Washington is the 48th UCLA faculty member to achieve one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine.

Pathé is expanding its library with five titles acquired from London-based production banner Celador Films, including Danny Boyle’s Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire.” Pathé has collaborated with Celador Films and its founder Paul Smith on the development, production and sales of many movies, including “Slumdog Millionaire” which Pathé sold around the world. The five-picture library pact also […]

A new industry analysis by consultancy firm Media Partners Asia (MPA) projects substantial growth in Japan’s digital entertainment landscape. The report, “The Future of Japan’s Video Industry,” forecasts the online video sector to expand at a 7% compound annual growth rate over the next five years. Total screen industry revenue, encompassing free TV, pay-TV and […]

Spain’s prominent public broadcaster Radio Televisión Española (RTVE) is set to launch RTVE Play+, its international video-on-demand OTT platform, in Asia and Oceania this Tuesday, Oct. 22. The announcement comes at a fortuitous time, given a recent glowing report from Spanish trade and investment body ICEX and entertainment analytics org, Parrot Analytics. The report, unveiled […]

“Ena – Queen Victoria Eugenia,” the screening highlight in Mipcom’s Spain Country of Honor celebrations, begins with a bang. Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, Queen Victoria youngest granddaughter, marries Spain’s Alfonso XIII at Madrid’s San Jerónimo Royal Monastery on May 31, 1906. Splendid first scenes see the couple after the wedding in their carriage, Ena smiling […]

Rakuten TV, a leader in European streaming and FAST channels, will unveil its new business line, Rakuten TV Enterprise Services, from Mipcom today. Enterprise Services will offer content owners and distributors access to Rakuten’s cloud-based suite of tools as well as the company’s market knowledge to help launch and monetize FAST channels and video apps […]

With Mipcom in full swing, Spain’s Onza Distribution – with offices in Madrid and Miami – has cemented sales to Portugal, Romania, Croatia, Latvia and Mozambique for a slew of key titles.  Chilean drama “Allende, The Thousand Days,” Onza-produced thriller “Heartless” and its comedy “Traffic Jam” as well as acclaimed Italian mini-series “Flowers Over the Inferno” […]

The year was 1992 when Ettore Bernabei, a former chief of Italian public broadcaster RAI, founded Lux Vide, first as an advertising company before moving into television production.  Over 30 years and 1,300 hours of television later, the production house with its  expanded studio space now has one of the largest, most sustainable and technologically […]

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made his debut appearance on “The Daily Show” Monday night, where he sat down with host Jon Stewart to discuss his and Vice President Kamala Harris’ outreach to individuals who don’t want to vote for Donald Trump on Election Day. “Folks are still talking. And I know it’s hard to imagine, […]

Catalonia’s blend of cultural heritage, natural beauty and cosmopolitan cities has attracted numerous filmmakers, hosting some of the most important films and TV series in history. It’s well-known: from the Costa Brava beaches to the mountains of the Pyrenees, the region offers a wide variety of locations that can adapt to any kind of production. […]

U.K.-based distributor Omega Global Media has boarded Brendan Foley’s Hans Christian Andersen-inspired crime drama “Fairytale Detective.” Each one-hour episode follows Andersen as he solves crimes in 1850s Copenhagen aided by a coterie of characters from his stories, who come to life to help him find justice. While embarking on his unusual hobby, he hopes to […]

Cineflix Rights has closed several deals for “Irvine Welsh’s Crime,” starring Dougray Scott (“Mission: Impossible 2,” “Batwoman”) in his International Emmy award-winning lead role. The series has been acquired by Telefonica’s pay TV platform Movistar Plus+ (Spain), SBS (Australia), RTE (Ireland), Blue Entertainment (Switzerland), and Canal+ for viewers in Luxembourg, Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia […]

