Why Australia’s new AI music rules could be a big win for human artists – RouteNote. Why Australia’s new AI music rules could be a big win for human artists RouteNote
What happened
Photograph: Shaun HerbertsonReviewLenore review – incel’s obsession with online influencer turns into anatomy of dislocated digital-age mindsetDigital-age Australian psychodrama tracks the shut-in mania of dangerously disaffected male fan, but doesn’t get inside his mindIf the parasocial phenomenon is a kind of hell, then Max Wren, protagonist of this Australian digital-age psychodrama, resides in the ninth circle. Like films about fictional pop stars that feature unconvincing music, it doesn’t help that the quickfire résumé of Lenore’s career only half-conveys her magnetism.
Thanks to a little-known feature in Instagram, I try to travel back to 2012 – before everything on the internet was an ad Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast I have a confession. It knows precisely which videos will tickle me and which memes will gently distract me from the slow collapse of humankind. Labor wants Australians to be able to opt out of online algorithms.
View image in fullscreenAnthony Albanese announces the digital duty of care draft law, which would allow Australians to opt out of algorithms used by social media companies. According to Instagram’s AI summary of my algorithm, a little-known feature of the app, I enjoy “community events” and “saving furry friends”, with a particular penchant for content related to the “Sydney food scene” and, somewhat vaguely, “Australia” (click on the reels icon and then the double-heart symbol in the top-right corner to see yours).
The wider picture
Explore more on these topicsSocial mediaInstagramFacebookAustralian politicsMetafeaturesShareReuse this contentMore on this storyMore on this storyAustralia’s outdated technology is vulnerable to AI hacking attacks, signals chief saysLiveAustralian politics live: Fugitive developer Jean Nassif tells Icac ‘I’m not corrupt’ and ‘you want the country ruled by crooks’ in rant from bedroomInstagram boss says users will be ‘overwhelmed’ with brand content in algorithm-free worldOne Nation under fire for abandoning gas reservation plan in favour of policy benefiting Gina Rinehart Australia is on a collision course with US big tech.
Skip to main contentSkip to navigation Digital watch … Nicholas Jaquinot as Max Wren in Lenore. Photograph: Shaun HerbertsonView image in fullscreenDigital watch … Nicholas Jaquinot as Max Wren in Lenore. Self-barricading in a basement room surrounded by screens, working on a documentary about the object of his disaffection (an enigmatic influencer called Lenore), this obsessive shut-in makes Eminem’s Stan look like the Dalai Lama. Touching on subjects including the attention economy, the male gaze, and incel isolation and misogyny, director David Ward feels both Max and Lenore’s pain.
But his ungainly debut film doesn’t fully transcend its stage origins to capture the splintered headspace of the terminally online. A one-time beauty influencer called Veronica Brand, she later graduates to more extreme performance art-type stunts, such as livestreaming her miscarriage; a move that, spliced without her knowledge into a children’s TV broadcast, forced her into hiding. But this performative vulnerability, including hints of her abusive dad, apparently won her legions of OnlyFans-style acolytes.
What has been reported
Not just Max, but also his colleague Sam (Sam Macdonald), a brash interloper outraged to find he was nothing special to Lenore and who turns up at Max’s door offering exclusive footage of her. Sam’s intrusion, and that of the pair of police who later come knocking, are relayed as bewilderingly loud violations of Max’s sanctuary. This kind of simple sonic effect might have hit hard on stage (the film is adapted from an unproduced play) – but Ward doesn’t progress into a style that bottles the 21st-century digital cacophony.
Instead his film is awkwardly divided between sterile theatrical exchanges and Max’s soliloquies at his stack of tech, and didactic rants from the metaverse in which Lenore discourses about no man owning her. Only Max’s mental disintegration, zoning out as Leonore appears to communicate directly with him, threatens a fertile piercing of this barrier à la David Cronenberg; and it comes to fruition in a final beatification that turns out to be anything but saintly.
Ward can clearly diagnose our dislocated mindset – but without him finding an idiom to match, it seems unlikely that the average TikTok-addled scrollhead will have the patience to hear the final judgment. Explore more on these topicsFilmThrillersSocial mediaDigital mediaHorror filmsreviewsShareReuse this contentMost viewedMost viewed Skip to main contentSkip to navigation ‘For 24 hours, I decided to manually turn off my algorithm via little-known settings on Instagram to get a sense of how the reforms might change my feed,’ Caitlin Cassidy writes.
What happens next
Illustration: Guardian designI turned off my algorithm for 24 hours. It is a perfectly curated window into my insane and inquiring mind. On the same day, I was delighted to be confronted with a video on Instagram of a woman accidentally spilling a bucket of eels on a Chinese train. Dozens of eels slithered among the passengers, who appeared not as surprised as I would have expected. In bed that night, after sending the video to several friends and watching it multiple times, I lamented to my partner how I would find content like this if my accounts weren’t at the whim of the algorithm gods.
This feature – accessed simply by tapping on the Instagram logo at the top of the home screen – allows you to limit your feed to posts from accounts you are following, in chronological order. This is basically what social media feeds, including Facebook, looked like when they started.
The report has been compiled by The Daily Waves using information reported across theguardian.com. Details are presented according to the information available at the time of publication and may change as authorities, organisers or other relevant parties provide updates.