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Android 11 updates how media controls are displayed, making use of theMediaSession and MediaRouter2 APIs to render controls and audio outputinformation.

Media controls in Android 11 are located near the Quick Settings. Sessions frommultiple apps are arranged in a swipeable carousel. The carousel listssessions in this order:

Users can restart previous sessions from the carousel without having to startthe app. When playback begins, the user interacts with the media controls in theusual way.

In order to use this feature, you mustenable Media resumption in the Developer Options settings.

To make your player app appear in the quick setting settings area,you must create a MediaStyle notification with a valid MediaSession token.

To display the brand icon for the media player, useNotificationBuilder.setSmallIcon().

To support playback resumption, apps must implement a MediaBrowserServiceand MediaSession.

The playback resumption feature can be be turned off using the Settings app,under the Sound > Media options. The user can also access Settings bytapping the gear icon that appears after swiping on the expanded carousel.

After the device boots, the system looks for the five most recently used mediaapps, and provides controls that can be used to restart playing from each app.

The system attempts to contact your MediaBrowserService with a connection fromSystemUI. Your app must allow such connections, otherwise it cannot supportplayback resumption.

Connections from SystemUI can be identified and verified using the package namecom.android.systemui and signature. The SystemUI is signed with the platformsignature. An example of how to check against the platform signature can befound in the UAMP app.

In order to support playback resumption, your MediaBrowserService mustimplement these behaviors:

onGetRoot() must return a non-null root quickly. Other complex logic shouldbe handled in onLoadChildren()

WhenonLoadChildren() is called on the root media ID, the result must contain aFLAG_PLAYABLEchild.

MediaBrowserService should return the most recently played media item whenthey receive anEXTRA_RECENTquery. The value returned should be an actual media item rather than genericfunction.

MediaBrowserService must provide an appropriateMediaDescription with a non-emptytitle andsubtitle.It should also set anicon URIor anicon bitmap.

The following code examples illustrate how to implement onGetRoot().

The system retrieves the following information from theMediaSession's MediaMetadata, and displays it when it is available:

In order to support play resumption, your MediaSession must implement aMediaSession callback for onPlay().

The media player shows the elapsed time for the currently playingmedia, along with a seek bar which is mapped to the MediaSessionPlaybackState.

In order for the the seek bar to work correctly, you must implementPlaybackState.Builder#setActions and include ACTION_SEEK_TO. Otherwise theplayer only shows the elapsed time and duration.

To set the player controls, use Notification.Builder#setCustomActions. Onlythe actions indicated withNotification.MediaStyle#setShowsActionsInCompactView willbe displayed in the media player appearing in the collapsed quick settings.

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Media Controls | Android Developers

The First Amendment and the freedom of speech and expression it provides has helped make the internet what it is today: a place for diverse communities, support networks, and forums of all stripes to share information and connect people. Individuals and groups exercise their constitutional right to host and moderate sites that offer a common place for people who share a hobby, a religious belief, a political opinion, or a love for a particular kind of music.

Online platforms, from Facebook to your blog, have the right to decide what speech they publish and how they publish it. In that way, online platforms are no different from newspapers or parade organizers.

A federal appeals court in Louisiana, ruling last month in the case Netchoice v. Paxton, dealt a staggering blow to this bedrock principle of free speech online. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld an unconstitutional and disastrous Texas law that creates liability for social media platforms moderation decisions, essentially requiring that they distribute speech they do not want to host. Texas HB 20 restricts large platforms from removing or moderating content based on the viewpoint of the user. The law was created and passed to retaliate against social platforms that allegedly silence conservative viewpoints and ideas, despite there being no evidence that large platforms moderation decisions are biased against conservative viewpoints.

Tech industry groups NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) challenged the law in court. EFF filed amicus briefs in the district, federal appeals, and Supreme Court arguing that while internet users are sometimes justifiably frustrated by social media platforms content moderation decisions, they nevertheless are best served when the First Amendment protects those decisions. That First Amendment right helps the internet grow and provide diverse forums for speech.

After a district court preliminarily blocked the law, Texas appealed to the Fifth Circuit, which found that HB 20 doesnt violate platforms First Amendment rights. The court ruled that services do not have a constitutional right to engage in content moderationinstead, the court called platforms moderation and curation of content on their sites censorship. Large platforms that want to moderate user speech in violation of HB 20 have an armada of attorneys to defend them in court, the Fifth Circuit said. The law allows individuals and the state attorney general to sue platforms over content moderation and get reimbursed for their attorneys fees if they win.

