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Three months ago: Lebanon in turmoil Three months ago we unpacked countrywide protests over corruption and the economy that brought Lebanon's capital, Beirut, to a standstill. At the time, thousands of protesters called in particular for reforms to Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing system, which currently gives the country's top jobs to people based on their religion. Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned, and has since been replaced by Hassan Diab, a university professor who has the backing of the powerful Shia Hezbollah party designated a terrorist group by the United States but not the Sunni-bloc. This will make it hard for him to unify the country and secure the Western aid needed to rescue Lebanon's teetering economy. Diab has appointed a new, ostensibly technocratic cabinet in a bid to meet protesters' demands for a break from the old guard. But thousands of demonstrators took to the streets again this week, decrying the new ministers' connections to the political elite. Meanwhile, as the political crisis deepens, Lebanon's economy is on the brink of collapse: Banks are tightening restrictions on foreign currency withdrawals, fueling more public rage.

Six months ago: Hong Kong's enduring protests Back in August, we checked in on the increasingly ferocious protests in Hong Kong, which had been going on for about eight weeks. What started as a rebuke of legislation that would allow extradition of suspected criminals to mainland China has since morphed into an enormous, sometimes violent, political movement in defense of Hong Kongers' political liberties. Despite the fact that the size of protests has waned in recent months, protesters aren't giving up. Thousands of black-clad demonstrators have continued to flood the streets, demanding greater autonomy from Beijing, as well as investigations into police brutality. Meanwhile, Hong Kong police have used increasingly militant tactics to break-up crowds, including live ammunition. The recent coronavirus outbreak brings a new dimension to the seemingly intractable conflict. On one hand, it's revived Hong Kongers' resentment of the mainland: More than 7,000 health workers took part in a strike this week calling on Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's chief executive, to seal the entire border with China, something she's long resisted. But the outbreak, which has spread in Hong Kong, also makes it impossible to hold mass gatherings. Chinese officials have called protestors "terrorists," and have amassed forces across the border. But eight months later, it's still not clear if Beijing has a red line, and what it would take from protesters to trigger a full-blown Chinese military intervention.

Nine months ago: Cyril Ramaphosa faces the heat As we wrote after President Cyril Ramaphosa's electoral triumph last May, the leader of South Africa's African National Congress party (ANC) faced enormous challenges in trying to revive the country's flailing economy, plagued by decades of crooked leadership. When Ramaphosa took over as party chief from Jacob Zuma, the disgraced former president facing a host of corruption charges, he pledged to bring "ethics into politics," and to oversee South Africa's economic revival. While Ramaphosa has made some effort to ignite growth such as "embarking on a $100 billion investment drive in five years South Africa's economy is still on the brink. The IMF and World Bank recently urged radical reform to avoid a recession as the country grapples with spotty electricity supply problems, weak business sentiment, sky-high youth unemployment, and the worst drought in living memory. Ramaphosa's attempt at reform has largely been hampered by competing factions within the ANC itself so far, he's failed to consolidate control of the party to meet the country's enormous challenges.

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Then and Now: Hong Kong and Lebanon in turmoil, Ramaphosa on the spot - GZERO Media

Art Industry News is a daily digest of the most consequential developments coming out of the art world and art market. Heres what you need to know on this Thursday, February 6.

Suspected Banksy Thieves Are Arrested in Paris Two men suspected of stealing a Banksy work in Paris have been arrested. The 32- and 35-year-old suspects are thought to have been involved in the theft last September of Banksys street art tribute to the May 1968 uprising in France. The work, which depicted a rat holding a box cutter, was taken from a billboard near the Centre Pompidou. The men are currently in police custody and it is yet to be determined whether they will be placed under investigation. While the missing work was not found, other Banksy works or copies were uncovered in a search. (Le Monde)

Yale Addresses Controversy Over Its Art History ChangeupIn a letter to the College Art Association, Yale defended its decision to cut its popular course Introduction to Art History: Renaissance to the Present, once taught by Vincent Scully, in favor of a selection of less Eurocentric classes. Art history is a global discipline, the letter reads. [N]o one survey course taught in the space of a semester could ever be comprehensive, and that no one survey course can be taken asthedefinitive survey of our discipline. (ARTnews)

Inside Banksys Efforts to Control His Legacy Banksys rise to global fame has been managed through the careful control of his message, his market, and his mystery. The anonymous street artists former dealer Steve Lazarides has said that the artist is a total control freak. Indeed, Banksy has tried very hard to control his resale market by creating his authenticating agency, Pest Control, which has also been cracking down on knockoff merchandise on his behalf. He speaks to media only through a spokeswoman or his surprise posts on his Instagram account, and allegedly controls his anonymity with a team of lawyers and nondisclosure agreements. (New York Times)

