OPINIONS Tuesday, April 2023 Thursday, Monday, Monday, October October April18 3,2,5, 2017 2017 2017
STUDENTS ARE NOT FEELING GOOD, LIKE THEY SHOULD, ABOUT SPRING FLING When @bingsapb posted to Instagram saying they would announce Spring Fling performers over spring break, Binghamton students were abuzz with anticipation over who would perform this year. In the comment section, students guessed who the big performer might be — Lil Uzi, Flo Milli, J Cole, and, most popularly, Miss Ice Spice. To gauge the reaction of Binghamton University students to the April 4 announcement of who this year’s Spring Fling performers would actually be, Surfaces and Imanbek, all you have to do is read through the 435 comments under the Instagram announcement post. While many students expressed disappointment about this year’s line up, much of this sentiment was misdirected toward the SAPB. We picked out a few highlights that illustrate students’ complex feelings
about the line up: “That’s not ice spice” “@icespice pls come here, I’m a munch frfr’ “Will be selling tomatoes at the entrance” “Gunna took y’all money” “Really went from gunna to this” “… you still have time to delete this and try again” “You guys know April fools passed right?” “the baddies did not get what they like” It’s fair to say many students expressed disappointment following a slew of extremely popular performers who have graced the Spring Fling stage over the past few years, including Doja Cat, Playboi
Carti and most recently, Gunna. ““you name em, we bring ‘em” we ain’t name these people yet here they are” “where’s sean kingston? these people weren’t on the list” These are good points. Surfaces was not included in the survey of possible acts that the SAPB sent out before recruiting performers. However, SAPB members explained that the Spring Fling survey responses indicated that students wanted a genre other than rap this year, and Surfaces was on the fall survey, so it is fair to say that the SAPB did take student opinion into account. But, we want Sean Kingston too. “Only going for @ fromthebronxband then I’m
dipping” If students are unfamiliar with — or not fans of — opener Imanbek or Surfaces, seeing the awesome BU student band From the Bronx open the show should be a reason to go! “Haters begone” “ngl there’s more to be said for the ppl on the SA busting their ass to give us sick events all year than the keyboard warriors in these comments”
“Y’all are being exceptionally weird about this. If you thought ice spice was gonna take a trip to the southern tier you’re actually delusional. Also, planning events like this is insanely hard. SAPB are students doing their best, same as you. So be kind.” We agree. The SAPB are students who work hard to put on great events and concerts all year for BU. It is extremely difficult and expensive to get
top performers to come to the University, so the performer is not at all a proper reflection of the work that the SAPB puts into this concert, and all others. We should be grateful that students choose to take on these positions of responsibility to make our school year more fun — so be kind to your fellow BU students. And, who knows, maybe Ice Spice will perform at Spring Fling next year.
The U.S. needs stronger privacy protections
Efforts to ban TikTok should be redirected to passing comprehensive privacy rights. Peter Levy Opinions Columnist
On March 23, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before Congress for the first time regarding potential security concerns over the app. His testimony brought forth a rare flicker of bipartisanship. Chew did the impossible by somehow bringing both Democratic and Republican lawmakers together in their hatred of America’s fastest-growing social media platform. The agenda for the meeting was a potential ban of the service, an idea first floated during former President Donald Trump’s administration and realized with a bipartisan bill giving broad powers to the Secretary of Commerce to regulate services produced by hostile nations to the United States, namely China. The
TikTok community has equally been quick to unite against such measures. Mocking senile lawmakers for their unnecessary paranoia has ironically strengthened TikTok. Many of my peers are right in defending TikTok as a creative space, but they are wrong in assuming that the bipartisan concerns of lawmakers are trivial. There are real security concerns TikTok presents that cannot be assuaged in a TikTok PR blitz to appeal to the majority. TikTok consumes a massive amount of personal data, including contact information, search history and biometrics, and they have been far from transparent in combating fraud and misuse. In September 2022, TikTok denied virulent reports that the hacking group AgainstTheWest had accessed over 2 billion records containing millions of user statistics. This comes after a promise by TikTok to shore up security by putting
data security in the hands of the United States company Oracle. A few days before Shou testified before Congress, the Justice Department opened an investigation into the service after reports surfaced of employees at ByteDance — a Chinese company — gaining access to the data of United States tech reporters. The ease with which independent groups can get through TikTok’s firewall raises alarm about a far more organized and powerful Chinese government that may not need legal backdoors to get in. However, the greatest risk to American data comes not from laws that require Chinese-owned businesses to turn over data to Beijing if it demands it, but instead from the obsolescence of current United States data laws. Shockingly, there is no broad data protection law. Instead, several federal acts govern different aspects of data privacy. The first and perhaps
the most all-encompassing, The Privacy Act of 1974, prevents federal agencies from disclosing personal information without consent. Other laws include the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which govern the privacy of medical and academic records, respectively. Perhaps comically, the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) remains on the register. It restricts the sharing of VHS and DVD rental data and notably does not extend to the sharing of current streaming data. Lost in this sea of acronyms is the broad protection of the tons of data collected by far more advanced modern data tracking systems, which are then put on the private market. As companies amass more data, consumers are at greater risk for data breaches, privacy scams and corporate predation. In recent years, there have
been countless stories of major corporations getting hacked, endangering an ever-increasing number of customers. Banning TikTok will not eliminate the data already stored and sold to third parties. Even if TikTok will never turn over data to the Chinese government, a dubious assumption at best, the far more realistic threat is in the private sector. If there is hope to be found, it is in the patchwork of state regulations that have attempted to fix some holes in federal regulation. Like many things in our federal system, state regulation is uneven and imperfect. However, recently, California has passed a significant overall consumer protection bill. The California Consumer Privacy Act ensures the right to know about the personal information a business collects and the right to delete or opt out of the sharing of such information with third parties.