This is an extraordinarily dangerous turn for internet freedom, and the right of people with diverse opinionsthat may be unpopular or aggravating to othersto speak freely online. The Fifth Circuits ruling is deeply problematic on many levels, including its failure to recognize how Congress, in enacting 47 U.S.C. 230, has already preempted state censorship laws like HB 20. This post, however, focuses on the terrible implications that the ruling has for online speech.

The logic of the Fifth Circuits ruling has damaging implications for every service hosting user-generated speech, not just the largest platforms like Facebook and YouTube. While HB 20 only applies to platforms with more than 50 million users, the courts holding that the First Amendment does not protect online content moderation can easily be applied beyond them. In the Fifth Circuit, which covers Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, this unprecedented scaling back of free speech endangers smaller, less powerful, and less wealthy services. Many small and medium sized online services, described in our amicus briefs against HB 20, moderate content to serve particular communities, topics, or viewpoints.

The effects cannot be overstatedHB 20 and laws like it will destroy many online communities that rely on moderation and curation and cannot afford to fight the onslaught of lawsuits that the Fifth Circuit invites. Platforms and users may not want to see certain kinds of content and speech that is legal but still offensive or irrelevant to them. Rejecting such content or even deprioritizing it in a feed would come with a ruinously high price tag.

For example, the Fifth Circuits holding could allow laws that require sites supporting people suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome to post comments from people who dont believe this ailment is a real disease. Sites promoting open carry gun rights that disallow comments critical of gun rights would violate such laws. A site dedicated to remembering locals whose families were affected by the Holocaust could be forced to allow comments by Holocaust deniers. Platforms unable to withstand an attack of harassing comments from trolls could be forced offline altogether.

The Fifth Circuits decision allows concerns about private censorship to serve as the basis for government control of speech. Whatever your political views, we hope you recognize the danger of the Fifth Circuits decision, because it fundamentally alters our ability to decide for ourselves the types of speech and views we want to see and associate with, including our right to exclude others or ourselves from speech we dont like. Community-led and diverse forums dedicated to particular topics and for particular people with specific viewswhich is nearly all forumsare now potentially under the thumb of the state, which could force them to serve its interests by calling the removal of opposing views censorship.

Theres something for everyone on the internet, and thats how it should be. Of course, its true that moderation decisions by large platforms can silence legitimate speech and stifle debate online. But as EFF has repeatedly argued, the way to address the concentration of a handful of large services is by reducing their power and giving consumers more choices. This includes renewed antitrust reforms, allowing interoperability, and taking other steps to increase competition between services.

These efforts would allow people who dont like the viewpoints expressed on one site to move to another and keep their social networks, while increasing the number of platforms that host speech that reflects their views and interests.

Unfortunately, the Fifth Circuits decision is likely to result in fewer sites for users to choose from and will likely do very little to alter or diminish the dominance of the platforms. This is because, as the Fifth Circuit observes, the largest services have immense legal resources to fight the lawsuits permitted by HB 20. They will survive, while other smaller sites targeted by new laws similar to HB 20 will not.

Government should not have the power to tell websites what opinions they must host, and we hope to that the Supreme Court will strike down this disastrous law and reject the Fifth Circuits dangerous logic that undermines the First Amendment rights of online services and their users.

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Court's Decision Upholding Disastrous Texas Social Media Law Puts The State, Rather Than Internet Users, in Control of Everyone's Speech Online - EFF

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A differentiated digital intervention to improve antiretroviral therapy adherence among men who have sex with men living with HIV in China: a...

Most of the complaints about Musk are meritless and tell us more about the cluelessness or hypocrisy of his critics than his alleged perfidy. At the end of the day, the case against him boils down to the criticism that he will allow too much unfettered speech on his social media platform, a plaint that would have made little sense to anyone a decade or so ago when the balance of center-left opinion was still robustly free speech.

As it is, a libertarian-ish business leader is saying he wants an important platform for political and social advocacy and argument to provide the widest possible latitude for varied, clashing views, and the reaction of a large segment of commentators is, This man must be stopped.

Musk cant catch a break. Bill Clintons former Labor Secretary Robert Reich tweeted, When multi-billionaires take control of our most vital platforms for communication, its not a win for free speech. Its a win for oligarchy.

As they say on Twitter, Whos going to tell him?

Successful social media companies arent typically owned and run by low-income individuals (at least not by the time they are out of their garages). The co-founder and former CEO of Twitter who was in place when Reich was much less alarmed by the direction of the platform, Jack Dorsey, is worth $7 billion by some estimates.

