Netflix steps up policing of password sharing
Poll finds people of color more likely to have job, income loss in pandemic
NEW YORK – Netflix is testing a way to crack down on password sharing.
The popular streaming service has been using popups to ask some users to verify their account via email or text, or to “verify later.”
“If you don’t live with the owner of this account, you need your own account to keep watching,” the screen reads, according to Streamable.com, which first reported the test.
The test comes as streaming services proliferate and more people share passwords and services. Netflix confirmed the test, but did not say how many people were part of the test or if it was only in the U.S. or elsewhere.
“This test is designed to help ensure that people using Netflix accounts are authorized to do so,” the company said in a statement.
On the most basic plan, which costs $9 monthly, users can only stream on one screen at a time. The most popular plan, which is now $14 monthly, allows two simultaneous streams; the $18 premium plan allows three.
But there has never been a limit on sharing an account when you aren’t streaming at the same time.
Netflix’s terms of use on its website says, “The Netflix service and any content viewed through our service are for your personal and noncommercial use only and may not be shared with individuals beyond your household.”
Password sharing has become more common amid the pandemic, as more streaming services enter the market and consumers lookwd for ways to cut costs.
About 42% of consumers in the spring said they had shared or received passwords since the spread of COVID-19, according to a study conducted by market research firm Onepoll for streaming service Tubi that was released in April.
Additionally, Netflix is competing against other streaming services including rivals such as Disney+ , which has seen its users skyrocket since its launch in November 2019. Netflix currently has more than 200 million subscribers and Disney said this week that Disney+ had more than 100 million subscribers.
Contributing: Tribune News Service
GENEVA – The World Health Organization granted an emergency use listing Friday for the coronavirus vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson, meaning the one-dose shot can now theoretically be used as part of the international COVAX effort to distribute vaccines globally, including to poor countries without any supplies.
In a statement, the U.N. health agency said “the ample data from large clinical trials” shows the J&J vaccine is effective in adult populations.
The emergency use listing comes a day after the European Medicines Agency recommended the shot be given the green light across the 27-country European Union.
“As new vaccines become available, we must ensure they become part of the global solution and not another reason some countries and people are left further behind,” WHO directorgeneral Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a Friday.
WHO previously signed off on COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizerbiontech and Astrazeneca.
A massive study that spanned three continents found the J&J vaccine was 85% effective in protecting against severe illness, hospitalizations and death.
That protection remained strong even in countries like South Africa where variants have been identified that appear to be less susceptible to other licensed vaccines, including the one made by Astrazeneca.
The U.n.-backed COVAX effort previously announced it had an initial agreement with J&J to provide 500 million doses, but that is not legally binding.
Dr. Bruce Aylward, a WHO senior adviser to Tedros, said he hoped J&J might be able to provide at least some of those doses in the coming months.
“We’re hoping by at least July that we have access to doses that we can be rolling out, if not even earlier,” Aylward said.
He added that officials were particularly keen to get J&J doses to developing countries because it requires only one dose and can be stored at regular refrigerator temperatures.
J&J has faced production delays in the U.S. and Europe but has recently signed agreements with rival pharmaceuticals that will help make its vaccine. In February, Sanofi Pasteur said it would be able to make about 12 million doses of the J&J vaccine at one of its French production sites once the shot is cleared by the EMA.
It is aiming to make 1 billion doses this year.
NEW YORK – A year ago, Elvia Banuelos’ life was looking up. The 39-yearold mother of two young children said she felt confident about a new management-level job with the U.S. Census Bureau – she would earn money to supplement the child support she receives to keep her children healthy, happy and in day care.
But when the coronavirus was declared a global pandemic, forcing hundreds of millions of people into strict lockdown, Banuelos’ outlook changed. The new job fell through, the child support payments stopped because of a job loss and she became a stay-at-home mom when day cares shuttered.
“The only thing I could do was make my rent, so everything else was difficult,” said Banuelos, of Orland, California.
