As Captain America was to fascism in the 1940s and X-Men were to racism in the 1960s, a new band of comic-book heroes is taking on digital human rights and privacy in the 21st century.
The Metaiye Knights characters are activists who are fighting to stop a cabal of data-sucking vampires called Fang — an intentional reference to the commonly used acronym for tech giants Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google — from developing a sinister artificial intelligence.
The project was created by Metai Knights Media, the creative arm of a nonprofit focused on extending human rights into cyberspace. The organization asserts that comic books have a long history of tackling social issues and that digital rights deserve their own fictional champions.
“I know that might sound dramatic to compare privacy and digital rights with racism and fascism, but we believe the damage that the surveillance economy is doing to society is comparable to what the carbon economy is doing to the environment," CEO Dela Atanda told Cheddar.
The challenge is that people don’t feel the same sense of urgency over losing their freedom or privacy online, he added. The comic offers a simple parable on the dangers of handing over our privacy rights to digital platforms and the tech giants that own them.
Comic panel
"What we're really aiming to do with metaKnyts is talk to young people specifically and get them interested in the cause in a way they can understand and relate to and then demand better digital rights and a better digital economy that is more inclusive,” Atanda said.
This philosophy extends to how people will actually get their hands on the comic.
The series will be distributed on blockchain in the form of fungible tokens (NFTs) to ensure that each issue cannot be forged or replicated. “We don’t actually own any of our media, whether it’s music, comics, gaming assets, etc. They’re all locked within these platforms,” Atanda claimed. “Crypto allows us to create a framework where people can actually own these assets independently of a platform.”
Metai Knights Media is partnering with Comic Republic, a Nigerian comic production company known for its focus on representation, to produce metaKnyts for a wide audience.
Behind the scenes advising on the project are Brittany Kaiser, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower and co-founder of the Digital Asset Trade Association; Karen Hunter, Sirius XM executive and Pulitzer Prize winner; and David Chaum, the forefather of cryptography.
One broader goal for Metai is flipping the script on how people think about digital rights. Atanda argues that people are inherently social and want to share online, but right now they feel exploited. More privacy, he said, could lead to more convenience.
“If you know that information is not going to be used in a way to exploit you, then the chances are you will share more,” Atanda saPanel
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
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A big-screen adaptation of the anime “Chainsaw Man” has topped the North American box office, beating a Springsteen biopic and “Black Phone 2.” The movie earned $17.25 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend. “Black Phone 2” fell to second place with $13 million. Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million, respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on the manga series about a demon hunter. It's another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released a “Demon Slayer” film last month that debuted to a record $70 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration says flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility. The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports on Sunday morning soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. The hold on planes taking off for LAX lasted an hour and 45 minutes and didn't appear to cause continued problems. The FAA said staffing shortages also delayed planes headed to Washington, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
Boeing workers at three Midwest plants where military aircraft and weapons are developed have voted to reject the company’s latest contract offer and to continue a strike that started almost three months ago. The strike by about 3,200 machinists at the plants in the Missouri cities of St. Louis and St. Charles, and in Mascoutah, Illinois, is smaller in scale than a walkout last year by 33,000 Boeing workers who assemble commercial jetliners. The president of the International Association of Machinists says Sunday's outcome shows Boeing hasn't adequately addressed wages and retirement benefits. Boeing says Sunday's vote was close with 51% of union members opposing the revised offer.
The stunning indictment that led to the arrest of more than 30 people — including Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and other NBA figures — has drawn new scrutiny of the booming business of sports betting in the U.S. The multibillion-dollar industry has made it easy for sports fans — and even some players — to wager on everything from the outcome of games to that of a single play with just a few taps of a cellphone. But regulating the rapidly-growing industry has proven to be a challenge. Professional sports leagues’ own role in promoting gambling has also raised eyebrows.
