The UpStream

Social media companies have been making strange moves in the past few weeks. Decisions seem arbitrary and inconsistent at the vest of times. Some posts from government officials advocating violence have been marked as dangerous, while others are promoted as honorable. One of the newest instances of this has been with Twitter. The company recently suspended the account of DDoSecrets, a government transparency hacker group that was making private documents available.

This group has been called the new WikiLeaks. That is likely because, during Julian Assange's absence while in a British prison, WikiLeaks has been far less active than in its past. DDoSecrets took up the mantle and has been releasing data in the absence. But, while WikiLeaks Twitter account has been unchanged, DDoSecrets account has been permanently suspended. Twitter has claimed that the suspension comes because the account violates the service's rules, saying,

We don't permit the use of our services to directly distribute content obtained through hacking that contains private information, may put people in physical harm or danger, or contains trade secrets.

Note that if you attempt to evade a permanent suspension by creating new accounts, we will suspend your new accounts. If you wish to appeal this suspension, please contact our support team.

This message was sent after the "BlueLeaks" post, releasing a massive 269 GB collection of data from law enforcement agencies across the country. In the current climate, law enforcement data is in high demand, as the vocal minority rage against the police. Why, then, would a post like this trigger Twitter to suspend the account, when equally damning and culturally relevant posts from WikiLeaks had no such response? Twitter claims that part of the move is because the site can infect users with malware, which is untrue. There is no such malware on the site. We may never know exactly what it is about DDoSecrets that has attracted the ire of Twitter.

One of the new features of iOS 14 is a more honed control over the live permissions that apps receive. Among the new notifications is an alert when an app accesses your clipboard data. This has created an uproar in the Apple user community as more and more apps are discovered to be accessing the clipboard, seemingly without need. Some apps have a legitimate use for accessing the clipboard, some do it for convenience purposes, and others do it for no real reason at all. So far, 54 high profile apps are in question.

For some apps, clipboard data makes sense. An app like TrueCaller accessing the clipboard to see if you have a phone number stored can make it easier for you to check the history of that phone number. But, it could be just as easy to paste the phone number into a textbox and TrueCaller can continue to just be what it is. Other apps, like New York Times and Wall Street Journal have no reason to access the clipboard except to snoop on that content.

The original concern, and possibly the most glaring, is the controversial app TikTok. There are a number of reasons why there is great concern over the app's behavior. It is a Chinese app with strong ties to the Chinese government. It has been actively used to censor content and regularly discriminates against people the Chinese government disagrees with, such as the LGBT community. Giving the Chinese government access to additional content on your device could create a privacy issue unlike any other.

The company has said that they have already removed the clipboard access, but users are reporting that the app is still throwing notifications about clipboard access. For a platform that is so well-known for privacy violations, this is not surprising.

A few years ago, Nintendo made an announcement that shocked the industry: they were bringing their intellectual property to mobile devices. Nintendo has allowed games based on its characters and world on other platforms in the past but has been resistant to the idea in recent years because of the negative experiences they've had. Despite their concerns, games featuring Mario, Animal Crossing, and Pokemon have all found their way to iOS and Android devices. That era might be coming to an end if a report from Bloomberg is accurate.

The move to mobile was a surprise to many, not just because of the past licensing issues. The Switch, which is designed to be both a home and portable console, was the new face of the company. Releasing games for mobile devices could potentially undermine the uniqueness of the Switch. However, the reality of the situation turned out to be the opposite. Sales of first-party Switch games cannibalized usage and sales of the mobile titles. Most notably, the release of the most recent Animal Crossing: New Horizons destroyed usage of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, its mobile companion. In fact, sales of the new title have driven Nintendo's shares to a 12-year high.

With that information at hand, it makes less sense for Nintendo to split its resources developing new titles for mobile and Switch when the best-case scenario for the company is to focus on its own platform, especially if it is generating more revenue. But, it appears that the decision could have been made last year. Since Mario Kart Tour released last year, there have been no mobile games in development. Instead, it seems the company will focus on maintaining the current mobile games and developing new titles for the Switch.

Are you going to miss new mobile titles from Nintendo, or is the experience on the Switch where they should focus?

Since Microsoft bought Beam and rebranded it Mixer, they have fought to compete with the more established services, like Twitch. While they have worked to attract users, such as signing Ninja to the platform, their moves have not been as effective as they had hoped. In that time, even Facebook has gotten in on the game and surpassed Mixer for active users. Unfortunately for those who are full-time content creators on Mixer, the road is coming to an end.

