By David Bauder, Television Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --Showtime is jumping into politics, announcing Tuesday that it will air a weekly documentary series giving viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the 2016 presidential campaign.
"The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth" will premiere the week before the Iowa caucus, which is scheduled for Feb. 1. Showtime has not yet determined its weekly airtime.
Showtime is making it together with Bloomberg Politics, and it will be hosted by that company's Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, along with campaign strategist Mark McKinnon. Halperin and Heilemann are the authors of the political books "Game Change" and "Double Down."
Even before election year, the 2016 campaign has been a big television hit, with record viewerships for debates.
"There's more interest in this campaign than any in my lifetime," said David Nevins, Showtime president. "The opportunity to do a weekly verite show is very interesting."
Post-campaign documentaries like "The War Room" are his model for a program that reaches behind the headlines. The candor in those projects, however, is enhanced by being aired after all the voting has taken place. The question for Showtime is whether it will get enough access for such compelling material ahead of time.
If the cameras are left on long enough, people's true natures will emerge, Nevins said.
It will make for a busy campaign year for Halperin and Heilemann, who have a daily program on Bloomberg TV that is also aired on MSNBC.
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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