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The McGowan Government is investing $1.5 million into local projects which will enhance and restore the Swan and Canning Rivers.

Focusing on environmental, recreational and cultural values, the new funding is part of the State Government's commitment to improving the health of Perth's rivers.

More than $1.2 million of the funding will be allocated to 12 local foreshore managers, with remaining funds to be divided between local governments to focus on the river priority sites.

The City of Perth will receive $459,000 to upgrade the East Perth foreshore through rock revetment, bio-engineering and revegetation to improve the foreshore, visitor amenity and activate the area for community use.

The City of Melville will benefit from $100,000 for bank stabilisation and ecological restoration and improved community access and amenity at Point Heathcote in Applecross.

More than $50,000 has been granted to the City of Belmont for foreshore stabilisation and landscaping to upgrade the Bilya Kard Boodja Lookout in Belmont.

Since its inception in 2002, more than $24 million has been contributed to over 311 Riverbank projects around the Swan and Canning rivers.

Local governments have added to the State Government's contribution to Riverbank funding, resulting in a total investment of more than $55 million in approximately 19 years.

The project includes funding from the McGowan Government's Green Jobs Plan which will see more than $60 million invested into green jobs in WA over the next three years.

Comments attributed to Environment Minister Stephen Dawson:

"The McGowan Government is committed to the health of Perth's Swan and Canning river systems, and with this funding local managers will be able to complete much needed projects throughout the Swan Canning Riverpark.

"Funding will go to important site work including ecological protection, weed control, revegetation, erosion control and foreshore stabilisation.

"Not only do these projects improve the river's health and support ecological systems, but they will also enhance visitor amenity to allow the community to enjoy our beautiful waterways."

Minister's office - 6552 5800

Project sites to receive/eligible for Riverbank Funding in 2020-2021

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Media statement - Riverbank funding to restore Perth's river systems - Media Statements

There's plenty more to come from The Sims this year.

The Sims 4 has something different for every player. Some build sprawling lots full of clutter that look like they're taken from a magazine; others put hundreds of hours into the same family, building a legacy that spans generations.

One thing that unites all Sims players? Speculation. For the last few years, The Sims has released new content on a regular basis: one expansion pack, one stuff pack and one game pack per year.

This month, the stuff pack for 2021 was officially announced: Sims 4: Paranormal Stuff. It's filled with spooks, haunts and a Paranormal Investigator career to boot, and reception from fans and influencers alike has been positive. But Paranormal Stuff is only the first in a series of addendums to the franchise that'll land this year.

Already the community is convening on Reddit and social media to discuss what else might be on the horizon. Here at CNET, we've got some dedicated Sims 4 fans who are already excited at the thought of what might be coming. Here's what else we hope to see in 2021.

Associate Editor

The first thing my little Simmy heart craves is an overhaul of the education system. I want to schmooze headmasters to get my kids into private school again. I want customizable uniforms. I want schools that cater to different skills. I want a Go to Work style active career where you run a daycare and have countless screaming toddlers all needing to learn how to use the potty. I want the chaos! I live for it!

While we're on the topic of younger age groups, I'd love to see a return to the Sims 2 FreeTime style hobbies, where children and teens can grow their skills during after-school activities. I want my baby ballet dancers to go to dance class, my tech lovers to go to chess groups and, even if we move away from skills themselves, I want more range for teen jobs. Clubs are great, but I don't always want these activities to be active, you know?

As for a more substantial change (expansion pack, I'm looking at you) I think the rallying cry of players who want a farming pack will hit its apex this year -- and I'll be contributing my voice to it. It never used to be something that would gel with my play style, but I think it's safe to say that farming (with chickens and goats!) will make a lot of players very happy -- and make Rags to Riches challenges much more interesting. Plus it'll make it a lot easier for me to create weird Sim cults, but that's a story for another time.

The last thing, which is more of a weird hope than an actual expectation: I'd like to see The Sims 4 provide more interactions around death. Sure, there are countless ways that Sims can die, but though ghosts can hang around and bust up your appliances, when a sim dies there's very little pomp and circumstance. I want to see a graveyard lot (it makes sense with Vampires; there's precedent!) and the capacity to hold an actual funeral. All I'm saying is, the Sims is a life simulator, and part of life is death.

Staff Writer

The Sims became such an escape for me in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. When I wasn't playing the Sims, I was watching YouTubers play The Sims -- whether causing mass chaos, struggling to complete the 100-Baby Challenge (I think I tapped out at 65 babies) or building jaw-dropping properties.

