Sam Blumenthal

Creative works are social objects in the fullest sense — they exist in a nexus of social, cultural, and legal links to other people and things, and they are only valuable to the extent they can fully participate in their whole context. Rights regimes restrict known rights, but also create rights if they are well designed, driving generativity.

From 2019 to 2020, deepfake videos grew 6,820x (!), from 14,678 videos to 100 million videos. They began to invade mainstream internet platforms. Tom Cruise, for example, isn’t on TikTok. But you’d be forgiven for thinking he is: the account @deeptomcruise posts (very convincing) deepfakes of Tom Cruise.

Pinduoduo found room in e-commerce, not as a competitor to search-based websites like JD, but as a new e-commerce platform focused on interactive and social shopping experiences online. Social shopping may seem like a new concept, but the reality is that in the physical world, shopping is meant to be “interactive and fun” and purchases are... See more

The desire for good advice drives Chinese consumers to turn to experts. In China, “even farmers have become influencers,” Weinswig said. “People will buy their groceries from a farmer on a livestream.”