DR Sales, the international sales arm of Danish pubcaster DR, is launching at Mipcom in Cannes DR Drama’s latest event series “Generations,” mixing crime, mystery and family secrets. Making her debut in long-form serialised drama is Anna Emma Haudal, behind DR3’s hit youth series “Doggystyle” for which she won a national Robert Award for best […]

Beta Film’s thriller series “The Couple Next Door,” commissioned by the U.K.’s Channel 4 and Starz in North America, has taken the global market by storm. Beta Film secured major deals in more than 55 territories across the world, including RTL in Germany, RAI in Italy, Amazon in the Netherlands (first window) and RTL in […]

Shout! Studios has reached an agreement with Mercury Studios Media Limited to license exclusive U.S. and Canadian distribution rights including AVOD, SVOD, broadcast, theatrical and non-theatrical distribution rights for a catalog of Monty Python films, specials and performances. This includes perennial favorites such as the landmark sketch comedy TV series “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” recently […]

Life swings between triumph and failure in the enthralling “El Gran Salto” produced by Atresmedia TV in collaboration with Banijay’s Diagonal TV, the force behind shows such as “Isabel” and “La Catedral del Mar.”  Spanish star Óscar Casas (“Instinto,” “Xtremo”) stars as Olympic Gold Medalist gymnast Gervasio Deferr. The series is written by “Bye” scribe […]

Harvey Weinstein has been diagnosed with cancer. Per NBC News, the disgraced movie producer has chronic myeloid leukemia, a form of bone marrow cancer. “Craig Rothfeld, Mr. Weinstein’s authorized legal healthcare representative in New York State, expresses profound dismay at the speculation surrounding Mr. Weinstein’s medical condition,” said Weinstein’s spokesperson Juda Engelmayer in a statement […]

The first reactions for “Venom: The Last Dance” are in, with members of the press calling the Sony Pictures film a “feast for the fans” and a “fitting end” to the trilogy. Tom Hardy returns as Eddie Brock, better known as the symbiote Venom from the “Spider-Man” comics, for “Venom: The Last Dance.” Per the official […]

Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc. will start using facial recognition technology to crack down on scams that use pictures of celebrities to look more legitimate, a strategy referred to as “celeb-bait ads.”

Scammers use images of famous people to entice users into clicking on ads that lead them to shady websites, which are designed to steal their personal information or request money. Meta will start using facial recognition technology to weed out these ads by comparing the images in the post with the images from a celebrity’s Facebook or Instagram account.

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“If we confirm a match and that the ad is a scam, we’ll block it,” Meta wrote in a blog post. Meta did not disclose how common this type of scam is across its services.

With nearly 3.3 billion daily active users across all of its apps, Meta relies on artificial intelligence to enforce many of its content rules and guidelines. That has enabled Meta to better handle the deluge of daily reports about spam and other content that breaks the rules. It has also led to problems in the past when legitimate accounts have been unintentionally suspended or blocked due to automated errors.

Read More: The Face Is the Final Frontier of Privacy

Meta says it will also start using facial recognition technology to better assist users who get locked out of their accounts. As part of a new test, some users can submit a video selfie when they’ve been locked out of their accounts. Meta will then compare the video to the photos on the account to see if there is a match. 

Meta has previously asked locked-out users to submit other forms of identity verification, like an ID card or official certificate, but says that the video selfie option would only take a minute to complete. Meta will “immediately delete any facial data generated after this comparison regardless of whether there’s a match or not,” the company wrote in a blog.

The social networking giant has a complicated history with facial recognition technology. It previously used facial recognition to identify users in uploaded photos as a way to encourage people to tag their friends and increase connections. Meta was later sued by multiple U.S. states for profiting off this technology without user consent, and in 2024 was ordered to pay the state of Texas $1.4 billion as part of the claim. Several years earlier, it agreed to pay $650 million in a separate legal suit filed in Illinois.

The company will not run this video selfie test in Illinois or Texas, according to Monika Bickert, Meta’s vice president of content policy.