It might sound small, but I miss some of the Sims 2 features -- granted this might just be nostalgia talking, since the Sims 2 era was really when I got into the franchise. I'd like to see the memory scrapbook feature come back. I think it would round out the Lifestyles and Sentiments feature that was recently added with Snowy Escape. One of my favorite worlds to play in the Sims 2 was Veronaville -- particularly the Montys and the Caps. The Sims 4 needs to bring back those deep narratives in the premade families, as well as the ability to build deeper narratives in new family creations.

I love that Sims could live in Mount Komorebi, basically a vacation world, in the Snowy Escape expansion pack. To be able to make a home in Granite Falls? Yes, please!

Story-driven aspirations like the Strangerville Mystery were fun, but there's not a huge amount of desire to replay it after you "solve" the mystery. The Jungle Adventure pack came close, but the Star Wars: Journey to Batuu really showed off the game's potential. The world was massive,and there were so many ways your story could shake out, just by which Sims you encountered first and what you asked them. A potential patch to the older games opening up the world -- so you're not having to fast-travel by car everywhere -- would be so cool.

Also, it's 2021... can we finally get names for the debug items so they're easier to search?

A more builder-friendly pack -- even just a stuff pack -- would be awesome. One of my favorite building pastimes is constructing rundown lots or finding them in the gallery and flipping them. A stuff pack with some busted, creepy items could also be of interest to simmers who love the supernatural packs.

Social Media Producer

I am a big builder when it comes to The Sims. Ever since I started playing it at the tender age of 9 years old, I've loved planning out all types of houses for my Sims: quaint farmhouses with cute barns (give us the farming pack, EA). Grand Gothic castles with creepy dungeons. Small squares; big squares!

To me, the Sims 4 build mode is the best build mode and gives players the most flexibility and creative control. However, I still think it's missing a few things. The roof design feature in Sims 4 is tricky to master. There's no auto-roof function, so you're left having to manually design and place the sections of the roof yourself. It's finicky and annoying, and all separate parts remain separate. There's no option to group the roof together and resize it all at once. I miss the auto-roof function of Sims games gone by -- bring it back, I say!

Sims 3 World Adventures gave us the worlds of Shang Simla, Champs Les Sims and Al Simhara -- Simlish versions of China, France, and Egypt. They were great worlds with heaps to discover, like crypts, collectables and curses. We even got mummies! The Jungle Adventure and Snowy Escape packs are two of my favorite expansions in Sims 4 -- not just for gameplay but for the great additions to build and buy mode. But why stop at Japan and South America? Let's bring the whole world to our Sims. Plus, I really miss the Nectar Maker.

I want more cultural diversity in build and buy mode. Except for the items you get in free updates and expansion packs, the items and styles you're given for customizing your world are quite... WASP-y. EA is great at giving us free updates to inject the world with more culture: from the Day of the Dead update to Chinese New Year, to hijabs and the wonderful Hispanic Heritage Month update last year. EA has shown that it's serious about increasing diversity in the Sims, given the latest update regarding skin tones-- but it just makes me hungry for more, and I can't wait to see what EA gives us next.

We also need burglars again. I miss the sheer panic you feel when that funky music plays and you see a comically sneaky thief sneak into the house and steal a few things. I miss seeing the disappointment on theives' faces when you remember to install a security alarm and they get caught. It's the little things that matter, really.

Entertain your brain with the coolest news from streaming to superheroes, memes to video games.

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Everything we hope to see in The Sims 4 in 2021 - CNET

Since ancient times, to be exiled has been considered as definitive as capital punishment. Under Roman law, in fact, voluntary exile was offered to a prisoner as an alternative to death; the word itself is derived from the Latin solum or soil, and to be exiled was to be taken away from ones soil or land. Srinivasa Ramanujan, the Indian mathematics genius, agonized over going to Cambridge since crossing the oceans would exile him from his community. Napoleon Bonaparte and Bahadur Shah Zafar both died in exile and ignominy, with the latter pleading for a measly six feet of his homeland for burial.

President Donald J. Trump would have perhaps realized the true meaning of the word in the dying days of his presidency, as he was subjected to the modern version of exilede-platforming. Trump might have lived in the White House, but he existed on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, his true homes. It was the systematic use of these platforms that made him president, and it was these platforms that sustained him. Twitter was his megaphone, the tweets he sent equalled to executive orders, and YouTube and Twitter were where his conspiracy groups flourished. In one fell swoop, all of them were taken away as Twitter banned him permanently and the others indefinitely. Since then, Trump seems to have gone silent. He has tried to send out a few missives in a traditional fashionspeeches, statements, videosbut they didnt get far.

