The FTC OK’d a final consent order with Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, which settled allegations in July that it paid online influencers to promote a videogame without telling consumers (see 1607110029), the agency said in a Monday news release. Commissioners voted 3-0, after a comment period, the FTC said. The agency accused Warner Bros. of paying thousands of dollars to influencers to plug the videogame Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor on Google's YouTube and other social media sites and of telling such influencers how to promote the game and not disclose any bugs. "Over the course of the campaign, the sponsored videos were viewed more than 5.5 million times," said the FTC. The company is barred from failing to make such public disclosures in the future and can't misrepresent sponsored content. In July, the company said in an email statement it always tries to be transparent with its customers and is committed to complying with the guidelines.

Advancing encryption, changing government surveillance, opposing internet censorship and pushing for comprehensive privacy legislation are some policy priorities that the Center for Democracy & Technology wants President-elect Donald Trump to adopt. CDT said Friday that it submitted a document to Trump outlining a series of technology and internet recommendations for the incoming administration. In the cover letter to Trump, CDT President Nuala O'Connor called the proposals "moderate" and "pragmatic." CDT said privacy and national security measures should include elevating encryption to bolster internet security, rejecting back doors that could weaken encryption, stopping warrantless spying on Americans and creating an environment for security researchers to find and help patch software vulnerabilities. CDT said Trump should reject policies that force companies to monitor their users, fight online censorship and protect open internet rules. Trump also should address technology that could "exacerbate inequality and lead to discrimination in automated systems" and improve data protection. Early last week, the Internet Association wrote a letter to Trump outlining industry priorities, which include privacy and security (see 1611140069).

The Internet Association and TechNet, both of which count several sharing-economy companies as members, approved of a Thursday FTC review of such peer-to-peer platforms (see 1611170017). The report summarized a 2015 workshop on the topic and didn't issue any recommendations. "Consumers enjoy increased competition, lower prices, and better quality services when sharing economy platforms are able to compete," said IA General Counsel Abigail Slater in a statement. "Consumer protections are hardwired into sharing economy platforms and the internet industry welcomes the FTC’s recognition of this important attribute." TechNet President Linda Moore said in a statement that such platforms produce flexible job opportunities, encourage competition and help the economy. She said the study "demonstrates why it’s critical to advance policies that allow sharing economy platforms to compete on a level playing field with traditional industry participants.” Airbnb, Etsy, Instacart, Lyft and Uber are some major sharing economy companies that are members of either IA, TechNet or both.

Reports of social media censorship from Facebook, Google, Instagram and Twitter indicate that users are becoming increasingly frustrated with those platforms' content moderation policies, Onlinecensorship.org reported Wednesday. The Electronic Frontier Foundation/Visualizing Impact project based its report on an analysis of user-generated content takedown reports between April and November. About 76 percent of 230 reports of social media content takedowns between March and October concerned Facebook, while 17 percent involved Twitter and about 4 percent concerned Instagram, the report said. Facebook this year faced criticism from congressional lawmakers and others over claims the website censored conservative news as well as the publication of several fake news stories (see 1605100032, 1605240059, 1605110048 and 1610310038). Onlinecensorship.org researchers also analyzed "content takedowns" from Google+ and YouTube users. The report said 36 percent of the reports related to account shutdowns. About 26 percent involved a takedown of a post, 19 percent involved a photo takedown and 6 percent involved a video, Onlinecensorship.org said. Most users don't have a clear understanding of why their content was removed with only 60 reports providing a reason, the project said. Election-related censorship complaints in particular showed that users desired to speak their minds about the presidential contest between Republican President-elect Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. “These companies have enormous impact on the public sphere, yet they are still private entities with the ability to curate the information we see and the information we don’t see at their sole discretion,” said Jillian York, Onlinecensorship.org co-founder, in a news release. “The user base is what powers these social media tools, yet users are feeling like they don’t have any control or understanding of the system.” Onlinecensorship.org recommended that social media platforms create best practices for content moderation, including a commitment to transparency in how such policies are enforced. Researchers also recommended improving the systems for appealing content takedown decisions when they're made in error. Facebook, Google, Instagram and Twitter didn't immediately comment.