Barnes and Noble Scraps Its Diversity CoversBefore it even launched, the bookstore chain Barnes and Noble has suspended its campaign to incorporate diversity onto the covers of classic American novels such as Treasure Island and The Count of Monte Cristo. The initiative was intended to reimagine protagonists as people of color, but backlash characterized the effort as literary blackface and Barnes and Noble scrapped it before thebooks appeared in stores. (Slate)

Gagosian Gets a New Communications Head Michael Sherman, who formerly served as chief communications officer at Phillips, has joined Gagosian as worldwide head of communications. He previously worked at Christies and as a reporter at Bloomberg News and as a press secretary in Bloombergs mayoral administration. Sherman, who will work alongside the gallerys longtime communications chief Virginia Coleman, said, Larry has built the worlds greatest gallery, and I look forward to helping my new colleagues tell the gallerys story to collectors around the world. (Email)

Psst, Wet Paint Will Return Next Week An update for all the dedicated readers of Wet Paint, Artnet Newss gossip column. Writer Nate Freeman is out this week, but look out for an extra juicy Frieze edition from Los Angeles next week. (Artnet News)

The Art Worlds Love Affair With Leverage Art collectors are increasingly borrowing money against their paintings, seeing enormous potential in the $67 billion art market. In recent years, art secured loans have risen 40 percent, with many Wall Street aficionados getting in on the action, including the hedge fund manager Daniel Sundheim, who has been benefitting from a credit line from JPMorgan Chase & Co. against the top works in his collection. (Yahoo! Finance)

David Hockneys Portrait of Ed Sheeran Is Coming to the UK David Hockneys 2018 portrait of the musician Ed Sheeran will be on display in the UK for the first time this winter at London-based Annely Judah Fine Art. The work shows Sheeran,with his vibrant red hair and various arm tattoos, sitting comfortably in a green armchair. The work is going on view as part of the show Video Brings Its Time To You, You Bring Your Time To Paintings and Drawings, and will also feature a portrait of singer Bruno Mars.(Guardian)

Finland Selects Its Artist for the Venice Biennale Finland has elected the video and performance artist Pilvi Takala to represent the country at the 2021 Venice Biennale. The pavilion will be curated by Christina Li. Takalas work often involves challenging normative social structures by staging performative interventions in various specific communities. (e-flux)

French Strikers Stage a Die-In at the Ministry of Culture As the opposition to Frances controversial pension reforms forges on, affected culture workers are kicking their protests up a notch. Protesters were seen staging a die-in on the steps of the French culture ministry. (Twitter)

Overlooked Figures Get Sculptures in New York The Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, New York, has launched an open call for artists to propose public monuments dedicated to overlooked historical figures. Monuments by artists including Jeffrey Gibson, Xaviera Simmons, and Paul Ramrez Jonas will be showcased in the parks fall exhibition. (The Art Newspaper)

Antony Gormleys Public Sculpture for New York Antony Gormley has debuted a monumental abstract sculpture in Brooklyn. The looping aluminum sculpture at Brooklyn Bridge Parks Pier 3 is called New York Clearing (2020), and was made possible as part of an international public art project commissioned by the K-Pop band BTS. (designboom)

Billie Eilish Performs Conceptual Art at MOCA See pop star Billie Eilish participating in the Chinese conceptual artist Xu Zhens performance work In Just a Blink of an Eye. While on a visit to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Eilish took part in the work, which makes it look like the performer is eerily suspended in mid-air. (Vogue)

Originally posted here:
Art Industry News: How Banksy Controls Collectors, the Media, and the Art Market to Protect His Legacy + Other Stories - artnet News

OpinionCommentDowning Street has been accused of acting like Donald Trump

Tuesday, 4th February 2020, 8:21 am

Up until the general election, Dominic Cummings, the Prime Ministers de facto chief of staff, and his director of communications Lee Cain were too distracted to do much about it.

But having secured an 80-seat majority, the pair have all but declared war on the parliamentary lobby journalists in a bid to exercise their new-found strength.

i's opinion newsletter: talking points from today

Out of favour

First was a change to the lobby briefing system - the twice daily meetings where journalists can fire questions at the Prime Minister's official spokesman.

Cain insisted that all meetings would be held in Downing Street rather than the Commons. This raised concerns that it would give No 10 the power to refuse entry for any journalists who had fallen out of favour.

No 10 has repeated the move, attempting to freeze out several journalists from a Downing Street briefing with the Governments lead Brexit negotiator David Frost, only this time it prompted a walkout.

Rather than subject himself to regular interviews with political correspondents, Mr Johnson has preferred the tightly managed Peoples PMQs held on Facebook.

