading cards, have filed complaints against management, alleging that EBay has refused to acknowledge the union and tried to delay negotiations for a fair contract.
“They have refused to give us our rights to status quo. Our Weingarten rights. They refuse to recognize us as a union. They refuse to acknowledge the fact that [the union has] been certified even if we present them with certification,” TCG Union-CWA member Briana Thomas told The Verge. “So they are just continuing to make all these changes and refusing to work with us and refusing to follow their legal right to sit down or their legal responsibilities to sit down and bargain with us at the table.”