Serena Williams Sings & Fighting Deepfakes

By David Erickson | October 6, 2018

Beyond Social Media Show, Episode 243

BL and David discuss Serena Williams singing “I Touch Myself” for breast cancer self-exam awareness; celebrities mount #DefyTheName campaign to fight bullying; Netflix lets you choose your Black Mirror plot; Instacodes come to Instagram; Google’s former head of PR writes a hilarious satire lampooning big tech; IMDB TV beams over Amazon; the #UpsideTown contest prize is a dream trip; Pixel Groups come to Facebook; BrainNet is the next big social network; Facebook’s Hack issue spreads across the web; DeepFakes are disastrous; why you might want to pass on MoviePass …and much, much more.

SUBSCRIBE: iTunes or Google Play or Stitcher or iHeart Radio or Amazon Echo or search the Spotify app.

Best Digital Cases

Serena Williams Sings for Breast Cancer Awareness

Serena Williams sings “I Touch Myself” while staring straight into the camera and covering her breasts with both hands to emphasize the importance of self exams for early detection of breast cancer.

For #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth I’ve recorded a version of The Divinyls global hit “I Touch Myself”!

It’s a reminder for women to self-check regularly as part of @itouchmyselforg supported by #Berlei for #BCNA pic.twitter.com/7qDQaS0SaU

— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) September 29, 2018

#DefyTheName

John Oliver, Olivia Munn and more aim to #DefyTheName.

Stars Revisit the Names Bullies Called Them in New Campaign From Monica Lewinsky and BBDO

Black Mirror Goes Interactive

Interactive TV is here at last. Netflix viewers will get to choose their own storylines in one episode of the upcoming 5th season of “Black Mirror.”

Netflix Plans a Choose-Your-Own Adventure ‘Black Mirror’

Internet Movie Database To Launch Streaming Service

Amazon is expected to announce a free, ad-supported video service on Fire TV which will feature libraries of past TV shows and movies.

Former Google PR Head Lampoons Big Tech

Jessica Powell, former head of PR at Google, has written a hilarious satirical novel, “The Big Disruption,” offering “A Totally Fictional But Essentially True Silicon Valley Story.”

Instacodes

School communities are being tested at some U.S. universities for Instagram’s new nametag feature.

Instagram Rolled Out Nametag: Customizable, Scannable Codes That Lead to Users’ Profiles

A Reflective Contest

Your photo of a reflection in water, using the hashtag #UpsideTown, could win you a dream vacation.

A Carefully Reflected Billboard

Pixeled Facebook Groups

The feature is another reason for Facebook advertisers to pay more attention to groups as user growth of Facebook’s news feed has slowed.

BrainNet

BrainNet allows collaborative problem-solving using direct brain-to-brain communication.

Worst Digital Cases

Facebook Hack Grows Worse

If you ever used Facebook to log into other sites, you should consider changing your passwords on every one of those sites.

Deepfakes

Fake sex videos aren’t a new phenomenon, but advancement in AI is worrying as ‘deepfakes’ are becoming increasingly harder to distinguish from real videos.

Deepfakes are being weaponized to silence women — but this woman is fighting back

Why You Might Want To Pass on MoviePass

MoviePass restored its $9.95 a month unlimited movies, but forced subscribers who had cancelled their subscriptions to re-subscribe. The company changes plans constantly.

MoviePass Hatches a New Survival Plan, and It’s Not a Good Look

Shiny New Stuff

Firefox Monitor

Firefox Monitor tells you whether your email has been stolen or breached and it doesn’t store your email address. You can sign up for alerts.

Firefox Monitor

Subject Line Testing Tool

The app allows marketers to test subject lines for potential deliverability and marketability issues that could affect campaign performance.

EKO

EKO is a powerful and free web-based authoring tool you can use to make interactive, live-action stories.