'Trumpian'

It is a power play by Cummings and Cain who prioritise message discipline above all else and who view the favoured outlets as being essential to getting their message out. The move has been described as Trumpian by opposition MPs, due to its similarity to how the US President excludes certain reporters he does not like.

It would be easy to dismiss this as sour grapes at not being one of the chosen few titles, but it is a worrying sign of things to come.

Shutting out certain publications damages the bedrock of a free media which exists to help hold the Government to account.

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Boris Johnsons advisers want to exert more control over the media message - inews

A new study on three major social networks in China finds that tolerating small, relatively free platforms helps the Chinese government maintain sufficiently high market-level censorship in an overall low-pressure environment. However, larger platforms censor more content than small competitors.

As apolitical crisis has gripped Hong Kong in the last seven months, videos of hundreds of thousands of marchers poured over Twitter overnight and quickly turned into sympathetic memes. But a search for Hong Kong on TikTok reveals barely a hint of unrest in sight, despite the fact that the Chinese-owned app has over 500 million active users worldwide and is ranked 9th in terms of social media sites ahead of LinkedIn and Twitter.

Shortly after the initial demonstrations back in June, the Chinese government distributed vague guidelines to digital platforms about what they should censor. Platform owners are now responsible for obeying and blacklisting any offending content generated by their users. For example, if a platform chooses to blacklist Hong Kong protest, none of its users will be able to deliver any messages containing these keywords, sometimes accompanied by a warning sign saying that Your message contains sensitive keywords, please try again.

On the one hand, Chinese platforms are under some political pressure to promptly remove certain user-generated content. If they fail to do so, platforms are subject to a fine and risk being temporarily shut down by the government, a cost that is often tied to platforms size. On the other hand, by strategically delaying censorship, a Chinese platform may attract users who try to evade censorship by switching between platforms. This opportunity of user-switching incentivizes each platform to differentiate its timing of censorshipeven more so when its competitors are big and committed to censoring early.

My research examines the relationship between online platforms size, political pressure, and their compliance with censorship regulations. I find that while large platforms censor more aggressively on average than their small competitors, decentralizing onlinemarket power could help authoritarian regimes maintain information control with minimal enforcement.

Using a novel dataset (provided by the Citizen Lab) on platforms in China with a combined market share of over 60 percent in 2015YY Live, 9158, and Sina ShowI measured each platforms compliance behavior by examining when and how many keywords the platform has added to its own blacklist following a sequence of salient events. The dataset contains the complete history of blacklisted keywords adopted by each of the three platforms over two years (from May 2015 to September 2017).

I exploited the unexpected occurrence of 30 political and social events during the data collection period, such as the 2015 Tianjin Explosion that killed nearly 200 people and fueled fears of toxic air and distrust of government, or the 2016 international tribunal that ruled against Chinas claim to the historic rights of the South China Sea area. Those salient events triggered the governments censorship request and surveillance, as well as the need for platforms to comply.

I extracted the specific event dates from multiple news sources and cross-checked them with their Wikipedia entries, if available. By comparing the timing and frequency of platforms blacklists update over a 2-month event window, I find that platforms of different sizes exhibit different compliance behavior: the largest platform not only censored a higher number of keywords on average, it also complied faster than the smaller platforms.

Motivated by the event-study results, I further developed a structural model where a platforms profit depends on its own censorship decision as well as that of its competitors, induced by the switching behavior of users with a diverse taste for censorship. Relative to their small competitors, a large platform is often under higher political pressure and thus more responsive to the governments censorship requests. However, centralizing market power via merging or shutting down small platforms doesnt necessarily create more disruption in users content creation.

If a market hosts fewer platforms, two factors are at play: first, each platform captures a larger market share and bears higher political costs of non-compliance; second, platforms have more strategic incentives to differentiate from other obedient competitors with non-compliance, now that users have fewer options to switch to.

Following this change in the market structure, whether a platform is more or less likely to censor during the next salient event depends on which of the two forces dominates. If even a slight increase in a platforms size alarms the government and significantly raises its risk of non-compliance, the former political pressure would dominate and generate more censorship in the marketplace. If, on the other hand, limiting the number of alternatives encourages more users to switch between platforms due to sufficiently lower switching or search cost, then the latter strategic incentive would dominate and cause platforms to censor less often in equilibrium.

To quantify the relative magnitude of these two forces and derive meaningful counterfactual predictions, I estimated the model by exploiting variations in platforms market share across different events in my dataset.

My counterfactual analysis shows that permanently shutting down a small platform could backfire and lead to an unintended consequence where the overall censorship is lower in the marketplace.This is because if the non-compliant platform is no longer present, the remaining two platforms will share the whole market. They will both obtain stronger strategic incentives to differentiate by not censoring, as they expect to attract more switching users from its now only competitor. When the absence of a non-compliant platform encourages the remaining platforms to comply significantly less often, market concentration is pushing down the overall censorship in the marketplace.

