By Lauri Neff
NEW YORK (AP) --Fans of MTV's "Catfish: The TV Show" may notice something familiar in the new film "We Are Your Friends."
The movie, out Friday, is the feature directorial debut of Max Joseph, best known for co-hosting the "Catfish" series, which unmasks people who use fake online identities to deceive someone else, usually when it comes to online romances.
Joseph says he worked on the film and "Catfish" simultaneously and that some of the TV show "definitely worked its way into the movie."
"We Are Your Friends," which stars Zac Efron, follows a young man named Cole (Efron) as he struggles to make his fame and fortune as a DJ in the electronic dance music scene. It also examines the youthful angst of today.
Joseph, 33, says the 20-somethings he worked with while sleuthing for online scammers are basically the same people you see in his movie.
The director says he'd "absorb and observe what they're going through and they're hopes and dreams and aspirations and if they feel stuck or if they don't like who they are for whatever reason — bad decisions they made, what they look like, etc., etc."
Joseph says a lot what he heard fit in with what his characters were going through.
"Someone would say something during the day on 'Catfish' and I would remember it and I would put it in the script that night when I was writing it and send it back to my co-writer in LA," Joseph said.
The TV show's rough documentary style is also reflected in the film, which the director says "needed to feel gritty and have a lot of movement to it" so Efron didn't look too polished for the part.
"Zac has been in a lot of big, glossy commercial films and also a lot of indie films as well," Joseph said, "but I don't feel like anyone's seen him in shots that are quasi-documentary and I think that that would allow people to accept him more as a real person, as opposed to Zac Efron, the handsome movie star."
"We Are Your Friends" even has something of its own catfish among its characters.
The character Sophie (Emily Ratajkowski) "leads Cole to believe that she's got her life together," Joseph says, "but then he realizes at one point that that's not entirely true and that she was putting on a facade."
Joseph says he just recognized that these were compelling qualities.
"Those elements that make 'Catfish' so interesting to watch, elements of deception and mystery, make any movie or any piece of content exciting to watch," he said. "It makes characters complex and interesting."
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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