With this announcement, we see the end of Microsoft's first-party ambitions for videogame streaming. Microsoft said that they learned the amount of time required to maintain and grow an active streaming community was out of scale with the amount of time available. This is likely because of the company's shift to focusing on a different type of streaming with Project xCloud.

With the shutdown of Mixer coming in just a month's time, the company is partnering with Facebook Gaming to transition its community. The two brands have worked together to make the transition easy. Facebook has a dedicated transition plan, though the move is obviously not required. However, a lot of perks will transfer with content creators, such as partner status and monetization. Embers and Sparks will be worth double their value for the next month, and any unspent or outstanding subscriptions will be translated into gift cards.

After the cutoff, Mixer.com will redirect to fb.gg, which is Facebook's dedicated gaming hub, and Mixer apps will encourage viewers to follow their streamers over to Facebook. However, the transition is not required - apparently for anyone. That includes the streamers who were paid large sums of money to move from Twitch to Mixer, such as Ninja. According to reports from people involved in the move, exclusive partners were paid their entire contract and, as of midnight last night, are free to pursue new homes at any streaming platform.

For those of us here, we preferred Mixer to other platforms. The latency, especially on chat, was far less than Twitch, which made interaction between the streamer and community more natural. It is a shame to see the platform go, but it was only a matter of time before one of the competitors would tap out.

With the official release of HBO Max, the confusion over the brand's streaming strategy has expanded. The expanded lineup became HBO Go, HBO Now, and HBO Max. For customers and potential customers, the question over which service was which and who got which features was difficult to keep straight. In fact, in our last conversation about the topic on the show, even we weren't able to keep straight which was which. But, it's about to become far simpler.

The HBO Go app is the way that existing subscribers to the traditional HBO TV service can stream current and past HBO programming on their mobile devices, web, and smart TVs. As of the end of July 2020, the HBO Go platform will be retired in favor of the other two platforms. When HBO Go goes away, HBO Now will be renamed to simply HBO, but its features will remain unchanged. Replacing HBO Go for existing customers is HBO Max, which contains the existing content, plus new licensed content.

While getting HBO Max instead of HBO Go is a theoretical win, for some users it's going to be a major loss. Those users are owners of Roku and Amazon Fire TV devices. If you're keeping track of streaming statistics, you'll know that these two platforms represent 70 percent of streaming devices. Why is this going to be a loss for 70 percent of streaming devices? Because, while HBO Go is available on both platforms, HBO Max is not available. So, if you are a subscriber to HBO and reply on one of these devices to access your streaming content, you are about to lose part of your subscription.

To add insult to injury, the reasoning for sunsetting Go is that Max is "widely available." But, can the app be considered "widely available" if it is missing 70 percent of the streaming device market? We'll see if the company manages to get the app to these platforms before the end of July, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

When the lockdown began, it created a ton of problems for nearly everyone. From food shortages to lost jobs, it affected everyone. But, one of the most visible things was the closure of schools and libraries, creating real problems for students. In an attempt to rectify the situation, the Internet Archive decided to clear out the waitlist for its ebook loaning program. They called the altered program the National Emergency Library, which made the ebooks in the library available to everyone for free, regardless of the availability of the titles. Now, that decision is having expected repercussions for the organization.

The Internet Archive did not get licensing to loan these books without restriction, in violation of the existing licensing agreement for these titles. As a result, four publishers (Hachette Book Group, Inc., HarperCollins Publishers LLC, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and Penguin Random House LLC) filed suit against the organization for copyright infringement. The suit asks for an injunction against the Internet Archive from sharing copyrighted content and statutory damages, in an amount that could be as high as $150,000 per infringement. If that fine was to be levied, it would almost certainly end the organization.

Recognizing the potential cost of the suit, the organization has decided to shut down the program two weeks early. The Internet Archive sees the suit differently, claiming,

This lawsuit is not just about the temporary National Emergency Library. The complaint attacks the concept of any library owning and lending digital books, challenging the very idea of what a library is in the digital world.

This isn't quite reality, though, as libraries actually follow the law. The digital content that is lent through proper libraries is licensed through special programs for digital lending, whereas the Internet Archive decided to scan physical books and make them available to anyone for free without restriction. This will be an uphill battle for the organization if the publishers decide to follow through, now that the program is shut down.