Samantha Cole

Samantha Cole

Sam Cole is writing from the far reaches of the internet, about sexuality, the adult industry, online culture, and AI. She's the author of How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex.
221 posts
Behind the Blog: Nostalgia and Newsworthiness
Behind The Blog

Behind the Blog: Nostalgia and Newsworthiness

This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss archiving nostalgia, newsworthiness, and plans for 2025.
Traffic Camera 'Selfie' Creator Holds Cease and Desist Letter in Front of Traffic Cam
Cameras

Traffic Camera 'Selfie' Creator Holds Cease and Desist Letter in Front of Traffic Cam

Traffic Cam Photobooth lets you take a capture from NYC surveillance camera. The city's Department of Transportation does not like that.
WordPress CEO Rage Quits Community Slack After Court Injunction
wordpress

WordPress CEO Rage Quits Community Slack After Court Injunction

Automattic is ordered to undo several of the actions of its CEO Matt Mullenweg in its ongoing legal battle with WP Engine. “It's hard to imagine wanting to continue to working on WordPress after this," Mullenweg said in a community Slack message.
Pornhub Sees Surge of Interest in Tradwife Content, ‘Modesty,’ and Mindfulness
pornhub

Pornhub Sees Surge of Interest in Tradwife Content, ‘Modesty,’ and Mindfulness

Pornhub's Year in Review report for 2024 reveals a search for something very mindful, and very demure.
404 Media Objects to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's Subpoena to Access Our Reporting
Announcements

404 Media Objects to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's Subpoena to Access Our Reporting

404 Media's reporting on an internal Google privacy violation database has been subpoenaed by the State of Texas. We are fighting it.
Behind the Blog: Healthcare and its Stakeholders
Behind The Blog

Behind the Blog: Healthcare and its Stakeholders

This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we talk about health insurance.
Moderators Across Social Media Struggle to Contain Celebrations of UnitedHealthcare CEO’s Assassination

Moderators Across Social Media Struggle to Contain Celebrations of UnitedHealthcare CEO’s Assassination

While Reddit mods and admin try to keep up with the site's "no violence" terms of use, Facebook and LinkedIn is reacting with tens of thousands of laughing emojis.
Major Health Insurance Companies Take Down Leadership Pages Following Murder of United Healthcare CEO
insurance

Major Health Insurance Companies Take Down Leadership Pages Following Murder of United Healthcare CEO

Following the shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, multiple major health insurance companies have taken their executive leadership pages offline.
Your Bluesky Posts Are Probably In A Bunch of Datasets Now
Bluesky

Your Bluesky Posts Are Probably In A Bunch of Datasets Now

After a machine learning librarian released and then deleted a dataset of one million Bluesky posts, several other, even bigger datasets have appeared in its place—including one of almost 300 million non-anonymized posts.
Behind the Blog: How About Them Eggs
Behind The Blog

Behind the Blog: How About Them Eggs

This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we talk about traffic, a return to Azeroth, egg prices and bullying.
Someone Made a Dataset of One Million Bluesky Posts for 'Machine Learning Research'
Bluesky

Someone Made a Dataset of One Million Bluesky Posts for 'Machine Learning Research'

A Hugging Face employee made a huge dataset of Bluesky posts, and it’s already very popular. 
WTF Is Stake, the Online Casino Using Viral Posts to Advertise Its Gambling Site
advertising

WTF Is Stake, the Online Casino Using Viral Posts to Advertise Its Gambling Site

Stake is an online casino and sportsbook that's using watermarks on viral meme accounts to advertise on social media. But it goes deeper than that.