This radical move by tech companiesto remove the president of their own country from their platformshas had an expectedly vociferous response. His critics applauded the move. But many of them have also been horrified. German chancellor Angela Merkel, various French ministers, and the Mexican President criticized the move. On Twitter, Russian dissident Aleksei Navalny wrote: This precedent will be exploited by the enemies of freedom of speech around the world. Every time when they need to silence someone, they will say: This is just common practice, even Trump got blocked on Twitter."

The ones that have been universally criticized for this action are the platforms themselvesnot as much for making the move, but either for doing it too late or only when it served their interests. As long as he was president, who not only held political power but was responsible for billions in advertising revenue, they pussyfooted around his offensive and inflammatory statements. Once he became a lame-duck president, they took him off, no doubt provoked by the storming of the Capitol by the frenzied mob he used their platforms to instigate.

The move is riddled with contradictions. The platform companys definition of the internet as open was good as long as it served them, but the moment they became profit machines, their incentives were aligned elsewhere, with users becoming the product. Their reputation for neutrality took a hit after they started the algorithmic manipulation of users to maximize engagement and profits, and stifle innovation. They extolled freedom of speech and the US First Amendment, projected themselves as pure platforms with no editorial control, and thus escaped responsibility. In de-platforming the president, they have clearly acted as publishers.

At the same time, these companies have the right to do what they did. They can do whatever they want," said Kara Swisher, a tech journalist. Theyre private businesses. Very similar to a restaurant where someone comes in and rants and starts to threaten violence and things like that... they get kicked out."

The real issue is not that these platforms are self-serving, but that they are monopolies. Bigger, and less noticed was the move by AWS, Shopify and Twilio to take out Parler, a Twitter alternative and a prominent gathering place of Trump supporters. If you are off AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, you cannot have a website; if Amazon and Shopify ban you, you cannot sell much; if Twitter, Facebook and YouTube de-platform you, you lose your voice.

Among the various firsts that he has racked up, Trump is the first president to be impeached twice. But as New York Times Kevin Roose writes, A successful impeachment [with a conviction] would be an embarrassing end to Mr. Trumps political career. But losing his huge online following would deprive him of cultural influence long into the future."

In this connected world, if your country deports you, there are many other places you could live and stay in touch with your friends, culture and ethos. If tech companies de-platform you, you might as well not exist, which is the true definition of exile.

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Donald Trumps exile and the power of social media platforms - Mint

Only hours after gaining full control of Congress, House Democrats are going after Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for the platforms perceived roles in inciting violence at the Capitol earlier this month.

In letters addressed to the chief executives of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), along with dozens of other members, called for the companies to make sweeping changes to their platforms to curb violent and extremist activity on their networks.

The lawmakers accused the companies of using certain product features and algorithms that boost content that evokes extreme emotions as a means of increasing engagement, pointing out specific features they want to see changed on each platform. For YouTube, lawmakers said they would like to see the company disable auto-play and stop recommending any conspiratorial content alongside videos or on users homepages. Facebook was asked to start a fundamental reexamination of its use of user engagement as the basis of algorithmic sorting and recommendation. Lawmakers also asked Twitter to begin prompting users to quote-tweet tweets instead of automatically retweeting them when the retweet button is selected.

The horrific damage to our democracy wrought on January 6th demonstrated how these social media platforms played a role in radicalizing and emboldening terrorists to attack our Capitol, Eshoo said in a statement Thursday. These American companies must fundamentally rethink algorithmic systems that are at odds with democracy.

Facebook and YouTube declined to comment. A Twitter spokesperson said they had received the letter and planned to respond.

Earlier Thursday, House Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) called on FBI Director Chris Wray to open an investigation into Parler, a conservative-leaning Twitter dupe, following the pro-Trump Capitol attack.

Maloney said that the House Oversight Committee would begin its own probe into Parler and other social media websites like it. In an interview with The Washington Post, Maloney said, I am going to get to the bottom of who owns and funds social media platforms like Parler that condone and create violence.

Updated 1/21/21 at 6:03PM ET: Included statement from Twitter.

Updated 1/21/21 at 7:47PM ET: Updated to include that Facebook and YouTube declined to comment.

Read more from the original source:
Dems push Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube for anti-radicalization changes after Capitol attack - The Verge

Data-Driven Thinking is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.

Todays column is written by Joel Meyer, Chief Architect atOpenX.

