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A US Army veteran became the first in Florida to be charged with defying the states newly adopted red flag law after he refused to turn in his firearms, including an AR-15.

Jerron Smith, 33, who is suspected of shooting at his friends car, was found guilty by a jury in Broward County in southeastern Florida last Friday, December 6, in less than an hour.

Judge Ernest Kollra ordered a pre-sentencing investigation for Smith who faces up to five years in prison.

Floridas new red flag law came into effect in the wake of the shooting tragedy in a high school in Parkland in February 2018 in which 17 people lost their lives.

It was just after a month after the horrific incident that Smiths weapons were confiscated by the deputies after a shooting took place outside his residence in Deerfield Beach.

Smith was accused of repeatedly firing at his best friends car during an argument over a cellphone on March 28 night. The police came to his house to seize off all the weapons and other items under a Risk Protection Order. They had found several magazines stocked in his bedroom.

According to a criminal complaint filed against Smith, it was said that he had shot at least half a dozen times at the vehicle of Jackson Levon while he was inside it.

Under Floridas red flag law, authorities with the backing of the judge can seek to remove weapons from people who are perceived as threats to themselves and others. Apart from Florida, 14 other states have such laws.

Smith told the jury that he was unaware of the legal requirements when the deputies came to his house. He repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, believing that the police could not search his home without showing a warrant or his consent.

According to a report in the local Sun-Sentinel, Smith's lawyer could not present a convincing argument that his client did not fully understand the new law. The date for Smiths sentencing is yet to be decided.

The Sun-Sentinel also said in a report in September that guns have been taken from 2,0000 residents of the state in a year-and-half since the new law was passed.

But figures showed that South Florida, which includes places like Broward County where mass shootings are not rare, has not been as agile in implementing the new law like most other big counties.

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Army veteran who refused to give up firearms citing Fifth Amendment found guilty of defying Florida's new 'red flag' law - MEAWW

CEO of Twitter, Jack Patrick Dorsey, speaks during an exclusive interview with Hindustan Times at Twitter India office, at the Crescent, on November 14, 2018 in New Delhi, India.

Burhaan Kinu | Hindustan Times | Getty Images

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced Tuesday the company is funding a new research team that will develop an "open and decentralized standard for social media," in part to address some of the current problems with the platform.

The idealistic long-term vision is to make disparate social media networks more like email, so that users could join different networks but still communicate with each other no matter which one they're using.

Shared technical standards would also make it easier for users to gain some control over how these networks recommend content, which could reduce the tendency to guide users to the most outrageous material and users in hopes of keeping them engaged, according to Dorsey. It could also make it easier for the social networks to enforce restrictions against hate speech and other abuse, essentially helping them share the load at a lower cost.

There are already social media platforms that operate on a decentralized framework, the most popular of which is Mastodon, an open-source social network that's often used as an alternative to Twitter. Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web, has also launched several projects advocating for a decentralized internet.

But unlike these projects, which have struggled to gain traction, Twitter already has a devoted user base of more than 300 million people, which could give Dorsey more traction in trying to push the standard through and convince other social networks to lend support.

It seems unlikely, however, that Facebook, which currently dominates the space with an audience of more than 2 billion users, would be willing to cede control to an external coalition. A Facebook spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dorsey announced the vision and team, called Bluesky, in a string of tweets:

Bluesky will include up to five architects, engineers and designers charged with creating the standards. The goal is that one day Twitter will become a "client" of the network, though it's likely the standard will take several years to develop, Dorsey said.

"For social media, we'd like this team to either find an existing decentralized standard they can help move forward, or failing that, create one from scratch," Dorsey said. "That's the only direction we at Twitter, Inc. will provide."

The standard would allow Twitter to focus its "efforts on building open recommendation algorithms which promote healthy conversation," Dorsey added.

Focusing on recommendation algorithms could help Dorsey deflect some of the content moderation problems the company continues to face, such as its failure to curb hate speech, said Jennifer Grygiel, a social media professor at Syracuse University. In an open source framework, Twitter would handle how content surfaces on the platform, akin to Google searches, instead of hosting and managing the content itself.

By announcing Bluesky, Twitter appears to have realized that hosting and managing content "is a business model that doesn't have many benefits," Grygiel added.

"They're looking to deal less with the responsibility that is the walled garden, aka the platform," Grygiel said.

When asked to elaborate on the Bluesky project, a Twitter spokesperson pointed to Dorsey's tweets and said in a statement: "We've long demonstrated our commitment to doing critical work in the open and empowering people to build off of the fundamentals of our service. Apart from the technical elements outlined by Jack today, this is about exploring the fullest and most participatory vision of our service."

Continued here:
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has an idealistic vision for the future of social media and is funding a small team to chase it - CNBC

A senior adviser to Boris Johnson was involved in trying to stop the media reporting images of a four-year-old boy photographed sleeping on a hospital floor.

The Conservative aide contacted the press regulator Ipso on behalf of Sarah Williment, the mother of the boy, after the health secretary, Matt Hancock, spoke to her by phone, according to individuals with knowledge of the case.

The regulator then issued a notice asking the press to not name the boy or use the photograph, which had previously been widely used.

It is highly unusual for a political party to send a complaint to the press regulator on behalf of an individual and seemed designed to try to limit reporting of the row. The image had become one of the defining photos of the final week of the campaign.

A Conservative party source confirmed that a senior Tory adviser had sent the letter to the press regulator on behalf of Williment because she wasnt happy with the excessive coverage of the incident.

