International production company Park Pictures short documentary film The Heart Still Hums, co-directed by roster director Savanah Leaf and actress Taylor Russell (Netflix’s Lost In Space, Waves), was awarded the 2020 Best Short Documentary Award at the BlackStar Film Festival.
The Heart Still Hums follows five women based in Sacramento, Calif., through varying stages of young motherhood. The young mothers navigate the turbulence of accessing hard-won resources through nonprofits or, in the hardest circumstances, seeking foster or adoptive families for their children.
The film has already garnered sweeping critical praise and film festival accolades, including the Palm Springs ShortFest Best Documentary Short Award. The award arrives on the heels of a momentous few months for Leaf, having officially signed to Park Pictures’ roster, along with the launch of her co-led initiative “Change the Lens,” a pledge to ensure the representation of black filmmakers within the commercial and music video film industry that is reflective of the greater population.
South Korea fines Meta $15 million for illegally collecting information on Facebook users
South Korea's privacy watchdog on Tuesday fined social media company Meta 21.6 billion won ($15 million) for illegally collecting sensitive personal information from Facebook users, including data about their political views and sexual orientation, and sharing it with thousands of advertisers.
It was the latest in a series of penalties against Meta by South Korean authorities in recent years as they increase their scrutiny of how the company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, handles private information.
Following a four-year investigation, South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission concluded that Meta unlawfully collected sensitive information about around 980,000 Facebook users, including their religion, political views and whether they were in same-sex unions, from July 2018 to March 2022.
It said the company shared the data with around 4,000 advertisers.
South Korea's privacy law provides strict protection for information related to personal beliefs, political views and sexual behavior, and bars companies from processing or using such data without the specific consent of the person involved.
The commission said Meta amassed sensitive information by analyzing the pages the Facebook users liked or the advertisements they clicked on.
The company categorized ads to identify users interested in themes such as specific religions, same-sex and transgender issues, and issues related to North Korean escapees, said Lee Eun Jung, a director at the commission who led the investigation on Meta.
"While Meta collected this sensitive information and used it for individualized services, they made only vague mentions of this use in their data policy and did not obtain specific consent," Lee said.
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