Pay-TV subscriber losses were up in Q3, when the 11 largest pay-TV players, covering about 95 percent of the market, lost roughly 255,000 net video subscribers, Leichtman Research Group said in a news release Wednesday. That compares with a loss of 210,000 subscribers in Q3 2015. LRG said the top six cable companies lost roughly 90,000 subscribers in the most recent quarter, down from losing 170,000 in Q3 a year earlier. Direct broadcast satellite added 207,000 subscribers in the quarter when Dish Network's Sling TV gains are included, compared with a gain of 3,000 in Q3 2015, Leichtman said. It said DirecTV's 323,000 net adds in Q3 were the most in any third quarter since 2011. Telco providers lost roughly 375,000 subs in the quarter, compared with a loss of 45,000 in Q3 2015. The researcher said that over the past year, AT&T has shed about 1.3 million U-verse subscribers while adding 1.2 million DirecTV subscribers. Over the past year, those top pay-TV providers have lost roughly 755,000 subs, compared with a loss of 445,000 over the previous 12 months.

Addressing challenges in preventing abuse, bullying and harassment on Twitter, the social media website said in a Tuesday blog post that it's made progress in the areas of controls, reporting and enforcement to better help users. One feature called "mute," which enables users to stop seeing tweets from certain accounts, is being expanded, it said. "We’re enabling you to mute keywords, phrases, and even entire conversations you don’t want to see notifications about, rolling out to everyone in the coming days." The company will also give users a "more direct way" to report specific conduct that targets people based on their age, disability, disease, ethnicity, gender and gender identity, national origin, race, religious affiliation and sexual orientation. "This will improve our ability to process these reports, which helps reduce the burden on the person experiencing the abuse, and helps to strengthen a culture of collective support on Twitter," the company said. The site said it's "retrained" its support team on policies, "including special sessions on cultural and historical contextualization of hateful conduct, and implemented an ongoing refresher program." Twitter said it also improved internal tools and systems to effectively address abusive conduct when reported.

The enhanced security measures CTA put in place for the last CES (see 1512170062) will largely be repeated for the upcoming January show, Karen Chupka, CTA senior vice president-CES and corporate business strategy, told us at last week’s CES Unveiled New York event. The security measures, including airport-style metal detectors and tight restrictions on bags that could be carried onto show property, were imposed after the Paris and San Bernardino, California, terrorist attacks in fall 2015. “For the most part, we’re going to stick with the same rules,” Chupka told us. “We’re at the point where we have to do what’s right for the show,” she said. “We do have to protect people. That’s the way it is now. We have things in place now, and we have the ability to tighten them, or maybe shift them a little bit.” At last CES, “as we got through the show, we weren’t stopping everybody,” Chupka said. “We were using our best judgment to do things. But had something changed, and we had to go into that lockdown, we would have been able to do that. So we still have to plan for that expectation.” A new change for the upcoming show is asking CES attendees to provide additional personal data such as date of birth when they register, she said: “That’s just one more piece of security.” CES opens Jan. 5 for a four-day run.

Middle Atlantic Products is participating in UL's Standard Technical Panel (STP) for UL 2416, the company said Monday. As a voting member of the panel, Middle Atlantic will help to develop future requirements of the standard for audio/video, information, and communication technology featured in cabinet, enclosure and rack systems.

The Thread Group released the initial hardware reference test bed and test harness, and opened its test lab to members for conformance with the Thread 1.1 specification, it said in a Wednesday news release. Members have access to tools and resources to support product development, it said. Sponsor-level companies ARM, NXP and Silicon Labs have released the first Thread conforming stacks that have passed testing based on the spec, it said.

Leedarson, a Xiamen, China-based provider of sensing, security and intelligent lighting control and communication systems, is now part of the ZigBee Alliance and became the 16th member of the alliance’s board, said a ZigBee announcement Tuesday. The alliance is working collaboratively "to steer open ecosystems and standards for the Internet of Things to ensure products will work across brands and borders," said a spokeswoman.