Jon Friedman's Media Web: Good Riddance, Dubya

Hurricane Beryl, the first hurricane of the 2024 season in the Atlantic, has already broken storm records as it ravages through the Caribbean. Power lines have been brought down, homes flattened, and streets flooded across multiple southeastern Caribbean Islands. The death toll has risen to at least seven people, according to CNN. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Barbados, St.

Brazil’s national data protection authority has ordered Meta to halt the use of data originating from the country to train its AI models. Meta’s current privacy policy enables the company to use data from its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to train its artificial intelligence models. However, that practice will no longer be permitted in Brazil after its national data protection authority gave the company five days to change its policy on Tuesday. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Brazil said the company will need to confirm it has stopped using the data or face a daily non-compliance fine of $50,000 Brazilian Reals (almost $9000), citing “the imminent risk of serious and irreparable or difficult-to-repair damage to the fundamental rights of the affected data subjects.” Meta said it was “disappointed” with the Brazilian authority’s decision, saying it was a “step backward for innovation.” “AI training is not unique to our services, and we’re more transparent than many of our industry counterparts who have been using public content to train their models and products,” the company tells TIME Wednesday, following the Brazilian authority’s decision. The decision follows a report published in June by Human Rights Watch, which found that a popular dataset of images scrapped from online sources used to train image models, made by German nonprofit LAION, contained identifiable images of Brazilian children, which the report says places them at risk of deep fakes or other forms of exploitation.

France captain Kylian Mbappé led his team to victory in their EURO 2024 Round of 16 game against Belgium on Monday, with a deflected shot securing the team’s advancement. The 25-year-old soccer star played his game in a face mask—a recent, and highly discussed, addition to his uniform. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Mbappé is wearing the mask after he broke his nose in a collision in France’s opening game—a 1-0 win against Austria on June 17.

Are you drowning in political campaign texts? You aren’t alone. As the November 2024 election approaches, Americans across the country are experiencing a surge in text messages from political campaigns vying for their attention, donations, and votes. According to Alex Quilici, CEO of call-blocking company YouMail, there have already been more political texts in 2024 than in all of 2023. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] For some, the incessant buzz of political campaign texts has become a daily annoyance, clogging phones with unwanted notifications and creating the challenge of distinguishing legitimate outreach from potential scams.

Though the Netflix series America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders is filled with plenty of revelations about the organization, one of the most shocking is that despite the intense athletic demands and rigorous schedule of the elite team, many of the dancers also balance the work of being a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader with full-time jobs in order to make enough to get by.

In the fifth episode of The Acolyte, the latest Star Wars series on Disney+, the villain known as simply “The Stranger” finally reveals himself. While wearing a mask to hide his identity, the mysterious Sith Lord goes on a Jedi murdering spree. At first, he takes out only minor characters whose names we don’t know, though in particularly brutal fashion: He impales one with a lightsaber and then Force-pulls a second Jedi toward him, impaling that Jedi too.