The streaming giant is having to navigate different political and moral landscapes, and calls for government oversight, as it seeks subscribers worldwide. From a report: In September, Netflix released a trailer for the “Breaking Bad” sequel “El Camino.” In it, a character sits in a car, lights a cigarette and holds it out the window, its orange tip glowing. The next day, Netflix Turkey released its own version. In it, the character sparks a lighter and puts his hand out of the window. But there’s a difference: The cigarette has been edited out. It wasn’t the first time Netflix had censored one of its trailers here. In January, the streaming giant edited one for “Sex Education,” a series about a teenage sex therapist, to blur a character’s hands so you couldn’t see the raised middle fingers. These changes may seem small, but they are a sign of Netflix trying to get ahead of regulation it could soon face in Turkey.

[…] In Turkey, and in other countries, Netflix must navigate different political and moral landscapes, and calls for censorship, as it expands worldwide. Its 2018 annual report lists both “censorship” and “the need to adapt our content and users interfaces for specific cultural and language differences” as business risks. India is another country where Netflix has been embroiled in debates around regulation and censorship. In 2017, the company offered viewers “Angry Indian Goddesses,” a movie that had been released in Indian theaters in a censored form to avoid offending religious sensibilities.ï Netflix, which is not subject to India’s movie theater code, initially showed the censored version anyway, to avoid a backlash from religious viewers. But complaints came instead from viewers who wanted to see the movie uncut. Netflix made that version available and released a statement: “Our members reached out to us and we listened.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – Netflix Expands Into a World Full of Censors

The skies of Syria, Yemen, and Libya swarm with armed and dangerous unmanned aerial vehicles. And the technology is spreading farther and farther afield. From a report: Three decades ago, drones were available to only the most technologically developed state military organizations. Today they’re everywhere, being used by weaker states and small military forces, as well as many non-state actors, including Islamic State and al-Qaeda. “We’re seeing a cycle of technological innovation regarding the use of drones and associated systems, and that cycle of techno-tactical adaptation and counter-adaptation will only hasten going forward,” says Raphael Marcus, a research fellow in the department of war studies at King’s College London.

The diffusion of such technology is leveling the playing field, says Marcus, author of Israel’s Long War With Hezbollah: Military Innovation and Adaptation Under Fire. He says that because armies no longer have the monopoly on the use of drones, surveillance technology, precision capabilities, and long-range missiles, other actors in the region are able to impose their will on the international stage. “The parameters have changed,” he says. That’s already leading to greater instability. For example, Hezbollah’s thwarted drone strike in August and increasingly sophisticated and more frequent drone attacks by Hamas raise the risk of another war with Israel; meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthi rebels made an impact on the global price of oil with a strike on Saudi Arabia, using 25 drones and missiles.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot – The Drone Wars Are Already Here