Millions of Americans have experienced a devastating toll during the yearlong coronavirus pandemic, from lost loved ones to lost jobs. More than 530,000 people have died in the United States. Those losses haven’t hit all Americans equally, with communities of color hit especially hard by the virus and the economic fallout.
A new poll from the Associated PRESS-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed that compared with white Americans, Black and Hispanic Americans were more likely to have experienced job and other income losses during the pandemic, and those who have lost income are more likely to have found themselves in deep financial holes.
That’s on top of Black and Hispanic Americans being more likely than white Americans to say they are close to someone who has died from COVID-19 and less likely to have received a vaccination. The pandemic has killed Black and Hispanic Americans at rates disproportionate to their population in the
U.S., according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Banuelos, who identifies as Latina, said the disparity in pandemic experiences between “the upper class and people who are in a tighter situation” became glaringly clear to her early on in the pandemic. Even after two rounds of federal direct stimulus checks, she felt she was further behind than well-off Americans.
The relief “didn’t last that long,” Banuelos said.
Overall, 62% of Hispanic Americans and 54% of Black Americans have lost some form of household income during the pandemic, including job losses, pay cuts, cuts in hours and unpaid leave, compared with 45% of white Americans.
For other racial and ethnic groups, including Asian Americans and Native Americans, sample sizes are too small to analyze in the poll.
Jeremy Shouse, a restaurant manager from North Carolina, saw his hours greatly reduced during the early months of the pandemic when the small business was forced to shut down. Shouse, a 33-year-old Black man, said the restaurant has since reopened but went from
making more than $5,000 in-house per day before the pandemic to only $200 on some days.
“One year later and things still aren’t the same,” Shouse said, adding his wages have dropped 20%.
About 6 in 10 Hispanics and about half of Black Americans said their households are still facing the impacts of income loss from the pandemic, compared with about 4 in 10 white Americans. Black and Hispanic Americans are also especially likely to say that impact has been major.
“We find that systemic racism plays a huge role in this process,” said Rashawn Ray, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institute who co-authored a recent report on racial disparities and the pandemic in Detroit. “I think what we’re going to see once the dust settles is that the racial wealth gap has actually increased.”
There have long been racial disparities in how Americans experience economic downturns and recessions. However, following a recovery from the Great Recession and well into the Trump administration, the unemployment gap between Black and white Americans narrowed amid strong job growth and economic activity. But a recent analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found a gap that had declined to as little as 3 percentage points rose to 5.4 percentage points last August, erasing some of the gains made during the recovery.
The AP-NORC poll also found Hispanic Americans are especially likely to think it will take a long time to dig their way out of the financial hole. About half of Hispanics said they are still feeling the effects of income loss and that it will take at least six months to recover financially. About a third of Black Americans say the same, compared with about a quarter of white Americans.
Forty-one percent of Hispanic Americans said their household income is lower than it was at the start of the pandemic, compared with 29% of Black Americans and 25% of white Americans.
And about 4 in 10 Black and Hispanic Americans have been unable to pay a bill in the last month, compared with about 2 in 10 white Americans.
For people of color, the trauma experienced because of economic turmoil has been compounded by immense personal losses.
About 30% of Black and Hispanic Americans said they have a close friend or relative who has died from the coronavirus, compared with 15% of white Americans.
Debra Fraser-howze, founder of Choose Healthy Life, an initiative working to address public health disparities through the Black church, said she is confident in the Black community’s ability to recover economically and medically.
“The emergency economic situation of the community is dismal,” Fraserhowze said, “and it’s going to be worse for a long time. But we are a community of survivors – we came through slavery and Jim Crow. We figured out how to stay alive. I do believe and have faith that our community will come back.”
The AP-NORC poll of 1,434 adults was conducted Feb. 25-March 1 using a sample drawn from NORC’S probabilitybased Amerispeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.