CALIFORNIA: Reverends, rabbis and other religious leaders urged Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to permanently stop the company’s plan for an Instagram version aimed at young users on Tuesday, in a letter sent by advocacy group Fairplay and their Children’s Screen Time Action Network.
Since last September, Instagram has paused its plans to introduce a version of the photo-sharing app for kids, as opposition to the project grew.
“After much meditation and prayer, we assert that social media platforms that target immature brains, practice unethical data mining, and are inspired by profit motives are not a tool for the greater good of children,” said the letter, which was signed by more than 70 religious leaders.
Instagram and its parent company, Meta Platforms formerly Facebook, have come under intense scrutiny over the potential impact of their services on the mental health, body image and safety of young users, including after whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal documents about the company’s approach to younger users.
In December, Instagram head Adam Mosseri was grilled about children’s online safety by a Senate panel. A coalition of state attorneys general has also opened a probe into Meta for promoting Instagram to children despite potential harms.
Meta has said the leaked documents have been used to paint a false picture of the company’s work. It has also said the idea of Instagram for kids was to give a safer, dedicated place for younger users to engage with the service.
Instagram, like other social media sites, has rules against children under 13 joining the platform but said it knows it has users under this age.
The letter from the faith groups, which quoted the Bible, Qur’an, Pope Francis and Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh, called on Zuckerberg, as someone who has in the past said religion is “very important,” to recognize spiritual as well as secular concerns about the project.
Instagram declined to comment on the letter.
Reuters reported last year https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-decided-faith-groups-are-goo... on Meta’s concerted outreach to the religious community in its efforts to drive engagement on its platforms. The company, which has a dedicated faith partnerships team, launched a new feature to request and send prayers on the site, sent out mini equipment kits for streaming worship during the COVID-19 pandemic, and last year held its first virtual faith summit.
Religious leaders call on Zuckerberg to scrap Instagram Kids plans
https://arab.news/r63ku
Religious leaders call on Zuckerberg to scrap Instagram Kids plans
- In December, Instagram head Adam Mosseri was grilled about children’s online safety by a Senate panel
To infinity and beyond: Grendizer’s 50 years of inspiring Arabs
- 50 years after its creation, the Grendizer anime series continues to capture Arab imagination
- Arab News Japan speaks to creator Go Nagai, Middle Eastern fans and retells the story behind the UFO Robot tasked with protecting our planet
LONDON: Few cultural imports have crossed borders as unexpectedly, or as powerfully, as Grendizer, the Japanese giant robot that half a century ago became a childhood hero across the Arab world, nowhere more so than in Saudi Arabia.
Created in Japan in the mid-1970s by manga artist Go Nagai, Grendizer was part of the “mecha” tradition of giant robots. The genre was shaped by Japan’s experience during the Second World War, and explored themes of invasion, resistance and loss through the medium of science fiction.
But while the series enjoyed moderate success in Japan, its true legacy was established thousands of kilometers away in the Middle East.
The anime “UFO Robot Grendizer” arrived on television in the region in 1979, dubbed into Arabic and initially broadcast in Lebanon during the Lebanese civil war. The story it told of the heroic Duke Fleed, a displaced prince whose planet had been destroyed by alien invaders, struck a chord with children growing up amid regional conflict and occupation by Israel.
Its themes of defending one’s homeland, standing up to aggression and protecting the innocent were painfully relevant in the region, transforming the series from mere entertainment into a kind of emotional refuge.
Much of the show’s impact came from its successful Arabization. The powerful Arabic dubbing and emotionally charged voice-acting, especially by Lebanese actor Jihad El-Atrash as Duke Fleed, lent the show a moral gravity unmatched by other cartoons of the era.
The theme song for the series, performed by Sami Clark, became an anthem that the Lebanese singer continued to perform at concerts and festivals right up until his death in 2022.
By the early 1980s, “Grendizer” had spread across the Middle East, inspiring fandoms in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and beyond. For many, it was not only their first exposure to anime, it also delivered lessons on values such as justice and honor.
Grendizer was so influential in the region that it became the subject of scholarly research, which in addition to recognizing the ways in which the plight of the show’s characters resonated with the audience in the Middle East, also linked the show’s popularity to generational memories of displacement, particularly the Palestinian Nakba.
Half a century later, “Grendizer” remains culturally alive and relevant in the region. In Saudi Arabia, which embraced the original version of the show wholeheartedly, Manga Productions is now introducing a new generation of fans to a modernized version of the character, through a video game, The Feast of The Wolves, which is available in Arabic and eight other languages on platforms including PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch, and a new Arabic-language anime series, “Grendizer U,” which was broadcast last year.
Fifty years after the debut of the show, “Grendizer” is back — although to a generation of fans of the original series, their shelves still full of merchandise and memorabilia, it never really went away.