Although hes taken a beating lately, Mark Zuckerberg still has a net worth of something like $50 billion.

Suffice it to say that Musk is not single-handedly bringing income inequality to Americas social-media companies.

At the end of the day, the biggest problem that Musks critics have with him is that he is a threat to their de facto control of Twitter. Ben Collins of NBC tweeted that Twitter will change dramatically if Musk owns it, and if the takeover gets done early enough, based on the people hes aligned with, yes, it would actually affect [the] midterms.

The worry that Twitters policies under Musk might affect the upcoming election is an implicit acknowledgment that its current policies have political consequences, and they clearly do otherwise, it wouldnt be that so many Democrats and progressives happen to be absolutely desperate to protect the Twitter status quo.

Collins warned that if Musk takes Twitter private the rule-making could become capricious. Indeed, Musk can elevate any idea or person he wants through recommendations and UX [user experience] choices and there will be no oversight on this as a private company.

One wonders what has supposedly happened prior to this point? Was there accountability when Twitter tried to squelch a totally legitimate news story about Hunter Bidens laptop prior to the 2020 election? Has anyone blown the whistle as the platform forbids one side of the debate on trans issues from using its preferred terms and expressing its deeply held, sincere beliefs? Is anyone keeping it from suspending the account of a conservative satirical publication, or cracking down on an account devoted simply to reposting already public videos?

The worst case is that these decisions are made explicitly to disadvantage conservatives. The best case is that decisions about what constitutes harassment and misinformation and the like inevitably involve subjective value judgments and politics naturally enters into them.

It would be easier to believe that neutral criteria were used, say, to kick Marjorie Taylor Greene off the platform, if a member of the Squad were getting dinged, too. Itd be easier to take the flagging of conservatives for spreading misinformation or alleged misinformation, if, for instance, Stacey Abrams and her supporters were whistled for running down the Georgia election system with various provable distortions.

Twitter is run as if a workforce of hyper-online progressive employees overwhelmingly living and working in a deeply blue jurisdiction is calling the shots, and, of course, so it is.

Another count against Musk is that these employees hate him. But so what? If we all agree that Twitter is an important public forum, its rules shouldnt be set by a group of people who have a vested interest in vindicating their own ideological beliefs and fashionable obsessions.

The underlying belief of those who think Musk is about to ruin Twitter and blight the American political conversation is that Donald Trump wouldnt have won the 2016 presidential election if it werent for Russian bots and right-wing purveyors of misinformation running riot on social media. If these were all repressed, the electoral system would be restored to its senses meaning back to Democratic control.

The effect of the 2016 Russian information operation was always exaggerated, though, and the attempt to squash misinformation on social media has veered into misbegotten campaigns against entirely reasonable points of view that baffle or outrage progressive America (the idea that Covid might have leaked from a lab got this treatment for a while).

Musks classical-liberal view that false or unwelcome speech is best combated by more speech once was a matter of consensus. That it feels radical now and is so bitterly contested is a symptom of how the Overton window has shifted toward speech suppression in the name of content moderation.

By the way, allowing Trump back on Twitter, as Musk is expected to do, wouldnt be a partisan power play. First of all, its significance would probably be exaggerated. Trump getting kicked off Twitter diminished his influence over the hour-by-hour political and media conversation, but its not as though hes been bereft without it hes retained his hold on the GOP, the real measure of his power, just fine.

Also, his Twitter return would hardly be an unalloyed benefit to him or the GOP. There are a lot of people in the Republican Party who would prefer to look past his poisonous musings and its a little harder to do that if hes back Twitter. (His own platform, Truth Social, doesnt have nearly the sway.) And Democrats, who want Trump to be as prominent as possible as a foil for Biden and others, should welcome a steady diet of Trump tweets again.

There is no doubt that Musk will encounter significant challenges to implementing his vision. Lines have to be drawn somewhere and hell have to guard against being as arbitrary as the prior regime just in a different way. But no one should doubt that he is deeply anti-bot (hes complained bitterly about their prevalence and tried to use them as a way out of the deal), and hopefully he will find more ways to allow people to choose for themselves what they want to see or not, without Sanhedrin-like rulings on deeply contentious political and moral questions.

Obviously, not all of this will be to everyones liking, especially to progressives who have gotten used to working their will with Twitter. But the social media platform is, ultimately, a private business that can set any rules it wants. If a more free-speech-oriented Twitter is hateful to them, they can take the advice they threw at conservatives disenchanted with the platform in recent years and go out and, build their own Twitter.

