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March 2021
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EA College Sports Is Back, But Some Schools Are Opting Out Until Name, Image, Likeness Rules Are Created To Compensate Athletes

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Way back in 2013, a class action lawsuit started by ex-UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon resulted ultimately in the NCAA found to have violated antitrust laws. The antitrust bit comes from a waiver the NCAA forces student athletes to sign that removes their ability to be compensated for their names, images, or likeness (NIL). While this restriction has been in place at the NCAA for eons, this case came about due to O'Bannon discovering that he was represented in EA Sports' NCAA Basketball game in a "classic" team loaded into the game.The knock on effect to all of this was that 2010 was the last year EA Sports offered its college basketball game and 2013, the year the lawsuit came about, was the last year the company made its vaunted NCAA Football game. The reason given by the company was that schools were shying away from those games to avoid further lawsuits. For the next seven years, EA Sports stuck to professional sports.But now, in 2021, the company has announced that the college football series is back.

EA Sports actually dropped a few Easter eggs pointing to the possibility. In the past two editions of Madden, some college football programs were included as part of the "Face of the Franchise" story mode of the game. EA Sports vice president and general manager Daryl Holt told ESPN that while it wasn't a conscious decision to do that as a test run for the return of a college football game, there was positive feedback and returns, particularly in those college markets."That was another just check mark to go -- we know [fans] are itching for it and we know we can develop and deliver a great college football experience," Holt said. "So why are we waiting?"
So, what changed? Apparently not much beyond the Collegiate Licensing Community and its members once again being willing to license school names, stadiums, and imagery to EA Sports. Why there is this sudden change of heart isn't entirely clear at the time of this writing, but it is worth noting that there is a lot of talk and pressure on the NCAA to create new NIL rules so that athletes can get some compensation for their likenesses.Still, with those NIL rules still theoretical as of now, not all schools are opting in. Notre Dame had already indicated that they were pulling out of the game, citing the lack of NIL rules being established. And now Northwestern University has done likewise.
According to a report from Steve Greenberg of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Northwestern football team is opting out of the upcoming college football video game from EA Sports. The school wants NIL rules to be created and finalized before players can take part in the highly-anticipated video game. Northwestern is the second known school to opt-out of the game with Notre Dame being the first. It was also reported by Northwestern made the decision in January before EA announced college football is coming back.
So, what does this all mean? Well, it's a bit of a risky venture for EA Sports to take, given that any NCAA Football title as of now would have to be given an "incomplete" grade. The Big 10 without Northwestern? College football without Notre Dame? And what if more schools start getting pressure from their students and athletes and start to go down the same path?What this ultimately highlights is that the NCAA cartel should get its shit together and work out an NIL compensation arrangement with its athletes before once again attempting to dunk its licensing cookie into video games to try to enrich itself. That this is still an unsettled topic of conversation is baffling.

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posted at: 12:00am on 06-Mar-2021
path: /Policy | permalink | edit (requires password)

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Content Moderation Case Study: Bumble Shuts Down Sharon Stone's Account, Not Believing It's Really Her (2019)

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Summary: Almost any platform that allows users to create accounts eventually has to deal with questions of identity and impersonation. Many platforms set up systems like verified or trusted users for certain recognizable accounts. Others focus on real name policies, or trying to verify all users. But services often discover challenges that come with celebrity users and verification.While it's one thing to do verified accounts on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram that are often used for promotion and connection, dating site verification is a bit different and more complicated. Setting up fake personas on dating sites to lure people into misleading relationships (for a wide variety of reasons) is so common that it led to the creation of a whole new term: catfishing. Many dating sites now take user verification quite seriously, not just to avoid catfishing issues, but for the safety and protection of their userbase -- who, by definition, are usually trying to meet someone new with the hope of getting together in person.Bumble is a popular dating app which was built up around the premise of being safer, and more responsive to the needs of female daters. The site includes a verification feature that requests the user upload selfie poses that match poses in photos sent to the user -- which are then reviewed by a team member. The idea is that if a user were faking images by pulling them from online profiles or generating them via AI, it's much harder to match the pose.

Apparently, however, this form of verification ran into a problem when the actress Sharon Stone decided to use Bumble to meet potential dates. Users who matched with her, perhaps understandably, had difficulty believing that a famous Hollywood star would be using a dating app like Bumble, and they reported the account. Staff reviewers at Bumble were (again, reasonably) equally suspicious of the account, leading them to suspend it.Bumble quickly restored the account, and did so in a good natured way, wishing her luck in finding your honey.Decisions to be made by Bumble:
  • What systems do you use to verify users are who they say they are?
  • How much weight should be given to user reports that people they matched with are not real?
  • How do you handle celebrities, whose accounts people may not believe are legitimate?
  • What appeals process should there be for blocked accounts that were deemed to be fake?
Questions and policy implications to consider:
  • On dating apps in particular, user safety is key, so should sites default towards overblocking, rather than being hesitant?
  • Are there other forms of verification that would alleviate problems similar to the one Stone faced here?
  • Stone was able to get her account reinstated quickly because of her fame; does the existing appeals process work as well for users who don't have that pull?
Resolution: Bumble was pretty quick to restore Stone's account after she tweeted about it, and major news organizations picked up the story. A few months later, Stone admitted that she suspected that she was reported by men who were upset she had turned them down on the platform.
I think that I said no to a couple of people that thought that it would be a nice way to be not-so-kind back, she explained. I think some people don't like to hear, 'No, no I don't want to go out with you.'
She also noted that she has made some nice friends on the site.In the meantime, some have argued that Bumble purposely chose to block Stone in order to generate publicity. Of course, this would only work if the company knew that Stone would complain about the block publicly, which certainly was not guaranteed.Originally posted to the Trust & Safety Foundation website.

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posted at: 12:00am on 06-Mar-2021
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