While theres no clear cut answer around what the future of audience targeting will look like, practically every proposal is supported by one of two opposing core beliefs.

The first is the belief that the only way to fully protect a user is to make them anonymous, a task that must be accomplished by the browser or device used to consume content. Lets call this the Browser/Device Belief. In proposals falling under this belief, the user is anonymous and the browser/device develops functionality to facilitate advertising. Googles TURTLEDOVE and Apples SKAdNetwork are prime examples of this. Its also worth noting that Google and Apple control the majority of browsers and operating systems used today.

The second belief holds that an informed and empowered user, with controls and transparency, can implement the privacy they desire while better understanding the value exchange powering the open web. Lets call this belief the user belief, as the proposals motivated by it strive to educate the user and give them more control without requiring them to be completely anonymous. An example of this is Unified ID 2.0, which gives the user the ability to centrally manage and delete their information in exchange for providing vendors access to a stable identifier.

So what are the pros/cons of each solution?

In these solutions, the client (i.e. the browser or device) anonymizes the user by removing any vectors that allow a user to be passively identified. This ensures privacy by default and prevents bad actors from tracking the user against their will. It also places very little extra burden on the user - the browser/device transparently anonymizes them and the user does not need to worry about how it actually happens.

While these approaches protect the user without requiring anything of them (other than potentially updating their browser/device settings), there are several concerns.

First, as noted above, most clients used to consume content are controlled by Google (Chrome and Android) and Apple (Safari and iOS). So these tech giants, who already have walled gardens of a significant size, gain more power, which goes against what almost everyone else in the industry is looking for, and exacerbates concerns publishers and marketers have about a lack of competition and choice.

Second, it increases the complexity of the advertising ecosystem. For example, in the TURTLEDOVE class of proposals, the browser must develop significant logic to support advertising use cases. It also needs to cache creatives in multiple sizes and formats, and it needs to send an increased number of ad requests.

Marketers struggling to find the most direct and valuable path to inventory are going to have an even harder time, and ad tech vendors will need to develop even more complex technology to support an ecosystem where it is already difficult to optimize and track campaign effectiveness.

User Belief Solutions:

The User Belief solutions would create a common currency for targeting and attribution bringing something to the open web that has historically only been possible in the walled gardens.

If executed correctly, the user would get a level of control and transparency not previously possible, and publishers would gain the opportunity to establish a transparent and consent-based relationship with their users based on a fair value trade (content/service for authentication) while helping educate them about the value exchange that funds the content they consume.

However, this approach faces challenges as well.

First, users need a service that they can trust and use nearly ubiquitously. Remembering logins, implementing privacy settings, and managing consent across a dozen different single sign-ons is not ideal. This is not an argument against a diversity of identity solutions, but a reminder that we will need broad adoption of a number of them.

Second, depending on the vertical, many publishers have difficulty getting users to authenticate directly with them, so they will need to be able to easily integrate with the available identity solutions and provide users a very lightweight authentication experience. Getting scale with this will be challenging, though as Prebid.js has shown, not impossible.

Finally, identity solutions must be managed in a way that engenders trust with the parties that rely on them. Users need to know their information is accessible only to entities they allow. Publishers need to know a critical service they depend on is reliable. Ad tech participants need to know that fraud wont be tolerated. And these things need to be true for all ID services that are adopted.

So whats next?

As publishers grapple with these two competing approaches, there are a few specific things they can do to help prepare for the future.

First and most importantly, those impacted by the death of the cookie should educate themselves on the different solutions being proposed for browsers, IDs and alternatives like contextual targeting. Understand what your tech partners are doing to prepare, and see what seems to be gaining traction.

Second, publishers should deepen relationships with marketers. By staying close to the demand side, publishers can see which solutions are being adopted and where budgets are shifting, indicating where publishers should shift focus and resources. Private marketplace deals will also become an even bigger focus for many publishers in 2021 as they look to stay top of mind and drive deal revenue even after cookies disappear.

Third, publishers should talk to their SSP partners to understand ID activation capabilities for both pubs and marketers. As different industry solutions emerge as the winners, pubs need to be sure their partners have the pipes to capitalize.

Finally, we should change expectations. The way we do targeting and attribution on campaigns today wont be the same when cookies go away and it may take a long time to reestablish KPIs and benchmarks. Understanding that were all figuring this out together can go a long way towards making sure that we end up in a place that works for everyone.

Follow OpenX (@OpenX) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter.

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The Two Approaches To Identity, And What They Mean For Pubs - AdExchanger