Director Paul Santana of bicoastal Rabbit shatters the silence in a powerful :90 PSA, “Act Now,” for Stop The Traffik, produced direct-to-client. Santana employs eerily ambiguous images of human trafficking in America, accompanied by multi-lingual cries for help.
The PSA’s intentionally blurry, disjointed imagery includes shattering glass, the forging of ID cards, a posting of a missing person, a fishnet stockings-clad woman on a dirty bed, dented cars traversing back alleys, women with empty stares in a crowded textile factory and flashes of harsh daylight exposing the injustice.
In the background, whispers echo in various languages as a non-native English speaker narrates, “This country seems so endless, you can drive and drive and never see another person. You can be lost and so hard to find. I’m still here, but you don’t see me. So I scream to be heard. I scream to be found.” As the PSA progresses, more and more images of shattering glass build to a crescendo, heaping onto the floor under the closing super, “Human Trafficking. In America. Break the Silence. Act now, go to www.stopthetraffik.org.”
“The general perception,” said Santana, “is that this type of modern day slavery is only reserved for third-world countries and dark corners of the globe. Much frustration lies in our inability to flush it out or to ever get a good look at it. We approached the storytelling with the hopes of creating a sense of this unseen world, and the frustration that its indefinable nature creates. There are very few people featured for this very reason.”
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More