Past research suggested that an authoritarian regimes chances of survival decline with the number of information sources, unless there are strong economies of scale in information control. To preserve political stability, authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia have always been heavy-handed in regulating private media outlets. With nearly half of the total world population owning a social media account, however, blindly penalizing emerging platforms for non-compliance no longer comes with a negligible cost in this digital age.

My findings indicate that decentralizing online market power may help an authoritarian government maintain sufficiently high market-level censorship in an overall low-pressure environment: tolerating (or even encouraging) a bit of dissent on small platforms allows big platforms to censor more effectively as it mitigates their strategic incentives. This might be one of the reasons why, unlike in the United States, where the market is dominated by a handful of mainstream social media platforms, Chinese social media is still very fragmented and localized.

Beyond China, my findings also offer some useful insights on how to regulate digital platforms in Western democracies. In 2017, Germanys parliament passed a law requesting social networks to delete hate-speech postings and misinformation within 24 hours, or they would face fines of up to 50 million. The German Ministry of Justice criticized Facebook for not handling user complaints quickly, saying that the company deleted only 39 percent of the criminal content reported by users. Twitters compliance was not found satisfactory either: a German government-funded survey claimed that none of Twitters deletions took place within 24 hours.

Although most people dislike misinformation and wish to have it removed, a piece of fake news takes time to verify and it sometimes becomes the alternative truth among many before it is proven deceptive. In fact, creating borderline content has become one of the few proven recipes for success, as it brings more engagement the closer a piece of content comes to violating a platforms rules. To counter misinformation, policymakers should pay extra attention to small platforms especially when large platforms are pressured to purge borderline contents quickly.

When two segments of users co-existone is quick to identify misinformation and the other takes it as the alternative truthremoving the same piece of content pleases the former at the expense of upsetting the latter. If large platforms are expected to be more responsible for removing misinformation or to take actions faster, the latter group may disproportionally switch to small platforms that receive less legal attention every time a piece of misinformation turns viral. Subsequently, social media mergers and acquisitions not only affect the parties involved but could also significantly distort other small incumbents incentives to comply with the regulationa distortion that may exacerbate the spread of misinformation and create more echo chambers in the long run.

The ProMarket blog is dedicated to discussing how competition tends to be subverted by special interests. The posts represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty. For more information, please visitProMarket Blog Policy.

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How Allowing a Little Bit of Dissent Helps the Chinese Government Control Social Media - - ProMarket

The future landscape of the automotive industry looks very different from its past and with autonomous vehicles moving from a design blueprint to reality on our roads it means that traffic laws will have to adapt to these changing circumstances.

With driverless trucks taking to the highways to deliver goods across the country it is highly relevant to look at the implications of a potential accident or violation when a human driver is not in control of that vehicle.

Here is an overview of how the introduction of autonomous delivery and cargo trucks will impact the current driving laws.

A fundamental point to remember is that we are still a long way off a scenario where trucks are hauling cargo around the country with no human operator anywhere to be seen.

Also, the human touch will always be required in certain circumstances and if you are involved in a collision you will want to appoint semi truck accident lawyers who are tough, but compassionate too, who will look after your interests and understand the legal implications.

Technology is evolving at a pace and where we are at at the present time is a sort of halfway house in which modern vehicles are making use of available technology such as cameras, sensors, and automatic braking, in order to keep the occupants as safe as possible.

Therefore, it is still very much the case that human drivers are expected to take an active role in the control and navigation of their vehicles.

The current situation is that self-driving trucks are legally regulated at a state level and only about a third of states have actually passed laws that specifically relate to autonomous vehicles.

The federal government appears to be in a state of hesitancy and uncertainty and many of the current official views tend to be more a case of recommendations regarding safety protocols rather than being specific regulations.

The most prominent piece of legislation passed so far with regard to autonomous vehicles is the SELF DRIVE Act, which was unanimously passed in 2017, however, this act excluded self-driving trucks.

The reason for this was primarily due to union concerns who are fearful of a cull of truck drivers once automation takes hold. Regulations are likely to catch up at some point with regard to self-driving trucks but it is a gray area at present.

In light of this situation the burning question is what sort of action can you take and what level of compensation will you be able to claim if you are involved in a collision with a self-driving truck.

When you consider how confused and unsure lawmakers appear to be regarding autonomous vehicles at the moment it highlights how important it could be to get some professional legal guidance if you are unfortunate enough to be involved in a collision with a truck, especially one that is completely self-driven, or somewhere between the two.

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What are the legal implications of autonomous delivery and cargo trucks? - AZ Big Media