Excerpt from:
Opinion | Liberals Currently Control Twitter. That Needs to Change. - POLITICO

WASHINGTON Members of Congress are fanning out to every district in the country, leaving the wonky floor debates on Capitol Hill behind for the campaign trail in advance of the crucial Nov. 8 midterm elections.

Democrats are fighting to hold their razor-thin majorities in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, citing two years of victories on infrastructure, climate and prescription drug coverage. Republicans whose early expectations that they would sweep the House were tempered after a Supreme Court abortion ruling are trying to convince voters they need to balance the scales by putting them in charge of one or both chambers.

GOP candidates are attempting to tie Democrats to inflation, crime, fears about immigration and an unpopular president. But theyre shying away from talking about a national abortion ban in the wake of the courts decision to overturn two previous cases declaring abortion a constitutional right while Democrats are seeking something of a nationwide referendum on abortion access.

Adding to the tension in an unusual midterm election, Republican election deniers are on the ballot in many states. Election officials have described threats and a spread of misinformation. Polls in the tightest races arent giving a clear indication of who voters want in office, often switching from one week to the next or putting both candidates within the margin of error.

The polling uncertainty has left party leaders to funnel as much cash and attention to key races as possible, with Senate battles in Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin drawing the most media and cash. Spending overall is expected to top a record $9.3 billion by the time the election is over, according to Open Secrets.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican not up for reelection this year, pegs the chances the GOP regains that chamber as dead even.

Were in a bunch of close races. I think we have a 50-50 shot of getting the Senate back, McConnell said the last week of September.

McConnell sidestepped a question during the same press conference about whether he was being overly dismissive about the role abortion might play with suburban women, who tend to swing between voting for Democrats and Republicans.

I think that issue is playing out in different ways in different states, McConnell said, countering that the three biggest national issues Republicans will pound away at during the campaign will be inflation, crime and open borders.

In Kansasa state dominated by Republicans residents overwhelmingly voted this summer to reject a constitutional amendment that would have allowed state lawmakers to enact abortion restrictions.

Thats been the only ballot question about abortion since the Supreme Courts ruling in June, though California, Kentucky, Michigan and Vermont residents will vote on abortion ballot questions on election day.

A September poll by NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist National, a survey research center, found inflation was the No. 1 voting issue for Americans, with 30% saying it was top of mind when they thought about how theyd vote in Novembers election. That figure was down from 37% in a July poll.

Abortion came in second, with 22% of people surveyed citing it as a top issue, up from 18% in July.

The Supreme Courts decision on Dobbs this summer has had a major impact on electoral politics heading toward the midterm elections, Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, said in a statement accompanying the poll.

Abortion has likely been the most significant factor in improving Democrats chances in the past few months, Erin Covey, an analyst with the forecasting group Inside Elections, said in an interview.

Yet the inflation issue is powerful.

The consumer price index, which is the average market of consumer goods and services bought by a household, has found a continued increase in the cost of shelter, food, medical costs and education. The CPI determined that food has increased 11.4% over the last year the largest 12-month increase since May 1979.

But despite economic concerns, the poll still found that Democrats have a 4-point advantage over Republicans in this upcoming election, primarily due to the Supreme Courts decision.

Democrats have seized upon abortion as an issue to motivate their base and get new voters to the polls, but its unclear if those new voter registrants, particularly women, are due to the Supreme Courts abortion ruling and if that will help Democrats win tight races.

In every election since 1980, women have always outnumbered men in regard to voter registrations, according to data compiled by the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

The Democratic data firm TargetSmart, which tracks voter registrations, found that there was a spike in registrations of women voters following the early leak of the Dobbs decision, but voter registrations in 2018 and 2020 were still higher than voter registrations when Roe v. Wade was overturned on June 24.

Republican leaders in the U.S. House, despite their struggles dealing with the abortion issue, still expect theyll regain control. But key Democrats have become more outspoken in recent weeks saying voters will keep them in the majority.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer and Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal have all said they expect to hold onto the House.

Pelosi, a California Democrat, said last week on CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that overturning Roe v. Wade had a significant impact on how Democrats are approaching the midterm campaigns, leading to a whole different attitude on the part of some about whether we could win.

I feel just watching each of the races forgive me for saying this, in a very cold-blooded way, as to which races we can win, to ensure that we not only hold the House, but we increase our number, Pelosi said.