The unusual intervention, first reported by BuzzFeed News, was made as the Conservatives struggled to contain the row over the photograph. Pictures of the child on the floor at Leeds General Infirmary were published initially in the Yorkshire Post and followed up by the Daily Mirror.

On Monday, Johnson had grabbed a reporters phone and put it in his pocket when he was confronted with the photograph.

Hancock was then sent to the hospital in an attempt to bring the story under control. During his visit, Tory sources said he spoke to Williment over the phone. Another aide approached journalists about the story on Monday afternoon, warning them to consult with their news desks before following up the story.

In an apparent bid to silence other news outlets from following up on the story one of the prime ministers most senior aides contacted Ipso, saying they were acting on behalf of Williment.

The aide also sent the letter to the BBC, which reported extracts of it, claiming the story was causing significant distress to the boy and his family.

Originally posted here:
Boris Johnson aide tried to stop media using image of boy on hospital floor - The Guardian

"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 Kerel Cooper, SVP of global marketing at LiveIntent.

Technology, obviously, has its barriers. It takes skill, patience, resolve and education to really compete and innovate in our complicated field.

For so long, it felt like the only companies that could really wield boundary-pushing technology in digital advertising were the tech platforms that specialized in hiring, acquiring and managing for it. It took resources and know-how, and no one had more of both than the triopoly of Google, Facebook and Amazon.

However, the barriers for dexterity in technology have declined over the years. What once required a background in data science or data analysis is now mitigated by platforms that employ user-friendly UX, essentially democratizing the ability to wield technologies. As a result, AI can be leveraged by nearly everyone, and brands and publishers are now exploring doing things on their own that used to be solely in the domain of the tech platforms. This was a trend that began to gain steam in 2019, and it will accelerate in 2020.

Nikes acquisition of Celect is Exhibit A. At first glance, you may not be blown away by this acquisition. Ho-hum, a major brand made an investment in being able to personalize previously anonymous traffic to its site. But whats impressive is that Nike would previously trust other partners to provide some level of personalization.

The lowering of the barrier to entry for technological dexterity meant that Nike, which didnt grow up as a technology company, was now able to act like one. It acquired a technology that allowed it to truly make use of the troves of first-party data it has accumulated through goodwill, loyalty and a great product, instead of handing that bounty to platforms, specifically Amazons walled garden. The acquisition will help Nike with its move to partially sever its relationship with Amazon in favor of raising the level of consumer experience via more direct relationships.

Brands and publishers often follow each others advancements. Brands famously mimicked publishers by investing in editorial talent to make their own content compelling, and publishers have begun to think like brands by diversifying revenue streams and selling products outside their traditional core areas of expertise.

The northern light here, as with so many publisher advancements, is The Washington Post. The Washington Post launched Zeus in September as a way of bringing control back to the publishers for ad buying. It is clearly trying to disintermediate the interlopers that stand in between it and its customers when it comes to earning revenue.

Nike and The Washington Post arent alone. Hearst and the Financial Times are also exploring their own self-serve ad platforms to better compete against Facebook. McDonalds and Walmart have also made moves to own more of their technology stacks with their acquisitions of Dynamic Yield and Polymorph Labs, respectively. And hot off the presses is the news of Sams Club acquiring Triad, bringing in house the functions that would have, until very recently, been the domain of a vendor.

This below-the-radar trend is likely to explode in the coming years. Brands and publishers know that to control their own destiny, they need to position themselves to operate as independently as possible.

That was once unthinkable, even for giants like Nike and The Washington Post. In these early days, its just a few brands and publishers making concerted efforts to own their solutions, but I predict that soon, more entities will embrace investing in their deployment.

Follow Kerel Cooper (@kerel_cooper), LiveIntent (@LiveIntent) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter.

Originally posted here:
2019: The Year Brands And Publishers Began Taking Control Of Their Tech Stacks - AdExchanger

An example of a binge ad on Hulu from Maker's Mark.

Hulu

Hulu said Thursday it's now rolling out a new type of advertising for binge viewers, which will seek to reward them for watching three or more episodes with an offer from a brand or a commercial-free episode.

The Disney-controlled streaming video service, which unveiled details of the new ad experience during its NewFront presentation back in May, said in a blog post Thursday it's launching the ad experience with agency partner Publicis Media, part of French holding company Publicis Groupe, and advertisers including Kellogg's, Maker's Mark and Georgia-Pacific.

The new binge ads come as advertisers are increasingly seeking ways to reach customers in a way that doesn't annoy them. Ads that tie into content or that show a story across commercial breaks have seen some success take Procter & Gamble's widely applauded "It's a Tide Ad" spots during the 2018 Super Bowl, which continued through ad placements throughout the game.

Hulu will use data on viewers to predict when they're likely to begin binge-watching a show, which it defines as watching three or more episodes at a time. The platform will serve "contextually relevant messaging from our brand partners that acknowledges a binge watching session has begun."

For instance, an example ad for Cheez-It Snap'd snacks reads, "Another episode? Snack it to me!" and one from Sparkle says "The dishes can (probably) wait. More TV!"

Once a viewer reaches a third episode, an message will reveal that the next episode will be ad-free (this message could be "presented by Sparkle," for example) or will give the viewer a unique offer from a brand, like $1 off a bag of a certain variety of Cheez-Its.

Hulu started in 2007 as joint-venture among several major media companies, but is now majority-owned by Disney. In May, minority owner Comcast handed over its operational control to Disney, and signed a deal that would let it sell its 33% stake to Disney by 2024.

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.

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Hulu debuts a new type of ad that will reward binge-watchers - CNBC