June 22, 2020

empowering you with insights and information from the edge of today’s headlines

International

What we are watching: The pandemic has put a lot of life on hold, but it has also put a delay into Putin’s bid to extend his rule through 2036. Putin, who has been in power in Russia in some form since 2000, was supposed to step down in 2024. However, in early March, Putin agreed with his parliament to reset his term limits. Originally, the nation was set to vote on April 22 on the constitutional reforms, and this vote has now been shifted to July 1 due to coronavirus concerns.

Despite having effectively suggested and pushed through the proposed reform, Putin “does not rule out the possibility of running for office.” The vote is widely expected to pass, despite Putin’s popularity dropping to historic lows (hovering around 59%).

In 2018, Xi Jinping of China became president for life, as the two-term limit was removed from China’s presidency. Putin is attempting a similar trick, and we hope the trend of dictators cloaked in “democracies” stops at two.

Politics

The US Supreme Court dealt a large blow to the Trump administration last week by throwing out its challenge to DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). Yet the Court effectively provided a roadmap for the administration to try again — the Court didn’t have issues with rescinding DACA just how it was rescinded.

The Trump administration claims to be working on a new directive to rescind DACA, as well as preparing to suspend all employment-based visas for foreign workers including those who have recently graduated from US universities. The administration points to high US unemployment rates as a need to stem the flow of international workers.

According to a recent report, over 200,000 DACA recipients have been working on the front line in the COVID response as essential workers. In 2018, 55% of America’s billion-dollar startups had immigrant founders. Oracle, Tesla, Google and Microsoft, just to name a few, are all run by executives who immigrated to the US.

👀 keeping our eyes open: Attracting and retaining talent is essential to how scientific, financial and cultural innovation occur. Diversity of thought and background has been proven to help drive both innovation and profits.

While our airports and schools might be closed to help stem the tide of the pandemic, don’t take your eyes off how our immigration policy might be set in the meantime.

Go Deeper:

Foreign Affairs

Technology

Remember the before times when there were concerts, live sports, festivals and movie theaters? While most of us are nostalgic for these in-person events, and the concept of watching yet another zoom webinar forces us to scratch our eyes out, gaming platforms have become the new “third place” to experience live entertainment.

Gaming platforms had become a new form of community and social media even prior to the pandemic. In February 2019, Marshmello held the first live concert on Fortnite and brought in over 10M players. Watching gamers play video games is also the premise of Amazon’s Twitch platform.

Games such as Fortnite, Animal Crossing, Minecraft and Roblox have hosted concerts, fashion shows and music premieres. A host of new start-ups have developed solely to focus on staging virtual events. Travis Scott, the musical artist, set an all-time record for concurrent views of his performance on Fortnite of 12.3M players in April 2020, and announced tour dates across the platform.

Professional sports have been working to incorporate their e-sports leagues with their homebound professionals, broadcasting live races and games, played by athletes, but on sponsored platforms. NASCAR hosted the inaugural eNASCAR iRacing Pro series with professional drivers and commentators. The NBA even sent its star athletes to play NBA 2K20 which was broadcast on ESPN.

What to watch: Communities built within these gaming platforms have become an outlet for many stuck indoors. We expect gaming and streaming to remain a part of life even when the lockdowns end. We expect more gaming platforms to become more experiential and mimic “real life.” (Fortnite removed police cars from its platform recently in light of this month’s protests, and some gamers were role playing protesters across platforms.)

Gaming communities, however, have some of the same problems as social media including hate speech and harassment. Let’s see how this online community choses to police itself or what rules are imposed. Since the majority of pre-pandemic gamers were between the ages of 18-35, they might be more open to diversity or more confident in their swarms.

Business

Wondering how day trading has become more similar to gambling? One of the causes could be the creation of fractional shares.

Fractional shares are not new (as they can be created from stock splits or mergers), but traditionally they had been difficult to buy or sell. However, in order to grow their markets and bring in a new class of buyers, large brokerage houses (including Fidelity, Robinhood, SoFi, and Schwab) have begun selling fractional shares.

Normally, in order to take a stock position, you’d have to buy at least one share of a company which might be quite expensive: one share costs over $2695 currently for Amazon, $356 for Apple or $998 for Tesla. Having to spend that amount on one share doesn’t make for a diversified portfolio if you don’t have a lot of money to spend.

Now traders (investors) can chose how much money they want to spend ($5 is usually the minimum) as opposed to how many shares they want to buy. In essence, you can spend $2000 on 2 shares of Tesla or on fractional shares of 400 different companies.

What to watch: Online brokerage companies have been gamifying investing in order to bring in new investors. One online influencer even picks his stocks by picking letters out of a hat. We’ll see post-pandemic if the gambling continues once the emergency government aid runs out, if reports of investor debts rise, or if a possible recession stops their will to play.

Culture

K-Pop Activism seems like an unlikely vigilante. Musical groupies, for me, conjure up images of screaming young fans at concerts, begging for autographs or selfies. In the world on streaming, however, fandom is quiet different.

Gaming the online algorithms to increase the popularity of your favorite band or performer is a tactical skill. These fans know how to spread and manipulate the metrics of social media since they have been doing it basically since streaming began.

Why not put these skills to good use? The K-Pop stans have been coordinating online activism for some time — raising funds for charities supported by performers, defeating a Dallas police app, co-opting several racist hashtags and flooding the Tulsa rally with fake ticket holders.

Can’t wait to see what the activism of these online communities strike for next.

Go Deeper:

MIT Technology Review

Reset Podcast

Design

Mona Chalabi is a data journalist with an amazing instagram page. She has put her artistic skills to use for activism, visualizing current events in a beautiful and informative style. Take a look and you might learn something!

— Lauren Eve Cantor

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