Jayapal, of Washington state, said on a call with reporters she plans to campaign for at-risk progressive Democrats in the coming weeks, noting that many of the CPCs members are also in the so-called Frontline program, which directs resources to Democrats in swing districts.

We think progressives can win in tough districts and have shown it over and over again, Jayapal said.

Democratic candidates are running on what they call a raft of accomplishments over the last two years of unified government, touting infrastructure, climate change and prescription drug prices, among others, said Tommy Garcia, a spokesman for House Democrats campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. They are also focused on what they call Republican candidates extremism.

A Democratic majority will build on this historic progress, continue fighting to lower the cost of living for working families, and restore Roes abortion protections that Republican judges ripped away, Garcia said in a written statement. Voters will reject the GOPs plan to ban abortion nationwide, throw out votes if they dont like the results of an election, gut Social Security and Medicare, and stir up fear for their own benefit.

President Joe Bidens approval has ticked up since Democrats notched a few victories this summer, passing bills on gun violence and climate, health and taxes, as well as granting student loan debt relief. Moderate drops in gas prices from record highs earlier this year have also helped, Covey said.

Still, polling in individual races has not shown a massive shift toward Democratic candidates, she said.

Bidens approval has gone up a bit, the generic ballot a little bit better. And obviously, we have seen Democratic over-performance in special elections, she said. In terms of the polling on an individual level, there hasnt been a significant shift towards that.

Analysts still rate a Republican takeover of the House as the most likely outcome, though the prospect of a landslide election is less probable, she added.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has 39 members in its Frontline program, naming them as at risk of losing reelection. The Houses current party breakdown is 220 Democrats, 212 Republicans and three vacancies.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOPs campaign arm, placed 75 Democrats on its target list after all states completed their redistricting processes in June. The cohort includes all of the Frontline Democrats, except Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Pat Ryan of New York.

The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, however, has 30 House races in the toss-up category, with 20 of those held by Democrats, nine controlled by GOP members and one new district in Colorado.

Cook places 194 House seats as leaning toward Democratic control while 211 seats are favored for Republicans. That means the GOP needs to win fewer of the 30 toss-up races to reach the 218 seats needed to control the chamber.

While every House seat is up for reelection for another two-year term, just one-third of the Senate will face voters on Nov. 8, since members are elected to six-year terms.

In the Senate races, Cook rates the Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin races as toss-ups. The Arizona, Colorado and New Hampshire races lean towards a Democrat winning. And the Florida, North Carolina and Ohio races lean toward a Republican victory.

Nine Senate seats held by Democrats are expected to stay blue, while 15 seats up this cycle that are held by Republicans are in the solidly GOP category. The Utah Senate race is classified as likely going to a Republican, according to Cooks ratings.

Pennsylvania, where Democrat John Fetterman faces Republican Mehmet Oz for an open seat, was rated as lean Democrat, but was moved to a toss-up this week, with Cooks Senate and Governors Editor Jessica Taylor writing that it has become a margin-of-error race.

Republicans and Democrats alike admit the race has tightened and that Pennsylvania could be the tipping point state for the Senate majority, she wrote.

Philip Chen, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Denver, said that in the Senate, Democrats have a better chance of picking up more seats because Republicans are defending a lot of seats, and Democrats are fairly solid in the ones that theyre holding.

He added that the popularity of the president does come into play. A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll this month found that Bidens approval was only 40%, which was actually up from his May low of 36% approval in the same survey.

We really will have to see how much the national mood dissatisfaction with President Biden and (how) things like that really do influence things, (and) how much of it is just the Senate is a tougher battle for Republicans this time around? Chen said.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has spent millions of dollars against Democrats in key states. In Arizona, this election cycle the NRSC has spent more than $9 million against Sen. Mark Kelly, and more than $4 million against Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has spent $10.5 million against Kellys Republican opponent, Blake Masters, and $3 million against Warnocks Republican opponent, Herschel Walker.

Biden, speaking at a Democratic National Committee reception in New Jersey on Thursday, cited the tendency for the presidents party to lose some power in the first midterms.

Based on statistics, the Democrats are running uphill because of the fact that, with only a couple exceptions, the first term of an incumbent president on the off-year election has been not a good deal most times, Biden said.

He then predicted that Democrats would hold the Senate, possibly picking up a couple seats, though he didnt seem as optimistic about the partys chances of keeping the House, blaming trends at the state level. Biden pointed out theres been a lot of gerrymandering in the House across the country, because a lot of governors arent Democratic governors.

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The battle for control of Congress: Abortion, inflation, crime and Biden - Nebraska Examiner