Similarly comprehensive bills like the Consumer Privacy Act are already in the legislative committees of over 20 states. The sheer number of consumer privacy acts makes it abundantly clear how widespread and bipartisan the consumer protection issue is and ought to be. The same bipartisan efforts to ban TikTok should be redirected toward finally passing a comprehensive declaration of privacy rights for the modern era. While we may not be able to eliminate the Chinese legal backdoor, we can and should re-examine and reform our data protection laws to protect TikTok’s millions of American users. As troubling as the TikTok situation is, it might serve as a needed push to finally ensure the right to data privacy for all. Peter Levy is an undeclared sophomore.
Resident Evil 4 is exemplar video game remake Succesful remakes should both honor original and feature novelty. Nicolas Scagnelli Opinions Columnist
Many cry out that a remake of a popular series is a creatively bankrupt and cheap way to prolong the life of a series. This is true to a certain extent. Remaking an old movie or game doesn’t require the creative team to come up with something wholly new — just redo and potentially remix what has been done before. The harsh truth is that audiences eat up remakes. Disney’s 2019 remake of “The Lion King” grossed a worldwide $1.6 billion. Many outlets reviewing the movie didn’t even praise it that much, saying it felt unoriginal and unnecessary, yet this film made Disney an obscene amount of money.
Remakes are interesting since they can give the audience who loved the original work something familiar and new at the same time. It’s enticing to see one’s favorite story retold in a way that changes and keeps parts from the original. Video games in particular are a form of media that has seen many remakes over the years, ever since the early 2000s when gaming technology started to advance at a fast pace. One of the most influential video game series has to be the horrorfocused game, Resident Evil, first released in 1996. Resident Evil 4 (RE4) was originally released in 2005, and it is easily one of the most successful and influential games ever created. This game inspired the structure of many modern games, whether it be gameplay or level design. Any successful, high-budget video
game nowadays has some of this game’s DNA in it, from Fortnite to The Last of Us. RE4 flipped the gaming industry on its belly with its new over-theshoulder camera perspective and the combination of cheesy action with grizzly horror and a bombastic, fast-paced story. When it comes to the remake of this classic game, the development team had expectations placed on them that were higher than the moon. Many believed RE4 didn’t need a remake, especially because the game has aged well despite being 18 years old. All of this being said, Capcom still marched forward and released the remake in March of this year. The remake was received incredibly positively. This game is a picture-perfect remake due to the fact that it built upon the weaker parts of the original, like the story, and also built upon
already great parts, like the characters and gameplay. The gameplay of the remake was very similar to the original’s, but with a modern twist. Accessibility options were added, such as changing the colors of certain aiming reticles. This makes the game much more friendly to colorblind players. The core gameplay was essentially a modern version of the original game. Developers really used the base game as a template for the remake, which was much appreciated since the original played like a dream. The game’s story, lore and characters saw the most change. The story of the original was a cheesy, action-filled thrill ride. It was a satirical horror game with great action and funny oneliners. Was it as scary as previous games in the series? No. Was it one of the most fun video games at the time, and does it still hold
that title? Yes. The story and vibe of the remake are different from the original. The remake has a much darker, more macabre vibe to it. There are still some cheesy and funny one-liners, but many of them have been removed. The story here is to be taken seriously. The characters in this game feel tortured, as opposed to the original, where they were spouting funny dialogue. One could argue this makes sense, considering how the plot revolves around the main characters fighting for their lives in a zombie-infested country. One could also argue that this takes away from the charm of the original. I would say that while I personally miss the funny oneliners of the original, I think the remake’s vision for a different interpretation of this world is appropriate. There are also new
levels and areas added to this remake, which further give the player more context, like the parasite that causes the zombie virus. In the original, the player had only text-based logs to read off of. In the remake, there are new areas that the player personally explores, and they can see firsthand where this undead nightmare started. I don’t think we should think of one as better than the other — we should view them both as valid but different interpretations. And that’s the best way to view a good remake — it should give the audience a greater appreciation for the original while also creating something familiar yet new that feels like its own work of art in its own right. Capcom redefined what a great video game remake should be with their reimagined roller coaster of RE4. Nicolas Scagnelli is a junior majoring in English.